Yeah sure, there is lots of criticism of Microsoft and the crappiness
of their products; but through vigilance or whatever, I've managed to
use both OE and IE to my general satisfaction. Until last night. Add
me to the list of people who now hate that f*@#$ng software.

It seemed innocuous enough. The little Windows update icon popped up,
telling me there was an automatic update for IE, and that I could
continue what I was doing while it installed. Sure. Fine. These
things have always been benign enough in the past, go ahead. So the
install program chugs along, downloading and installing the latest
version of IE. Then it finishes; rather, it tells me that the
installation could not be completed, and I need to restart.
Inconvenient, but okay. Restarting is one of the things Windows users
get used to.

On getting my desktop back, I wanted to access a website, so I click on
my IE icon in the Quick Launch toolbar. IE flashes on the screen, then
it's gone. WTH? I try again; same thing. Okay, this blows. Now I
have no browser, and no way to get it back without opening my browser.
Did I mention this blows? Fortunately (and I doubt many typical IE
users would have this option at hand), I had my laptop handy, hooked
into the DSL modem, and downloaded a new copy of the install program
onto a flash drive. I plug it into the PC and run through the install
again. Same ****.

As a part of this miserable failure of a program, it gives me a handy
dandy troubleshooting guide that tells me a half dozen reasons why the
install failed, and several methods for how to modify my system to fix
their problem, one of which involves disabling my antivirus software
and three of which involve manual editing of the registry. Are they
f*cking kidding me? So I shut off Norton & try the reinstall again.
No dice. I've had it. I get out the laptop again & download
Firefox.

When I restart the desktop to install Firefox, I find that IE is now
magically working. I'm so confused. Unfortunately, my Norton
installation is now corrupt, and I have to go find the disk & reinstall
it. On top of that, everything seems to be working at slow motion. I
can't open Excel, because it's trying to do a virus scan, but the
virus software is screwed. I suppose I'm lucky that I have at least
half a clue what to do with this mess; but I hate this ****.

Joe F.