I'm doing a bit better than I was my last at-home weekend, but it would be nice to have another day to get things really in hand. Two loads of laundry are in the dryers, and the bedroom is somewhat tidier. I spent two hours this afternoon doing something that needed doing but wasn't on the list; renewing the antivirus protection on Desktop and Old Laptop. This turned out to be a bit more involved than I expected, as the programs they had were no longer supported. So it went like this:
Purchase downloadable program.
Download downloader.
Use downloader to download installer.
Remove old program.
Reboot.
Install new program.
Reboot.
Register and activate new program.
Download 4Mb of updates.
Reboot.
Run checks.
Repeat for second computer, bearing in mind that these are cranky old machines with slow disks, and Desktop rarely manages to shut down without a kick in the reset button. At least I wasn't doing the downloads over dialup.
Followed by: check for Windows updates. Download 5 critical updates. Reboot.
To be honest, both these machines are on the edge of more-trouble-than-they're-worth territory, but they still work, and come in useful from time to time. It isn't worth replacing Desktop with a newer model which wouldn't get much more use, and there are couple of things Old Laptop can do that Real Laptop can't.
Edit: I've never actually had a virus; the nearest I ever came was some poor chewed-up thing in an e-mail, mangled by my ancient Compuserve program. However, I've seen what can happen to a temporarily unprotected machine, and it was not pretty.
Purchase downloadable program.
Download downloader.
Use downloader to download installer.
Remove old program.
Reboot.
Install new program.
Reboot.
Register and activate new program.
Download 4Mb of updates.
Reboot.
Run checks.
Repeat for second computer, bearing in mind that these are cranky old machines with slow disks, and Desktop rarely manages to shut down without a kick in the reset button. At least I wasn't doing the downloads over dialup.
Followed by: check for Windows updates. Download 5 critical updates. Reboot.
To be honest, both these machines are on the edge of more-trouble-than-they're-worth territory, but they still work, and come in useful from time to time. It isn't worth replacing Desktop with a newer model which wouldn't get much more use, and there are couple of things Old Laptop can do that Real Laptop can't.
Edit: I've never actually had a virus; the nearest I ever came was some poor chewed-up thing in an e-mail, mangled by my ancient Compuserve program. However, I've seen what can happen to a temporarily unprotected machine, and it was not pretty.
