My Last New PC (As If)

[David Abramowitz]

My Last New PC (As If)

It was last week when the automatic update feature prompted me to download and install XP SP2. To make a long story short, some spyware tagged along for the download ride, crashed the box, and made windows inoperable. I spent several hours with MS support trying to recover. Once recovered, it was never the same. Performance took a 60% hit accross the board. I know this is not typical, but I'm sure it's happenned to others. Dave

[J.Klebanoff]

My Last New PC (As If)

David said:

To make a long story short, some spyware tagged along for the download ride, crashed the box, and made windows inoperable.

Are you serious??? Am I misunderstanding you??? Spyware tagged along on the Windows Update download of SP2. I know that I go off on tirades against technology, but that's something that I wouldn't have thought possible. I have always trusted that anything coming through Windows Update is going to be clean. Buggy and full of security holes, sure, but not with spyware attached. How is that possible?

[J.Klebanoff]

My Last New PC (As If)

RNock said:

Most of the people I deal with don't know what Windows is doing & usually don't care "as long as it works".

I'm one of those people. After I stopped being a programmer many years ago, I became someone who just wants technology to work for me. But, "as long as it works" ... there's always a catch isn't there? I don't know if technology just hates me, but give it enough time and something will always fail. For me, "enough time" seems to be measured in days or sometimes even hours, not months or years.

[MCWebsite.Staff]

My Last New PC (As If)

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[J.Klebanoff]

My Last New PC (As If)

Thanks for the suggestion, but my new laptop is now more than a month old. It's already been out on the road (well actually, just down the street to COMMON). I don't think that they'll take it back now. Besides, I finally seem to have everything working ... for now. Heck, much to my amazement, I was even able to get wireless networking working at COMMON, which is the first time that I tried that technology. Maybe my next computer will be a Mac, which hopefully won't be for a while yet.

[engilabroni]

I didn't have to worry about anything during the Ubuntu install, all updates were downloaded automatically -- worked first time like a charm