The Joy of Windows

I still have my Dell PC and there are some things you just have to do, like keep your anti-virus program updated. I had Norton AntiVirus 2002 and my yearly subscription was up so I decided to renew. Here are the steps I followed today:

1. At the website my choices are:
• $25 buy a year of virus definition updates a now unsupported AntiVirus 2002
• $30 to upgrade to the current AntiVirus 2005
I choose the upgrade.
2. I buy it, checkout, and download a setup.exe
3. I double click it and it installs a download manager
4. I double click it and it downloads AntiVirus 2005 and runs it for me
5. It tells me to uninstall the old 2002 product via Window's Add/Remove Programs
6. I do that and have to reboot (first time)
7. My machine restarts and I have two new icons on my desktop: NAV05ENG.exe and "Norton AnitVirus 2005" I somehow instinctively know to choose the first and run it
8. It installs and I have to reboot (second time)
9. The configuration stuff restarts on its own (thank you) and tells me to download the latest updates
10. I do that and a message tells me to run Live Update again to get everything, but first reboot (third time).
11. I reboot and an initial scan of all my files starts, without a progress bar
12. 2 hours and 721,371 files looked at and I see 2 minor adware "threats"
13. I can't figure out how to delete these adware threats (really, and I looked at the removal instructions!) so I leave them.
14. I rerun LiveUpdate and it says everything is up-to-date so I don't know why it told me to run it again. I'm done.

I've definately been spoiled by the Mac. I won't bring up that I don't have an anti-virus program because I know in a few years that will change. But so far all my software installs (except for MS Office) including upgrades have been this simple: download a .dmg, double-click it to mount a volume, drag the icon to my applications folder, double click it to run it. That's it. This is why Macs are better than PCs. I'll be upgrading the Operating System shortly (installing Tiger) and I suspect that will be a little more involved, but after all, it is an Operating System.