Bob
Mon Jul 21 17:21:46 PDT 2008
Microsoft patches have impaired or killed my PC several times under Windows
98 and XP, so why not a similar problem under Vista?
I finally decided that the only real protection against a bad install or
uninstall, including those offered by Microsoft, is to have a full partition
image of the C:\ drive. I strive to save all personal files on a separate
partition (e.g., D:\), since they can be easily backed up via copy&paste or
an XCOPY from the command prompt. Incremental backups of personal files are
also fairly easy to do. This dramatically reduces the size of the partition
image for C:\, making backups and restores of C:\ faster. I usually backup
to an external USB drive, and maybe once a year to DVDs. The USB drive is
much faster than the DVDs, and is, of course re-writeable, not to mention
that USB drives come in very lareg sizes. I use Acronis True Image for
backups, but the latest version of Norton Ghost should also work. Other
options, some free, can be found at:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads3.html
But, be careful, some backup programs assume that windows is working to run.
For the operating system and programs, be sure to choose a solution that can
run without windows, usually from a bootable CD. Also, be sure that the
program supports the target media (e.g., USB hard drive, DVD, etc) and the
file system to which you are writing (usually NTFS on hard drives).
"Mitch" <Mitch@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:674E66EF-8273-420E-9F19-21EE424CCC21@microsoft.com...
> Today is July 21, 2008. I downloaded and installed an update from
> Microsoft
> today, which proceeded to make my computer unusable because the product
> key
> has suddenly become invalid. This is only the second time this summer a
> downloaded "update" has crashed my machine, but for a computer that was
> brand
> new in November, I'm a little concerned. Can anyone help me recover my
> computer without doing a full re-installation from scratch? Can anyone
> from
> Microsoft help me via remote assist? (It would appear that function might
> still work, though I don't know for sure.)
> If I ever get my machine working again I will turn off automatic updates
> for
> Windows because they cause more problems than they solve. Thanks in
> advance
> for all your help.