Curses! Foiled Again

Sunday didn’t go exactly as planned.

I did make it to the University Campus to collect Pokéballs, but much later in the day, after a run by Best Buy to have the Geek Squad take a look at the latest problem caused by those automatic updates Windows 10 constantly runs.

Every single time an unstoppable update runs, something goes haywire; and this time it looks like they’ve taken complete control because I now have to go through a blue screen to get to the login.

And not only that, but the automatic update has replaced the virus protect I opted for with a windows virus protect.

What the heck!

The Geeks tell me the only way to undo these changes is a factory reset. I’ll lose everything, but I’m down with that because everything important is backed up on flash drives. However, the Geeks also need the Office 365 card, so they can reload Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Paint, etc.

I don’t have it.

As far as I remember, I opted not to take the monthly or yearly subscription but to pay the full forever price and the Geeks did all the loading. It’s not like me to not keep something like that with all the other paperwork and packages associated with these kinds of purchases – and I do find everything except that card, so I don’t think they included it in what I got back after they set the laptop up.

And btw, I still can’t believe Office doesn’t automatically come with computers, like in the good old days.

Bottom line is, I’m stuck with the permission-to-enter blue screen; and, if the blue screen mucks up, I’m stuck with an expensive paperweight.

I can only hope one of the subsequent updates will restore the previous settings, solve the problem on its own.

If push comes to shove, I’ve got a backup laptop, but it doesn’t have all the 365 bells and whistles.

After this frustrating start to the day, the 2.5 mile walk around the University campus was calming.

Saw quite a few others, heads down, looking at their cellphone screens, hunting, including a middle-aged couple. That was an oddity because it’s usually just young people I come across. Seeing the couple standing together, heads down working on a capture, was such a novelty and so cute that I was just about to snap a photo. But then they caught whatever it was and were on the move.

I also came across that same young lady that helped me out at last month’s PokémonGo Community Day.

She lives on campus – how fun that must be, and was on the hunt for the Wailmer her screen indicated was in the area. I’d just caught it and was able to lead her right to the spot it was hanging out.

On tap for this rainy and wet Monday morning is needlepoint and, in light of the latest Windows snafu, getting into an area of study to extricate myself from Microsoft Windows should a new laptop be required.