After spending the entire weekend cleaning, defragging, scanning, etc. I finally have my original writing laptop up and running.
Seriously, what a headache. I’ve had constant Norton virus protection on this device, but it still managed to pick up a trojan somewhere between the kids hitting Webkinz and Disney. I knew something bad was going on as soon as I took it back from the monsters. It was just too slow. Norton couldn’t/hadn’t found this virus, but thankfully McAfee Stinger nailed it. I un-installed tons of games and old programs, but defrags and scans still took HOURS. AdAware took almost 6 hours. What the heck?!?
I did some googling and finally realized that Microsoft never cleans up after itself. Duh, silly of me to think that Windows would clean up previous updates. Plus, this laptop is using Vista, which no one liked. Four years of Windows Updates and restore points were bogging the poor old thing down. I ran a registry cleaner first, then cleaned out all those old updates, then deleted all but my last clean restore point. Freeing well over 20 gig of space!
The laptop is running much better now. Hopefully the next virus scan won’t take 6 hours, either.
Oh, and I managed 366 words on The Bloodgate Warrior. New file, of course, since my last file didn’t get backed up. Even if I lose it, it’s only a couple of hundred words and I was not real happy with that day’s work anyway. May is half gone — I really need to step it up or I’ll never get anywhere close to meeting all my MayNoWriMo goals!
P.S. More monster woes. Middle Monster broke her bed while stripping off her sheets for laundry day. It was a cheap put-together platform bed I bought a couple of years ago off Wal-Mart, and it’s been through several moves. She stepped on the platform in the wrong place and cracked the particle board base. So we spent a couple of hours bunk-bed shopping yesterday too. More unexpected expenses but at least it’ll free up some nice space in their room. And no particle board — this one is made out of metal! Hopefully it’s Middle proofed for at least a few years….