Technical difficulties
So last month Windows Update popped up barking at me to install Service Pack 3. Again. I seem to recall approving this install several times over several months, but Update would mysteriously go away without apparently doing anything. This time, however, felt weirdly foreboding. You see, I had just finished an unpleasant move (oh yeah, I moved again everyone. Suck.), and the timing was just wrong. No way a major system update just happened to be ready the day after I unpacked. This was another one of God's traps. But I ignored my instincts, as I've been trained to do, and approved the install yet again. There was a progress bar, and the computer restarted.
"We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully…"
|:
Start Windows Normally.
"We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully…"
|:<
Last Known Good Configuration.
"We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully…"
):<
Safe Mode with Command Prompt.
"We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully…"
D:<
Way to fail, Microsoft. It was the infinite boot loop, a long-known problem affecting AMD users with Service Pack 3 that Microsoft nevertheless failed to prepare neither warning nor solution for. Fortunately I have plenty of computers with plenty of internets, and after uninstalling SP3 from FUCKING DOS and running System Restore it was back to functional.
Kind of.
See today I'm finding that multiple applications on my PC just dun work right no mo'. Windows Movie Maker, for instance (which is a package bundle with Windows and cannot be uninstalled), is crashing like an Angeleno in a gentle mist. Adobe Photoshop believes that every tool is the hand tool. And I don't know how you even go about breaking MS Paint, but evidently you can. Looks like another reformat and reinstall for me, but I'm just too freaking tired to even think about it.
So now the other day Firefox 2 pops up with an upgrade to Firefox 3. You'd think I would have learned my lesson by now, but no, of course not. I think it's my natural sunny optimism. Freeze, crash, restart. I see, FF3 doesn't remember any tabs after a crash. And I had some 40 of them at the time. Well that's okay, I'll just pull them out of the history… I see, the history doesn't record tabs from previous sessions. Uninstall. I see, downgrading from FF3 to a lower version permanently breaks the bookmarks menu…
Friends, I swear the following oath this day: I shall not upgrade any software ever again until such software becomes critically incompatible with all known technology. If it ain't broke, stop asking me to fix it, you turdbuckets. In fact, I think I may start scrounging for even older versions of things that I have just to bask in the wonder of a simpler time, a more innocent time, when programs had values and were coded with love by black and white families to defeat Russia and Elvis. 50 years from now, I will be the bearded guy on the prairie still running Windows XP Service Pack 2 with my horse-drawn Prius and rotary iPhone, raising barns with my rocket powered barn-shooting barn gun while scoffing at the decadence of the automatic barn-shooting barn beam.
Also my damn camera broke yesterday. E18 lens error. So enjoy last entry's fire picture update, if you missed it, because it will be the last thing I upload for a while.
"We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully…"
|:
Start Windows Normally.
"We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully…"
|:<
Last Known Good Configuration.
"We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully…"
):<
Safe Mode with Command Prompt.
"We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully…"
D:<
Way to fail, Microsoft. It was the infinite boot loop, a long-known problem affecting AMD users with Service Pack 3 that Microsoft nevertheless failed to prepare neither warning nor solution for. Fortunately I have plenty of computers with plenty of internets, and after uninstalling SP3 from FUCKING DOS and running System Restore it was back to functional.
Kind of.
See today I'm finding that multiple applications on my PC just dun work right no mo'. Windows Movie Maker, for instance (which is a package bundle with Windows and cannot be uninstalled), is crashing like an Angeleno in a gentle mist. Adobe Photoshop believes that every tool is the hand tool. And I don't know how you even go about breaking MS Paint, but evidently you can. Looks like another reformat and reinstall for me, but I'm just too freaking tired to even think about it.
So now the other day Firefox 2 pops up with an upgrade to Firefox 3. You'd think I would have learned my lesson by now, but no, of course not. I think it's my natural sunny optimism. Freeze, crash, restart. I see, FF3 doesn't remember any tabs after a crash. And I had some 40 of them at the time. Well that's okay, I'll just pull them out of the history… I see, the history doesn't record tabs from previous sessions. Uninstall. I see, downgrading from FF3 to a lower version permanently breaks the bookmarks menu…
Friends, I swear the following oath this day: I shall not upgrade any software ever again until such software becomes critically incompatible with all known technology. If it ain't broke, stop asking me to fix it, you turdbuckets. In fact, I think I may start scrounging for even older versions of things that I have just to bask in the wonder of a simpler time, a more innocent time, when programs had values and were coded with love by black and white families to defeat Russia and Elvis. 50 years from now, I will be the bearded guy on the prairie still running Windows XP Service Pack 2 with my horse-drawn Prius and rotary iPhone, raising barns with my rocket powered barn-shooting barn gun while scoffing at the decadence of the automatic barn-shooting barn beam.
Also my damn camera broke yesterday. E18 lens error. So enjoy last entry's fire picture update, if you missed it, because it will be the last thing I upload for a while.