Beware Of Automatic Updates!

Yesterday, I got up bright and early, accomplished a few tasks on my desktop in my upstairs office, then moved downstairs to my laptop. I was planning to spend several hours blogging before my friend V came over to help me give Mr. AOW his weekly shower.

Alas! My laptop, from which I do most of my blogging, was misbehaving in unacceptable ways never seen before. For three full hours, my frustration level mounted and escalated to the point that I nearly took my laptop and tossed it into the trashcan.
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After many screams and one outright tantrum (I was tired of that pair of sunglasses anyway), I managed to control my temper and the meltdown I was having well enough to email Warren, my webmaster, to see if there might be any hope of salvaging my gone-crazy laptop. He got back to me last night after his workday ended.

The culprit behind the problems I was having was Microsoft automatic updates for Windows XP – updates no longer sent by Microsoft as of who knows when. Apparently, the port for Windows XP updates had been hacked!

I spent the rest of the evening letting both machines run virus scans.

Technology is wonderful when it works properly. When it doesn't, words do not exist to describe the resulting frustration.