Frustrations Addendum

Addendum to "Frustrations," 10 January 2007:

I think I've figured it out.

Corey sent me a link detailing how to get Windows to stop nagging you to restart your computer every 10 minutes when new updates are ready to be installed. Despite having not received these nag messages, I tried it anyway Wednesday evening. On Wednesday night's shutdown, the little shield suddenly appears above "Turn Off" again, meaning that updates are ready to be installed. I specifically tell the computer not to install them when it turns off.

Thursday, all works well. Except when I come back from classes, my computer had hibernated, and during that hibernation it decided to install the updates anyway. So I finally got the nag that basically said, "Updates are installed; do you want to restart now or later?" And since I was working on something, I picked later, but the next time it popped up I was ready to shutdown.

Crossing my fingers a lot here.

It shut down nicely. It didn't act up or hang. Yay!

So when I started it up this afternoon, there was a Windows Media Player (WMP) icon on my desktop... one I didn't put there. And the one in my QuickLaunch bar disappeared. So I double-clicked the new icon and, voilà!, my WMP 9 had turned into WMP 11.

My hypothesis? It started downloading and trying to install this "important" update before I took the time to do the initial setup of version 9. Version 9 hadn't even been used yet, and something was trying to replace it. Well, somewhere in there I did set up WMP 9. And after a long and arduous process that resulted in many error messages over the course of this week, my computer is the same as it was before except it has WMP 11, and a little setting changed so Windows doesn't nag me as often.

And so long as it continues to work, I am content leaving things at that.

Random tangent: The other day as I was walking into the building in which I have my PS course, I saw a somewhat elderly man making his way up the stairs toward the entrance. Being a fast walker, I got to the door ahead of him and held it for him. As he got closer to the door, it was upon closer inspection that I realized this man, whom I didn't recognize from behind, was in fact my professor. Not that I wouldn't have held the door had I recognized him, but brownie points (even unintentional ones) can't hurt...