Are You Sure You Want to Delete This?

I hate being roped into doing technical support for family members. Well, not hate – more ‘feel vaguely guilty about’. See, I’m not actually that good with computers; I know a few tricks (“Google every single error message you get and hope someone else knows of the problem”, “Shut down any process you don’t immediately recognise and see if things improve”), but really, my main qualifications for doing computer maintenance are “I have an internet connection” and “I have a fair amount of free time.”

Well, fair enough, but I don’t generally actually know what I’m doing. I fix computers the way I play adventure games – I try every possible option until I find the one that works. I’m utterly blasé about idly fiddling with the registry or screwing around with system files – and sure, normally it does all work out… but still. All my techniques for troubleshooting are intended for use on my own computer. I’m pretty good about backing things up, and I know where the installation disks for all my software is. When using someone else’s computer... well, I know that sooner or later I’m going to be in the situation of having to apologise to my cousin for utterly destroying his computer while trying to fix some minor problem…

Anyway, at least I got things working this time… well, mostly. Eh, the minor remaining problems add character to a computer...