Vista Review

The Fotomoto Virus has become prevalent lately – especially on Windows Vista PC’s. Don’t think it not just as bad (or worse) infecting Windows XP as well. I’m going to show you how to remove the Fotomoto virus, also known as Win32/Fotomoto, Trojan.Fotomoto.h, TR.Fotomoto.F.1, and Trojan.Fotomoto.f.

In the last year I’ve been pretty lucky on my Windows Vista laptop. I removed McAfee Internet Security because the trial expired and I refused to pay money for a product that both slowed down my PC and was inadequate. I opted instead to go with Windows Firewall, AVG Free AntiVirus, and nothing else. My family and I use this living room laptop for most everything, and the four of us know what “NOT” to click on. I can’t remember really getting any virus on a PC in the household over the last 3-4 years. But there are drawbacks to having a “living room laptop” – and that is when people come over they also use it.

So I’m not sure when or how it happenned, but sometime in the last 2 weeks one of the people that came over used the laptop and clicked on something bad. I didn’t know about it for a few days after they left – and there were multiple people in the house that weekend. Two things occured, and one was that I know (the teens) were watching some of the most horrid little videos online from some NSFW (not safe for work) type video sites. I also know that someone downloaded some type of video on a torrent behind my back. Either one of these events could have caused some BS to infect my nice little Vista laptop.

I normally don’t use IE at all, but I noticed I had a problem when every time I opened an explorer window or a folder a got an IE popup with an ad. This is of course no problem in Firefox, but since IE is tied so closely to the OS – especially in Vista, you can’t even open the control panel without getting a popup ad. I open Windows Defender and it’s telling me that I have the “Win32/Fotomoto” virus, or trojan, malware, adware, whatever – it’s officially a problem. When you tell Windows Defender to remove or quarantine Win32/Fotomoto it says it does. And than later in the day you get popups again (it can’t remove it). Since I don’t use IE much at all I just lived with this problem for about a week. It was no bother in Firefox or my Thunderbird email. But anytime I upzipped a file, opened a folder, control panel, advert popups displayed again.

I downloaded the old trusty Spyware Search & Destroy – and it also said it removed Fotomoto, but it did not. I downloaded Hijack This from Trend Micro and removed the startup lines (for advanced users only) that I believed to be the problem, and it only made matters worse. On reboot, when the virus tried to load (when you opened IE, or a folder) all the desktop icons disappeared and the windows taskbar, startbar, and tray all completely disappeared. You could still use the programs open, but when you closed them you just had the desktop background with nothing else. You could only ctl-alt-del to “log off” (which brought everything back) or reboot.

So now I have an official problem. I do some more research and find that Win32/Fotomoto, Trojan.Fotomoto.h, and TR.Fotomoto.F.1, and Trojan.Fotomoto.f, Vundo, and Virtumonde, are all related variants. Fotomoto is listed as variant of “B2Search” or eZula. Basically something convinved a user on my computer to install malicious software to popup ads from various sources. Yep – that described it alright. Read this definition of Trojan.Fotomoto.H – isn’t that nasty?? Nasty as hell! This Fotomoto thing turns out to just be the latest in the never ending versions of the Virtumonde virus or trojan.

If you get Fotomoto or any of it’s variants you would have symptoms like this:

• browser hijacks
• desktop hijacks
• incessant pop-ups and redirects
• desktop disappearing
• lost of ctl-alt-del functionality
• completely PC or system shutdown
• Windows defender warning: Win32/Fotomoto
• “can’t delete this virus” warning from various products
• the inability to save or print

you can’t display files from emails

So, now that you’ve been following my plight you want to know how to remove Fotomoto virus or trojan? I can tell you what won’t work (according to the best forums and what I tried), and Spyware Search and Destroy, Windows Defender, Avast, Panda, McAfee, Norton, SuperAntiSpyware, Hijack This, ALL DON’T WORK!

I was at my wit’s end. I’ve been building and repairing PC’s for over 10 years now, and I’ve removed some of the worse viruses, trojans, and malicious software from PC’s at least a dozen times (for other people) in the last 6 months. All the “Known” methods online were coming up empty (the usual list of progs I tried – listed earlier), and most of the forum postings about Fotomoto didn’t look too good. Then I read one from Yahoo! Answers where the guy said he was like me (long time PC builder and geek) and he tried all (the same) software with no luck. He offered advice that I hadn’t heard before – he said to try a product by Webroot called “Spyware Sweeper”. He said it had a database four to five times the size of all the competitors combined, and it had a fix for Fotomoto, Vundo, virtumonde, Win32/Fotomoto, Trojan.fotomoto, and on and on. The only drawback – it costs money.

I have never paid for anti-spyware software before now. Never. But I’ve never had something like this that I just absolutely could not remove before. I purchased a license for SpywareSweeper (that was Vista compatible – the latest one, previous versions are not) – and rebooted. It scanned for 20 minutes or so, I logged on and the problem is completely gone now! Yay Webroot SpySweeper! I don’t often endorse purchasing software – especially when there are alternatives that are just as good that are free. But with all these assanine virii, trojans, and malicious adverts – you just can’t keep up with all this sh*! anymore. I’m sorry – I’m glad I bought this, and I’m glad I have it in my arsenal now. I’ve tried it on the other PC’s in my house, and it works great with Windows XP and Windows Vista. That’s how I removed Fotomoto. If you have a better way, or a question, please comment now!

Windows Vista is getting to be the strangest version of Windows I have ever used.  I’ve had my Toshiba Satellite laptop for about 11 months now, and as you know it came installed with Vista on it from the factory.  The weird thing is I can’t remember ever telling it to automatically download and install updates from Windows Update, and yet it has been faithfully for 11 months now. It has told me once or twice that I had two “optional” driver updates, but I never approved anything else.  Today out of the blue I saw a little bubble appear above the tray “updates available” so I clicked on it and 9 updates were displayed.  7 were moderate to critical, and 2 were optional drivers – one for the wireless and the other for ‘Intel Mobile processor’.  I told it to install all 9, and then it minized to the tray – and it said it would continue to download and install updates in the background and I could go about my work.  So I did.

Boy was that a mistake.  I had Firefox open and Thunderbird Email.  I was surfing the web, a few tabs open, and in one of the tabs I was watching a YouTube video.  Then it happenned.  First my screen went black, which I might add happens frequently on this laptop, but it always flickers and comes right back.  I read recently in another article that problem should be fixed when Vista Service Pack 1 is released in 2008 (among other bug fixes).  So, I’m waiting for the screen to come back, and waiting, and then it starts to come back, but in a small box 1/4 the size of my screen (but the full display).  Then it flickers again and goes to some 640×480 resolution with absolutely HUGE icons, and then back to normal.  All the time my youtube video is choppily playing somehow in the background.  So I start to watch it again, and then the screen and mouse locks, and then everything comes back, and this whole process happens again and again like 3-5 times.  Eventually the screen goes to some kind of crazy huge pixelated number display, kind of like the Matrix, and then it goes black.  I tried to turn it off, and it wouldn’t.  I kept watching the hard drive light, and it just kep flickering, so I let it go.

I went to make dinner, and came back 25 minutes later and it was still flickering with a black screen.  After I ate it still was, so I watched a show on tv, and then out of the blue it stopped and my power light was red (indicating standby).  So I pressed power, and it came alive again as if nothing had happenned.  It said “updates completed – would you like to reboot” so I did.  Everything has been fine since then.  But why, Microsoft – did Windows Vista cripple my laptop and made it completely unusable for 48 minutes and make my display black??  Why didn’t it tell me first to close my programs??  Why do I own a piece of modern hardware with supposedly the best version of Windows ever created – and have Vista treat me worse than Windows 95 ever did?!  I just don’t get it.

Has this ever happenned to you?  Comment now and let us all know what you’re experiences have been.  I do with this laptop had shipped with Windows XP.

So it turns out that one of the most popular software programs on the planet “iTunes” is having multiple conflicts with Microsoft Windows Vista.? For the last month Apple had a warning against upgrading to Vista on it’s web site, but this week it changed to an update stating that “itunes is recommended for use with most versions of Windows Vista”.

This, despite the fact that there are still all kinds of problems with iPod synching with iTunes intstalled on Windows Vista.? Like possible corruption of an iPod on ejection from a PC!? That’s like one of those drug commercials that advertise a pill to completely clear your sinus, but fine print that says “may cause heart attack, stroke, or outright death…”.

Who knows how long it will be until iTunes is completely Vista ready and compatible.? Apple also says that the text and graphics may not display properly and that iTunes is still completely unsupported on 64-bit versions of both Windows XP and Windows Vista.

There’s a lot of discussion about Digital Rights Managment or DRM in windows Vista.? I just came accross this article over at ZDNet that discusses whether or not it’s limiting? (drm).? So the author has been running Vista for over a week, and reports that he’s able to view and play both DRM’d and non-DRM’d content in both mp3 files and DVD’s.? He also talks about the the discussion of DRM being used for gaming and it slowing down video playback performance – but no games really seem to be doing this.? The only DRM they seem to use is for copy-proof CD’s and DVD’s.

The thing I find surprising is that he doesn’t mention anything about the apparent driver “lockdown” of the CD/DVD drive in Vista.? I too have been testing Windows Vista on a new laptop and I had a DVD of my own video footage.? I wanted to “rip” that to the hard drive for editing.? I installed 3 different programs (that I used to use to rip video in XP) and each one generated an error saying that it “didn’t have access to the drive” (my internal DVD burner drive).

So sure – I can play non-DRM’d content all I want, but only certain software programs (approved by Microsoft) are able to “access” the optical drives for ripping content.? Now – that’s DRM at the hardware and driver level isn’t it?

According to Betanews there are only 104 applications certified to run on Windows Vista. That’s according to this article on the Microsoft web site as of March 2, 2007.

The companies listed don’t even include McAfee, Symantec, or Adobe (yet), and Microsoft is even offering up to $1,000 to assist companies in getting their software certified. That is clearly pitiful. No wonder there are so many programs with problems once installed under Windows Vista.

On my Windows Vista Premium loaded Toshiba notebook I use Firefox as my browser quite a bit. It had some quirks in Vista, and some of them were recently fixed with the Firefox 2.0.0.2 upgrade. When my Firefox was upgraded, I found in the release notes the following:

Windows & Windows Vista

• Clicking links in some applications (e.g. some instant messaging programs) might not open them in Firefox, even if you have set it as your default browser. To workaround this problem, go to Start -> Default Programs -> Set default programs for this computer, expand custom, select the radio button next to the app you want to set as the system wide default app (e.g. Firefox, etc.), and apply.
• Using the context menu (right-clicking on the Firefox icon) to start in Safe Mode, doesn’t work. As a workaround, use the “Mozilla Firefox (Safe Mode)” menu item that appears in the Start Menu instead.
• A Windows Media Player (WMP) plugin is not provided with Windows Vista. As a workaround, in order to view Windows Media content, you can follow these instructions. Note that after installing you may have to get a security update and apply it before you can see the content in the browser.
• Vista Parental Controls are not completely honored. In particular, file downloads do not honor Vista’s parental control settings. This will be addressed in an upcoming Firefox release.
• When migrating from Internet Explorer 7 to Firefox, cookies and saved form history are not imported.

I was consistently having problems when clicking links with Firefox set as my default browser – they would always load in IE. I also had problems with no WMP (Windows Media Player) Plugin in Firefox on Windows Vista. The link above will help you load it.

In the last post I talked about Alcohol 120% and Frostwire not working in my new Windows Vista Toshiba laptop. After doing much research it seems that the concensus is the problem is actually with the McAfee security suite. This thread over at gnutella forums (Limewire forums) is pretty telling…there are lots of replies from people that removed McAfee and got Frostwire working again.

I bought a new machine that came with Windows Vista Premium and Mcafee preinstalled.

Installed Limewire and it wouldn’t connect. Meanwhile, my internet connection was blocked while Limewire was running and even after I closed it, for about 5 more minutes. I tried all kinds of things: checked the router, used Windows Firewall, used Mcafee firewall, used none, etc. No solution!

So I uninstalled Mcaffee as suggested above and voilá: Limewire was download great…

I’m pretty sure this should work if you were having the same problem, because they were even getting the blocked Internet connection with Frostwire running – just like me. The threads did mention to have Java JRE6 installed – which I did. In addition – if you remove McAfee, make sure that your Windows firewall is activated.

I read on the c|Net Windows Vista forums that some of the off the shelf versions of Symantec Norton Security and AntiVirus 2007 are labeled “Vista Ready”, but once you install them (in Vista) they don’t work. That thread indicated that they retail box version sold in stores was coded to work with Vista (Longhorn) RC1 and not the final release. So a patch / update is on the way, but not ready yet. I’d be a little pissed if I bought that.

Last, for those of you that actually remove McAfee Internet Security, McAfee AntiVirus, or McAfee Privacy Policy (and turn on Windows Firewall) – you need to remember to get some alternative anti-virus protection. After reading the last paragraph, I’m sure you don’t want to install Norton Security or Norton AntiVirus (and I wouldn’t want you to). Believe it or not there are some free antivirus programs that you can download at no cost. They work well, and are used by tens if not hundreds of thousands every day. Here they are…

Avast Home Edition Free Anti Virus software download

AVG Free Advisor Anti-Virus software download

**UPDATE**

by the way – now that I’ve removed McAfee from my Vista Premium install – it runs muuuuuuch faster!!? Everything is so much more responsive on my laptop now!

One of my objectives in reviewing Windows Vista is to determine what you can and can’t do versus previous versions – notably Windows XP. We’ve all heard of the DRM or digital rights management that Vista is supposed have built into it. Some have said it’s no problem, and others have screamed that it will take away many freedoms that we should inherently have.

So far I’ve tried to intstall 2 pieces of software on my new Toshiba laptop loaded with Windows Vista Home Premium that did not work at all, and I couldn’t believe the way that each behaved. The first is Alcohol 120%, a piece of software that allows you to burn CD’s and DVD’s. I use it because it’s pretty painless to burn an ISO image directly to a DVD. I’m in a cover band and we record the live shows, and I burn the video to DVD for promotional purposes. I have an ISO file that I use to burn dvd’s from when I need to create more. So – I installed Alcohol, and 80% of the way through the install my Windows Vista Premium goes to blue screen of death! Wow! I had not gotten one of those since the old Windows NT 4.0 days. It was a memory dump error. The laptop rebooted…and then as soon as I logged in – blue screen of death again! Reboot, another blue screen. Reboot safe mode, still blue screen memory dump. I ended up having to get out my Toshiba restore DVD and booting up from that – and then choosing “repair” and a restore point (just before I installed the Alcohol software) to get it working again.

Once I got my laptop working again, I did some google searches to try and figure out what had happenned. I saw quite a few forum posts about Alcohol not working with Windows Vista RC1, but not any about Vista Premium, or any of the versions out now. It may be that my old version just doesn’t work, and I need to install the official “Vista” version for it to work again. The problems with RC1 were supposed to be cleared up with an Alcohol official Windows Vista version. The interesting thing I found though, was that the problems with RC1 amounted to Vista having a hardware or driver “lock” on the dvd burner. Meaning, no piece of software could access the CD drive for burning cd’s or dvd’s unless they were certified by Vista as having authority to do so. This is why Alcohol had to release a new version that was Vista ready, and older versions of the software didn’t work. Is the blue screen of death just an error or glitch, or Microsoft’s blatant attempt to keep you from using software they don’t want you to? We may never know. So – the end result is that Windows Vista decides what I can burn CD’s and DVD’s with – and not me. If I’m using software that I purchased and like to get this done – if it doesn’t have a “Vista Capable” version then I’m just screwed. I hope to God that this isn’t something in the DVD burner firmware, and if I choose to install XP or Ubuntu on a dual boot – I have no problems.

Now – on to my second test, my attempt at installing Frostwire on Windows Vista Home Premium. Frostwire is a port of Limewire, a very popular P2P file sharing application based on Java. Looking at doing the dual boot on my laptop, I was going to download Ubuntu Edgy Eft ISO images to burn to CD using Frostwire. The software has very good legal uses for downloading – especially open source things, but 95% of what most people use Frostwire for is usually illegally downloading mp3′s and music files. So after the Alcohol experience, I figured that this ought to be interesting. I already had the latest version of Sun Java, so the install went pretty smooth. When it was finished I fired up Frostwire to see what would happen, and it tried to make network connections, and kept trying, and trying, and trying. After a few minutes, it would just timeout and say “could not make connection to the Internet, please check your network connections”. I tried both browsers, and neither would bring up any web pages. I checked email using Thunderbird, and that worked just fine. I checked my router, but since email was working I didn’t think that was an issue (which it wasn’t). All the other computers in the house had no problems with Internet connection. I opened and closed both browsers on my Vista laptop multiple times and still no web pages. Email was still working fine. All this time I had Frostwire open. I checked all the options in Frostwire, and it just would not connect to the Internet. I checked Windows Firewall and it was already set to allow Frostwire through. I didn’t have any other firewall running, and I know of no other place that could be blocking it. I did many pings on the command line to web sites, and they all came back with no packets lost. Even though I have McAfee Security Suite running with no firewall – I turned it off as well, and Frostwire still wouldn’t connect.

Frustrated, I tried to exit Frostwire and do other work. It hung on exit and would not shut down completely at all. Even when I tried to end the process. So I ended up having to reboot again. As soon as I did both browsers could access the Internet again. Thinking it was a glitch, I tried Frostwire again, but as soon as I did – both browsers lost Internet connectivity again, but mail delivery still worked. I did this many times, and rebooted vista many times. I didn’t find anything on the Internet about this, and in the end could only conclude that Windows Vista somehow locked down all http traffic (or certain ports maybe) when Frostwire was running. It was as if Vista said “hey you’re running Frostwire and most likely doing illegal things…screw that, we’re gonna lock you down…”.

So, until further notice there will be no use of either Alcohol 120% or Frostwire on my Toshiba Satellite laptop with Windows Vista Home Premium.

*UPDATE*

I also installed and tried to use DVD DeCrypter. This is such a quick and easy piece of software to use. I have 4-5 dvd’s of live band footage I wanted to rip some chapters of to the hard drive quickly for editing. It would appear DVD DeCrypter “does not have authority to access the dvd drive”. WTF?? This is my laptop, my hardware, and I paid for the software that came on it. I have legitimate and legal need to rip personal video I own from a DVD to my laptop and I can’t do it with third party software I want because it isn’t “Vista authorized”? Microsoft probably calls it protection – but I say you better get some protection, because you are about to get another screw job.

Please visit our Vista Review Forums for more about software that doesn’t work in Windows Vista!

This post is from Vistareview.info – we give you real Windows Vista upgrade stories, so you can make an informed decision whether or not to upgrade now (or later….or ever!).

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