Windows Update

It seems that every time I sit down at my Windows machine to do some work (after considerable procrastination) I get stuck (for hours!) updating one thing or another. Probably a reason in itself for my avoidance of this particular operating system in the first place. Windows Update is annoying enough already, but when it screws up, like it did this time, it's even more so. It continues to warn me about installing the Security Update for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 after I've tried installing it countless times now. Clearly a bug in their own installation scripts/records/whatever. But then again that's something I've grown accustomed to with Microsoft. And Windows Update is something I do quite often, as I believe that it should be done quite often to keep, well, up-to-date with the latest patches. I just wish they'd make this process much less painless: (1) make sure that if the patch doesn't work, either explain the workaround or stop bugging me to keep doing it, and (2) don't make me reboot after every update! Most annoying.

Today, however, the major irritation unexpectedly came from Adobe. Having released Adobe Reader 9 recently, I decided I may as well update from the last version I had running (8.1.2). Internet Explorer kept crashing whenever I tried installing Reader via the HTML interface. Buffer overflow problem, as reported by my virus scanning software. Eventually what worked was downloading and saving the executable install program, instead of going through the browser. And a reboot in between removal of 8.1.2 and installation of 9.0. And then again an update of 9.0 after its install. Luckily no reboot after that one.

Maybe some of this stems from being an early adopter...trying to get Adobe Reader 9 before it was actually good and ready to download? Well, at least I've managed to avoid Vista. I seem to be doing ok with Apple's OS X Leopard, and tomorrow I'll try to get my hands on the 3G iPhone. Which presents a bit of a quandary: is getting the 3G iPhone on its first day of release early adoption? It feels like it, but really it's "iPhone 2.0", so it seems like it should be worth the risk. Who knows...I don't even know whether I'll be able to get one—the line at the AT&T store might be forming already...