The Great Computer Crash of 2020

 

Well, of course, my computer crashed recently. It’s 2020! I blame it on the notorious Windows Update, a feature that Windows 10 forces on its users, whether they want it or not!

In the old days, you could opt to have Windows automatically download and install any and all updates, or you could have them download and ask if you wanted to install updates, or you could just have them notify you if updates were available and let you decide what to do next. Either way, it was nice to have options.

But since Bill Gates and Microsoft know more than the rest of us, they've decided to just go ahead and update us and we just have to go with the flow. Unfortunately, the updates have a bad habit of occasionally crashing your computer. It happens frequently enough that it doesn’t even scare me anymore. I have some skills and usually I can keep the system running long enough for Microsoft to send out the next patch/update (without, of course, ever acknowledging that the update may have caused problems for some users).

So, a few weeks back, shortly after a recent Windows update (coincidence, I’m sure), I began seeing the infamous Blue Screen of Death! Incidentally, if your Operating System has such a well-known term for crashing, you might want to think about creating a more stable system that doesn’t cause so many crashes. Using my phone, I googled all the strange new error messages I was seeing and managed to limp along until the next update. And then, everything just quit working!

I tried everything I could before making the call for help. (If you’re local, check out Tiner Tech Solutions!) On the good news side, the hardware tested fine, and I was able to recover all my files. (Word of warning to my fellow writers – Back up your work!!!) I do have a copy of my writing files safely tucked away and I try to keep it current. And it was nice, to have my important documents restored.

But the bad news – I lost every program and app that had been installed. With my puny internet connection, I have been downloading for a week now to restore everything. And worse? Passwords! Who remembers those? Not me apparently.