System Misadministration

Ahhhh... the sound of children quietly playing computer games.  I have relaxed the screen rules while here in Germany, because of the following equivalence:

two brothers + nasty weather + lack of toys =  violence

Not serious violence, just a 'he pinched me' here and there - but enough to drive me bonkers.

Unfortunately, the computer Z and J have been using has had some really irritating issues.  M was worried about viral infections, malware, spyware, etc., so he installed McAffee.  Ever since that install, the system was constantly brought to a screeching halt, and task manager told me that McAffee was essentially using all the system memory, leaving none for the other hungry programs.  What a hog!  I thought, "I'll fix you, you resource Bogart, you!"  I went into 'Add/Change Programs' and hit 'Remove'.  The computer thought about that for several minutes, then came back with an error message.  I tried about a hundred more things, but could not get rid of the stupid program.  I suppose I could have just removed all the programs from the hard drive, but then windows would probably hang in an endless loop looking for files that no longer existed.

I decided to install Linux.  Ok, yes, this is what I had secretly wanted to do from the beginning - but I really did try to work with XP.  It just was so uncooperative.  Perhaps it has plans to run for Congress, I don't know.  But I couldn't get it to budge.

I went to the Ubuntu site, downloaded the disk image, and burned a nice installation CD.  Easy as Pi.  I put it in the CD drive in Z's computer and fired up the computer, just waiting to see the lovely install screen.  Windows booted.  What???  I checked in the bios boot options, made sure that the CD was the first choice to boot.  Tried again.  Windows again.  This was beginning to feel like a Twilight Zone episode.  Windows and McAffee refused to leave my son's computer.  Why couldn't I make them go away?  It's not like I haven't installed operating systems hundreds of times over the past 2 decades.

I figured there must be an issue with the drive, and I hoped it was software-related (I can fix easy things, but I really don't know anything about optical drives).  I googled.  Found out that the drive in this particular computer is notorious for being flaky.  I searched for firmware updates to no avail.

Finally, I thought, why not try the new USB install?  I started searching, this time the old-fashioned way, by digging through desk drawers and backpacks and emptying shelves looking for a USB memory stick.  None to be found.  (M was in Brussels all last week, and he later told me he had 6 in his backpack.)

"I am not going back to that mall!", I thought.  Amazon, here I come.  I ordered the flash drive, and in two days, it was here.  Ok, yes the mall would have been faster, but think about the minutes shaved off my lifespan by navigating the parking lot.

All of this took most of the week, if you can believe that.  The good news is, it was totally worth it.  The computer runs like a dream, and the kids are happy.  Plus, we now have a whole suite of fun, educational, science-based programs and games - all free, and better than anything MS third-party providers have to offer.

Your move, windows.  Your move...