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I hate Windows, and I hate Norton

September 22nd, 2005 Posted in Rants, Technology

Well my wife called me today at work to tell me her parents are coming over for dinner. Ok. But then the clincher… they’re bringing their Dell.

Apparently her mother couldn’t get Word opened. And Norton also failed to run. They couldn’t uninstall Norton either, or reinstall Norton.

Well it didn’t take too long to find the culprit that wasn’t allowing things to run… it was Norton itself! I booted it into Safe Mode (I couldn’t even run regedit) and cleaned Norton out. And then I tried reinstalling. The first time it blew up in the middle of installing Norton, and then the 2nd time it blew up activating Norton. So I downloaded a AVG Free antivirus, that found 28 viruses. Glorious. But they wanted Norton (they had paid for a year’s subscription) so I kept working at trying to get Norton installed.

Every time it would blow up in a different place. I was at the end of my rope. Then I noticed a single file in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\CurrentVersion\Run key… it was something like Wintems.exe. I googled that, and what did I find? It was a virus that among other things, kills antivirus software. I got rid of it, and Norton installed just fine.

Of course they don’t have just plain old Antivirus. They have Norton “Bloat From Hell” Internet Security AntiSpyware edition 2005 (I kid you not, that is it’s name) which installs no less than 10 components which, I’m sure, each has to scan every friggin file you sneeze at. The computer ran fine when I had uninstalled Norton but now runs like a dog. But at least Word opens.

I

hate

Windows.

(I also hate Norton Antivirus… the one virus it didn’t detect was the one virus that disabled it. How friggin dumb is that??)

To those of you out there that still cling to the fact that the Mac doesn’t have viruses because it isn’t a “target” let me ask you this: when was the last time Windows prompted you for a password before installing a piece of software? Never, you say? Thats because it SUCKS. NO OPERATING SYSTEM SHOULD RUN AS ADMIN BY DEFAULT. Fucking dumb piece of shit.

  1. 4 Responses to “I hate Windows, and I hate Norton”

  2. By Di on Sep 23, 2005

    Amen!

  3. By 3xodu5 on Sep 26, 2005

    whine much?

    apple rocks. yes, this is true. but, dude, the reason apple gets the good wrap is because (in general) the only people who use macs are the computer illuminati. windows has to cater to every other level of techno-neanderthal. it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s the common denominator ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú and that?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s NEVER pretty. can you imagine trying to explain to the drooling masses that they need a password in order to install software? there?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢d be mass confusion and rioting in the streets.

    ?¢‚Ǩ?ìaaaahhhhhhhh!! i can?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t be expected to keep track of a whole password!! this is RIDICULOUS!!! bill gates is INSANE!! aaaahhhhhhhh!?¢‚Ǩ¬ù

    quitchabitchen.

  4. By adam on Sep 29, 2005

    Man, you’re good at ranting - in a most humorous and informative way. Please go on :)

    A

  5. By Di on Oct 1, 2005

    Oh, don’t mind Phil. He’s just upset that he is part of the drooling masses. Mac reigns supreme!

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