I. Hate. Windows!

 

With that out of the way, got my 10:00's new system set up with minimal fuss. Found out Road Runner "lite" is up to .7mbps down max. She was getting .38mbps, meaning websites loaded in say, 20 seconds rather then "oh it's already loaded." She upgraded to regular. The difference is striking. Ten dollars more a month for 10x the speed? Why even bother with "lite" if it's no better then a dial up connection?

 

My second one had about half a dozen toolbars, four or five various garbage programs, and a lot of junk to clean out. Finally got that done.

 

But was late to the hate, as the next one was a real problem. Apparently it was the rootkit "zero access" which really ruined an otherwise okay day. First I had to even figure out what was happening, as ping would work, but websites wouldn't load. Huh? I thought about that rootkit detection program I discovered while working for the lawyer a little while ago, so I ran that. It found two things, and I rebooted. Then the BSODs started. Tried running combofix in safe mode. It detected a rootkit. Rebooted. Didn't start up again like it was supposed to. Ran it again. Same result. Booted into linux, moved a driver .sys file with a date of that day, poked around, rebooted with a vista CD, told I couldn't repair Vista with that Vista CD. Booted with my other vista CD. Wiped out and reloaded the MBR. Got a copy of the .sys file I had deleted. Started in safe mode again, ran Combofix all the way through. Still blue screening.

 

Of course they have no disks. How can you have hundreds of dollars of software, lightroom, office pro, games, and not have a single disk for any of it? Really. So that went an hour or more over.

 

Then dropped off the mouse and bid a weary farewell to the world as I pulled in back home. Ate dinner. Did dishes. Phone calls, just two, follow up questions from the guy tuesday and the lady today. So nothing but grandma to see tomorrow? Good, give me a chance to work on the Paragon thing. I think I know exactly how I'm going to do it, too. Much easier then what I thought I would have to do, that I don't even think will work. Should be interesting to see!

 

Now I think a little more final fantasy, if you please. No Harry Potter anymore, so that plan is off for tomorrow. I mailed Sean about it, but it's probably too late to plan anything for tomorrow.