This entry has nothing to do with TPM, but BLOGS are sometimes for venting, and I got somma that to do…
I run the Foodservice University system on the Microsoft VISTA platform. Yeah, yeah…I know. It’s notoriously unstable and fraught with bugs. Regardless, that’s how we roll.
This morning when I logged on, I was prompted that there were “updates from Microsoft.” A frequent occurrence, so I launched the update. It stated the ‘SP1” would be loading and asked if “I approved”. How was I to know? Why would Microsoft ask me to do anything that it really didn’t want me to do? (Of course…of course…I know…) I approved it. That was the last time my computer booted up. Twenty minutes later when it shut down and went into the “restart” process, the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death” appeared.
If you are unfamiliar with this term, either you use a MAC, or don’t really use a computer much. Unfortunately, I am all too familiar with this descriptive phrase, and its consequences. It means that there is a software conflict and that MS has locked you out of your own machine, and will typically require a full “system restore” to boot up again. It also means that the system will be restored to its original configuration, wiping out all applications, printer drivers, software patches, and data from your computer. Nice.
Fortunately, (if that is the right word), this has happened so often to me that I now subscribe to a service that provides continuous back-up of all data on a ‘cloud server”. (http://www.carbonite.com/). All of my data, down to the last keystroke before I crashed, available for re-integration into my new "virgin" operating system. And it will only take a day. What's another day?
Apparently another day means nothing to Microsoft. While Bill Gates lounges in his $55,000,000 home in Seattle, I will be burning the midnight oil (assuming I even get my computer back tonight from the geeks who are working on it) re-loading software, configuring data and files, and generally staring at the freakin’ hourglass for hours on end while things ‘process.”
I might be operational tomorrow…I might not. But I WILL finally be up and running again. But at what cost? One --- or possibly two --- days of productivity GONE FOREVER. And that's just this event.
I’d like to have a nickel for every minute spent WAITING for PC software to load, web-addresses to connect, downloads to finish, security routines to complete...or to completely rebuild "system restore" events. Oh wait…Bill Gates DOES have a nickel (or more likely a dollar) for all those minutes I spent…and that you have spent as well. There is something just WRONG about that.
My recommendations, if they mean anything:
- Don’t upgrade to VISTA
- Buy a MAC right now before they’re all gone
True that.