Windows XP Woes
If I had a dollar for every time Windows shot itself in the foot, I would be richer than Bill Gates - as would many other people.
Where to begin… Wensday, I was doing some routine disk maintance. The “Disk Cleanup Wizard” presented a new option to “Remove Windows 98/ME Installation Files”, telling me that lest I should decide to go back to that version of Windows I should delete these files. So I hand Windows the meat cleaver and within 30 minutes I have 6 Windows File Protection alert boxes telling me that critical files to the operation of Windows have gone AWOL. But didn’t I tell it to delete said files? Thought so. For the record, don’t ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever (don’t think I got enough “evers” in there) delete these files. The updated OS still needs these files.
I was getting tired so I left this task till the morning. I began trying to copy these needed files from a working Windows XP in an attempt to avoid disaster. That is assuming the shell stays stable, which it didn’t. Reboot. Hal.dll is missing (for those who don’t know, this is a bad thing). Can’t even get a command prompt now. I start a new search for bootdisk solutions that have NTFS support. My goal: attempt to back up my files and wipe the slate clean.
Three hours and 8 tools later I come apon BartPE. This tool is genius. So very fleible. And most important, native NTFS support. I make my back ups and then go to finish the job that Disk Cleanup Wizrd started.
Slowly I am recovering from the loss of 4+ years of customizations. Quickly I am developing a psychosis at the hand of Microsoft.