Effing Windows

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My wife has a Windows computer. She also has an Apple laptop from work and various other computerized thing-a-ma-bobs. She doesn't seem to care what kind of machine she uses. The Windows machine has been quietly doing it's job for a while, but today my wife mentions (she never complains you know, like I do) that the Windows computer has gotten very slow, so I go take a look.

First thing I notice is Windows wants to do an update. The message is a little unpleasant, something to the effect that you can either do it now or do it later, but it's going to happen bub, and there's nothing you can do about it. I don't want to get involved in a war with Windows, I cannot think of a bigger waste of time. It's like a constantly expanding amorphous blob. You might be able to beat it back and keep it at swords length, but eventually it will overwhelm you. Now if you were really clever and seriously determined to carry on the war, you might be able to carve out a habitable space in the midst of this alien, amorphous (did I mention green and slimy?) blob. There could be a challenge it that, kind of like erecting habitable bubble on Titan. An impressive technical achievement, but the longer you stay there, the shorter your expected life span. The only solution is to move to another planet, like Linux, which I have done.

Whatever. First thing to do is restart the machine. That takes a while, it's Windows you know. When I check back I see McAfee has scanned the computer and found a problem which it is willing to fix as long as I send them some money. No, I'm not doing that. I'll download a copy of Malwarebytes, but then I think maybe I should see what else is out there and somebody recommends Kaspersky, another name I recognize, so I download the free version of that. Then, in some random order, we restart the computer, download the real app (the first one was just a downloader, this one is like 200 megabytes or something and takes an actual number of seconds to download), dispense with an ad for something called Edge, discover an incompatible anti-virus program (McAfee), removes said troublemaker, and I think that brings us up to date. I'm going to go check on it.

It seems to have completed. We shall see.