Catastrophe

Yesterday morning I started my PC as usual and it seemed to be having trouble with "internet explorer". I followed various bits of on screen instructions that had me uninstalling IE twice and reinstalling it. It eventually got to the point where I was offered windows repair function - great I thought - only to be told it couldn't repair anything. I knew I was in trouble when it was suggested I restart it at a previous restore point only to be told there were NONE. I regularly make restore points so what now?

Usually at times like this I reach for the phone and speak to one of two computer geeks. However, I seem to have had a rush of blood to the head. I had noticed at start-up ine of the early screens says "press f11 to access restore". I pressed it and followed the instructions. I ticked to save all personal data on the 'C' drive and then set it going realising this software was going to return my computer to it's factory settings. This first process took just over 6 hours; but of course my computer is over 3 years old and the operating sysrem Windows 7. I'll need to install updated I thought. Clicked on 'windows update' to find there were 118 critical updates to be installed. This took 9 hours to complete and I thought great BUT up popped a little message to say there were another 3 updates. So I comply and when it finished yet another massage to say yet another 5 updates ready which included the dreaded SP1 update. I left it at 3 am to get on with it at 25% complete and at 8 am it was ended. Phew...

Todays blip is just a small section of the list of updates installed in the last 24 hours. After all these updates I started on the installation of all my software programmes etc. Quite and excercise in remembering user names and passwords - been a v ery challenging 36 hours!!!