As Promised (Not Quite)

Having written a five-page letter to an old — and year-older — friend, my sinister hand crippled by the attempt at such prolific neatness, I was set to type a brilliant, entertaining blog entry. (As I distinctly did not promise.)

While my fatigued hand jolted across the final page, however, my PC's anti-virus software — shoosh, you — went mildly beserk. The real-time scanner identified a handful of critical system files as infected, and immediately quarantined them. Thus provoked, Windows warned me that said files were required for Windows to function, and prompted me to use the Service Pack 3 CD to repair them. Service Pack 3 was difficult enough to install the first time, so I googled my way to the user forum for the anti-virus software concerned. I manually excluded each file from the real-time and on-demand scanners, restored the files, and waited. Almost immediately after — for I was not the first to encounter this problem — the company released a new patch. Ta-da! The problem appears to be fixed, although I haven't yet braved a reboot. I feel sorry for the users who have been grappling with this problem since 7am, and especially those who inadvertently deleted the quarantined system files.

In summary, I blame my laughably ill-supported security software for hijacking this entry.