Service Pack 2 - The Revenge of Service Pack

Last night, the Windows Update that I had been downloading for several weeks finally completed, and it turned out to be Service Pack 2 for Windows. Skipping past the licence agreement like everyone does, I watched it go through its lengthy install procedure and then shut down for the night.

When I turned the computer back on this afternoon, I was impressed with the way that the loading bar had changed from orange to blue on startup. However, I soon noticed that the rest of the differences weren't for the better. For a start, the whole startup process took a lot longer than before. After I'd had time to go and make a cup of tea (or would have done if I had, which I didn't) it got to the desktop and told me that it had put on a firewall. "Fair enough", I thought, then got a bit annoyed when it told me that I didn't have an antivirus program that was approved by Microsoft. Hunting through the options, I found the bit to tell it that my viruses were my own business.

That wasn't the end, though. "I'd better put the Internet Explorer shortcut back," it said to itself in binary or Microsoftese or something. "Oh, and the Sample Pictures and Sample Music directories as well." I decisively removed them again, telling it that they were useless anyway, as I'd discovered far better web browsing software than Microsoft's, even if they did now have a popup blocker.

Further problems happened when Baldur's Gate 2 was started up, and it ran just about as slow as on the ancient computer next door. By now fed up of the whole idea, I ran System Restore and saved my computer from the evils of the service pack, defeating Microsoft with Microsoft. That'll show it.