Missing LIR

After a few weeks of Windows updates not successfully configuring and slowing down my computer's start up time, I went MS's online Knowledge Database to research the problem. MS's Mr Fixit program didn't. KD advised downloading the "System Update Readiness Tool"  and running it. It came up with a series of KB errors and "fixed" them. The computer then had to be restarted.  Restarted, my Office program then produced the error message "This version of MS Application Virtualization is incompatable with this version of MS Offfice Click-to-run".  Further research at the surprisingly unhelpful online database, suggested uninstalling Office and then reinstalling it again.

As Office came factory loaded, that would require access to whoever had installed its Office key, the manufacturer or" PC Nation". All of the names have been changed to protect the innocent except mine. Against my northern thrifty nature I  went out and bought an external hard drive at PC Nation, when they wouldn't let me have their Office key, nor lend me an external hard drive overnight.  I returned and backed up the whole computer to it. Running "System Restore" in regular or safe mode merely produced yet another failure error (0x8000ffff). I wondered all the next day about the meaning of  all of those ffffs! I decided to try MS online support.

I contacted online support at 6am this morning, in Australia I think, from all the "mates" and "no worries" they typed.   Between 6 and 9, "Bruce" worked busily away eliminating all of the Windows updates problems, and succeeded in getting all to load but one. After many tries, he said it was just a security update but that I wouldn't need it anyway. He then passed me on to the MS Office Wizards, presumably still in Oz. (My computer still fails to load successfully Windows updates on start up and still tries twice.)  The first Sheila disconnected herself within a minute, accidentally I think, as I hadn't had time to be rude or grumpy as befits my new Pommie pensioner status, and after a short wait I got connected to Sheila2 and her diagnostic programs. Apparently my computer had 3 different versions of Office running, but none of them was fit for purpose. I needed to purchase a new version of MS  Office!

At great expense and much against my natural Scottish instinct for thrift, I purchased Office 365 2013. I had now spent well over one hundred Pounds in less than a day, a first deliberately in almost 10 tears! I was in shock, vulnerabe, and in need of a stiff drink,  but I couldn't afford it!!!  My life line of a Scotch on the rocks was cut off.  I had been evily turned into a Scot on the rocks. Office 365 was  the latest Office version, and the best thing on planet earth since the invention of the wheel. Apparently  I would notice a difference, like between  night and day. Lacking Scotch I certainly would!  Sheila2 set to work uninstalling all the earlier versions of Office. It amounted to a Hurculean, thankless task. Office had fiendishly hidden and embeded itself all over the MS archtecture of my computer. The new version of Office couldn't be installed until every last code line of the old was removed. Old style Office, wasn't going without an ISIS like fight.

Shortly before 10:30 a.m., Sheila2 was ready to begin installing Office 2013. Like George W Bush before her  rushing in to Iraq, she plunged into the morass of Office 2013. After many false starts, a 5 minute break to give a comfort rest for my Border Collie Rosie outside,  Shelia2 conceded defeat at 20 minutes past noon. Now the MS elite at "level two" have now inherited the problem, and are due to call me between 11am and 1pm tomrrow, from Washington State I believe.  At present I am the unfortunate owner of an unloadable MS Office 2013. The owner of many years of LIRs in Word and Excel documents that I can't open for now. The owner of a complete backup, that If used merely returns my computer to its sad state before 6am this morning.

On the bright side though, I am not locked up in jail, unable to post bail thanks to Uncle Scam having  frozen all my global assets, improbably accused of causing a Flash Crash 5 years ago, from a parent's bedroom in suburban London, under the Heathrow flight path, not far from the Tandori Bake and Take.  That freshly poor, wretched young man was just granted Legal Aid paid for by the UK taxpayer. Cameron should send that bill straight round to The Fed's Talking Chair.

Tomorrow, on to Level Two, if they call. I wonder how many levels Microsoft has? The next LIR update looks like being on Monday, perhaps. Though which Monday should be a matter for BetFred betting. If anyone has a surfeit of Scotch it would be greatly appreciated by both Graeme and Rosie. And probably Bruce and Sheila, wherever they were.

Graeme.