I have often wondered why people who use a computer all day long have difficulty staying focused, and now I think I know the answer. Windows causes Attention Deficit Disorder. Since it would be impossible to explain it using layman’s terms, I shall instead cite an example.
Yesterday I had to install Adobe Creative Suite 3 on a Dell computer running Windows Vista Home Premium Edition. (As opposed to, I suppose, the Home Standard Edition, or the Office Premium Edition, or maybe the “Home Edition for people who can’t cough up $400 for the Supreme Bells and Whistles Edition.” But I digress.) I ran the setup for Adobe Photoshop 3 CS, let it do its thing, and at the end it told me I had to restart Windows. (Still?? I thought Vista was supposed to fix this?) So I clicked on the Restart Now button, waited while it spun its wheels for about 5 minutes, then it finally rebooted.
Windows finally loads (yes, Vista is a pig, even on a brand new system) and I click on the user’s account icon (awww a kitty…) Desktop starts to come up. I try to click on the little round “Start” button to find Photoshop (it’s an upgrade version, and I knew at some point it would ask me for some kind of proof of ownership, so I might as well get that out of the way since the end user is not going to have a clue what it is asking for.) Nope, Windows isn’t ready yet, I get that little spinning circle thing. Aha, icons are starting to come up on the desktop. Nope, still can’t click the Start button. Splash screens start to pop up, letting me know about all the programs that now have to load. I can finally click the Start button, but it takes about a minute for the menu to pop up. Menu comes up, oops, now it’s gone because the McAfee Security Center screen came up. Click Start again, scroll through to find Adobe Photoshop, oops, the menu closes again because … well, I don’t know why, I didn’t see anything happen. Try a third time, find Adobe Photoshop, click on it, menu disappears. Not sure if anything is actually happening here. Ah, the mouse pointer is that spinning blue circle again. A minute passes.
The Adobe Photoshop dialog comes up, tells me that I am running an upgrade version, and asks me to select my old product version from the dropdown. Now it wants the serial number from the original copy. I entered two numbers, then another McAfee Security window pops up, preventing me from entering numbers. Clear that window, continue entering numbers. Then a Dell screen pops up, giving me all kinds of neat information about their online system check stuff, and prompts me for some information. I don’t want to bother with this now, so I try to close it. Nope, can’t close it. I MUST click NEXT and enter SOMETHING on the next screen or it WILL NOT go away. (Programmers call this a “modal dialog.” Techs call them “ANNOYING.”) So while I am reading the screen to find out what it wants and how I can make it go away, ANOTHER window pops up, this one telling me that something about the Roxio software on this system doesn’t work with Vista (which I guess was not important enough for Dell to decide “let’s not put this on here if it doesn’t work”) and gives me a few choices. None of those choices suitably tell it what to go do with itself, so I find the one closest to “Go away!” Back to the Dell Center, I am finally allowed to scroll down and find the “Yes, that’s lovely, can we do this later?” selection, which I click with malice. Whee, two down… under that was a message box, patiently waiting to tell me that some sort of Proxy has crashed and was shut down “for my protection.” Wow, I feel SO relieved… Bringing up the details tells me that it had something to do with McAfee Spamkiller, which is known not to work properly with Vista (was anything pre-installed on this Vista system that DOES work with Vista??) Click on the option for “find a solution online” and up comes Internet Explorer, I assume to take me to Microsoft’s or McAfee’s web site where there will be some long text about how there is no way to fix this, but we really are working on this, have a day. Instead, I get a screen telling me that my Google Toolbar has been updated, and wants me to give it permission to automatically update itself (didn’t it just do that?) and agree to a 12 page license agreement. This isn’t even my computer, I ain’t agreeing to anything! Get past that, now I am at McAfee’s Support Forum, where I try to search for the problem. Well, turns out you’re not even allowed to use the Search function if you don’t have an account with them. For crying out loud, what kind of damage could I cause looking for a problem? It’s not like I am going to do something crazy like, oh I dunno, ask for help?? No wonder people never use search features before posting the same question for the 20th time. Okay, enough of that, I decide to use Google to search for the error, and find many MANY pages of postings from people with the exact same problem, only (ha HA) no real solution. Just some notes from someone who resembles a McAfee tech, claiming that they are working on it, and there will be a fix “soon.” These notes, I might add, are dated August 2007. I dunno what today is because every time I try to look at the clock another application pops up, but I believe we are somewhere in the vicinity of February 2008. Joy. I make a note to come back to that and close Internet Explorer.
Oh, right, did I mention that 25 minutes ago I was trying to install Photoshop?