You're messing me up, Bill Gates!

I don't think much about my computer, except when things start to go wrong. I suppose the majority of people are like that. I like my computer to operate the way it's supposed to, and to be safe and secure.

And because I don't want to think about it, I've subscribed to Microsoft's automatic updates program (as well as at least two security programs).

This past week I downloaded fifteen Microsoft security updates for my computer.

And then it stopped functioning properly.

Now you would think that when Bill Gates sends you an update for your computer, your computer will actually work better than before. When it doesn't, you (I) actually have start thinking about the computer. This is what happened during this week.

I'm fairly computer savvy, so I began my investigation, first determining that the computer stopped working the proper way shortly after downloading the updates. That was the easy part.

I won't go into detail as to my route to fixing this, but needless to say, my email to Microsoft Support was indeed answered within 24 hours. Here's the response:

Hello Daniel,Thank you for contacting Microsoft Online Customer Service.I
understand that you are experiencing issues with Internet Explorer and Microsoft
Word after installing updates. I regret the inconvenience caused.As a Customer
Service Representative, I would like to inform you that Microsoft provides
no-charge support for all issues that arise due to installation of Windows
updates.Please contact the concerned support team to avail no-charge support at
(866) 727 2338. Monday-Sunday: 24 Hours a Day.Daniel, I hope you find the above
information helpful.Thank you for using Microsoft products and
servicesDysonMicrosoft Online Customer Service RepresentativeIf you have any
feedback about your Online Customer Service experience, please email my manager,
Rahul Rajgopal, at ...

In other words... "We've contacted you in 24 hours, but if you want it fixed, then take a day off work and spend it on the phone talking to someone you can't understand try to figure it out for you."

I discovered, from a chatroom, that ONE of the updates doesn't work properly on SOME computers (no one has been able to determine which computers are most likely affected as far as I can tell).

The answer, of course, was to remove the update (which wasn't nearly as simple as it sounds), but once that was done, my computer is back to functioning normally (so far, he says, with fingers crossed and knocking on wood). If YOUR computer isn't working well since updating, post a message here and I'll walk you through the solution and/or point you to some web sites that can suggest how to fix it (if you don't trust me).

I know that all my Mac friends will point to this as another reason to take a bite out of the Apple family, but as someone who has worked moderately with both, I still prefer my PC ... faults and all. After all, there's nothing that says I have to use Internet Explorer as my web browser. In fact, once I started experiencing problems, I immediately switched to my loaded Mozilla program and had no problems whatever. And as for programs such as Word and Excel ... I believe those are the standard on most Macs now, too.

It's amazing, though, what we expect from our computers.

Earlier this week I was looking for a recipe for something I remember making many years back. I assumed it was in one of my cookbooks, but couldn't find it. I mentioned it to my wife and said, "It has to be in my recipe card file or in one of my cookbooks because it was something I made before there was an internet, so I couldn't have Googled it back then." Boy, did that statement give me a shock once I realized what I'd said!