Upsetdate

Okay, Lord only know how many hours later, but it seems-- seems, Madam, I know not seems-- I have finally won my battle against the stubbornly evil Windows monster. Almost a dozen reinstallations later, after hours & hours & hours of consulting Microflaccid's endlessly unhelpful "support pages," and just as many trudging through various internet fora trying to fix the problem, it seems everything is finally working again. What ultimately made the difference? This neat little gizmo which, among other things, did a complete check on potentially corrupted or out-of-date files (which, naturally, worked days ago), figured out the update gobbledygook, and reset all the ridiculous permissions that Windows arbitrarily and inexplicably imposes when it gets bitchy. Takes forever for it to plod through everything, but eventually it does work--- which is faaaaaar more than I can say for any of the official tips from the Gates gang of profligate bafflegabbers. Something to remember if any of you wind up in the unfortunate position of having to reinstall pre-Vista Windblows.

I'm now exhausted. Passionate-shag-in-a-tornado exhausted. And yet I feel I accomplished nothing. All that just to get back to where I was before, and not a spot better-off. Reminds me of grad school.... (And every bit as rewarding.)