I’ve had my current computer for two years and I’ve never
downloaded any of the Windows updates which the little yellow bubble keeps telling
me are available. I’ve had bad experiences with that sort of thing, you know?
I don’t trust updates, so I kept well clear of them.
Today I felt brave, so I decided to take the plunge and
download the updates. There followed two hours of heavy stress.
The yellow balloon told me there was only one update, so I
clicked ‘download.’ Nothing happened. But then, when I came to turn off, it
asked me whether I wanted to install the update. OK, I clicked ‘install.’ ‘Installation
complete’ said the little sign, so I thought ‘this is neat, I’ll change the
download settings.' Foray into the Control Panel to change the settings from ‘ask
me’ to ‘download automatically at ?’ I selected 5am
and felt safe in turning off the computer. Ah, but then I got a different close-down
option than I used to get. The red button didn’t say ‘turn off’ any more, it
said ‘turn off and download updates.’ But I thought I’d already done that; what
the hell is going on? I clicked it anyway and got a message saying ‘installing update
1 of 19.’ Where did they come from? And then I got another message which said ‘Don’t
turn off the computer. It will happen automatically.’ OK, OK, don’t yell. I
wasn’t going to turn it off anyway. The download progress page came back: ‘installing
update 2 of 19.’ Then it warned me again, and then it didn’t, and then it
did... Eventually the computer closed down. Good. Job done.
Until the next time I booted up. Everything was mega, mega
slow. I decided to change the settings from ‘download automatically at 5am’ back to ‘ask me.’ And then I turned off. I
got the same ‘turn off and download updates’ button. I clicked it. ‘Installing
update 1 of 63,’ it said. 63?! It got stuck on ‘installing update 60 of 63’ –
for half an hour! I even took some bottles to the recycling bins nearly half a
mile away in the meantime – feeling nadgy as hell. Do you realise how much I
need my computer? I can’t even talk to the Lady Bella except via the computer,
and she lives only a stone’s throw from the freggin’ recycling bins. It got to
63 eventually and shut down.
I just booted up again. I’m touching wood as I report that operations
aren’t as slow as they were before. It seems to be settling down.
Computers are wonderful servants when they’re working well,
but nasty little delinquent goblins when they aren’t. They scare me witless,
and I’m not kidding.
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