This isnt really worth blogging but im so pissed off i might as well share the pain. And it's good to note that even people who know a lot about computers still live with frustration and spend (waste?) a lot of time keeping them running.

Let me start by noting that I have had this PC for 2 years and it has been rock solid. Although almost all of that time I was using Windows 2000, not XP. I should also note that I switched to a Powerbook laptop a year ago so the only thing I do with this PC now is relax and play games.

After my problems over Xmas, I verified that my hard drive was damaged. (Of course to do that, I had to use a DOS utility that must be run from a FLOPPY DISK after booting the computer from a FLOPPY DISK.) To keep my computer running, and the games gaming, while i returned the SATA drive, I installed a backup hard drive. This was a previous drive with a regular ATA interface that Windows Setup understands.

I installed XP and things were working fine. I started playing Everquest2 again and was told by some friends to install this nifty map tool, EQ2Map, but alas, it needed the .NET framework which is only available as a download/patch from Microsoft.

Warm

You cannot download patches anymore without activating your copy of Windows. This worried me a bit since I dont know what "activating means," I was only using this hard-drive temporarily and feared that I would use up my "activations" and would not be able to install XP again when my SATA drive returned. But I bit the bullet and activated my copy of XP and I even registered it with Microsoft.

I always do manual patches (with that annoying alarm every time i log in telling me to do automatic patches) but i decided to give the tech a test and tried "automatic patches". It downloaded 29 or so required "security patches", installed them and told me to restart the computer, which I did not knowing it would be the last time my PC would start.

Warm

The computer restarted, loaded XP from the disk. It gets to the Welcome screen, then the screen goes black with a white cursor, then the computer resets itself and boots again. Niiiice. I turned off the power and tried again with the same results.

Hmm, dont panic.

i try to restart with the last known good configuration. (After scratching my head for a while trying to remember the correct key to press. The answer of course is the completely forgettable F8, which is unclearly shown in the middle of page 21 of the Getting Started guide.) Alas I get the same results: black screen followed by a reset.

Warmer

I reboot again, and this time I try Safe Mode. This gets me to the logon screen where I enter the password for the Administrator and... the screen goes black and the machine resets. Now Im getting pretty annoyed.

Next i boot from the XP CD and tell it to repair XP. This drops me in the Recovery Console, which is basically a DOS command prompt. Hunh? What the F@$%^ am i supposed to do with this? You have GOT to be kidding me. The 34 page manual that comes with Windows explains how to get into the Recovery Console but not what to do there...

Now Im pissed. Why do you need a Masters degree to handle problems with this so called "personal" computer? All I did was install the Windows patches and I end up wasting hours. What a colossal waste of time!

What is left to try? I boot from the XP CD again and this time i try the OTHER Repair option. (Yeah, I didnt know there were two either: One with the fabulous Recovery Console and one under the install menu.) Instead of some obvious repair steps, it begins to copy files from the CD to the PC which looks a lot like a regular install. While this isnt a complete reinstall because it leaves my software and divers intact, it sure takes a while and asks me to configure some things like the regular install.

The good news is that 40 minutes later, my PC boots again and appears healthy. Thankfully it didnt require me to install my drivers once again so that is something at least. (Although it does make me reinstall the Windows Update tool for installing patches.)

Now remember, this all began when I sat down to install a game utility and play 30 minutes of a game. It is now 2 hours later and I am back where i started BEFORE i tried to install the Windows Updates required to play the game...

But I still still want to play this game so i STILL need the .NET update. Once again I go to Windows Update to download the updates. First it makes me update the updater and reboot. Then I download the 39 security fixes. Again.

Red Hot

Patches complete. Restart. It gets to the Welcome screen, then the screen goes black with a white cursor, then the computer reset. Again and again.

Mystery solved! The "required security" patches that Windows downloads crash my PC and make it unusable. Now that is impressive.

The good news at least is that i understand the problem so i can try to avoid it. I do ANOTHER repair and this time, I DO NOT install any of the security patches because there is NO WAY IN HELL I am going to try all the patches one at a time to see which one is the problem. All i want to do is relax and play a freaking GAME. Although by this time i need my blood pressure medication first.

I install the .NET patch (after guessing which of the two .NET patches I need) and the game tool works. The game works. Life is good once again.

All i can say is that I am glad i dont depend on my Windows PC for anything mission critical anymore. My real question after all this is whether the next generation of Intel-based Apple computers will play more games so that I can completely switch.