October 23, 2004
SP2, I never want to see your ugly face around here again.
By Tara "I am not a sysadmin, but computers fear me" Liloia
Two weeks ago, Windows XP Service Pack 2 pillaged my computer. Inexplicably, innocent programs started disappearing in the middle of the night. First Calculator. Calculator is a simple guy; he stays out of most things controversial. But he had an enemy and that enemy was called SP2. I have to admit, I didn't notice Calculator was gone for a few days. I just don't, uh... calculate... all that often.
Next, Paint was brutally ripped from her home in Accessories. I noticed her absence when starting GIF Creator and it screamed that Paint was gone. Poor much-maligned Paint. Frail grandmother to my beloved Photoshop.
Finally, Internet Explorer -- that bastion of Web surfing -- quietly slipped off the desktop and Quick Launch bar. That I noticed. Immediately. Panic ensued. Of course I have other browsers, but surfing with Opera is like watching a guy with a pegleg climb stairs. Mozilla and my Webmail like to elope to a bright blue vacation getaway called Fatal Error each time they meet.
I hunted through my Program Files. How could applications just up and leave? Was it something I said? I found a promising looking icon called IEXPLORE(2). It was a browser all right -- just missing a chromosome or two. I'm still not sure what Compatibility Mode is, but let's just say if "Compatibility" means "It Don't Work and Microsoft Employees Worldwide are Laughing at You," then it sure was "Compatible."
I tried a lot of things over the last couple of weeks: Restore Points, disabling parts of SP2, offering sacrifices to ancient Mayan gods. Nothing helped. Finally, this morning, I took a few hours and uninstalled the entire Service Pack, installed some older applications and configured until we were back with a satisfactorily working machine. Unfortunately, this really just delays the inevitable, since Microsoft is going to push the update to all XP machines in 2005, but, for now, Sadie is stable once again.
Want to guess the very first thing Windows did after uninstalling SP2?
It downloaded SP2.
Comments
HA! hahahahaahah!
i know this is a bad, bad thing to say on this blog (eqivalent to calling Mother Teresa a slut or kicking a puppy) but computers suck!