First of all, this is an actual, honest to God true story…Starring:
- My work Windows XP laptop
- My Mother-in-Law
In October 2006, my mother and father-in-law had just returned from 5 weeks in Italy. Neither of them are particularly gifted with technology, nevertheless, one evening after their return, they were planning on visiting their friends and showing them a slideshow of their digital camera photos from their trip. My mother-in-law asked to borrow my wife’s archaic laptop to show their friends the slideshow…
You must understand that my wife’s Windows laptop is 5 years old (That’s about 87 years old in computer years) and several of the keys have fallen off. My wife still uses it as we cannot afford to get a new one for her yet. The little buttons under the keys still work, but it’s a lot slower to type on. I’m not sure whether it’s the anti-spyware software, the anti-virus software, or the fragmentation of the hard drive, but you can go for coffee while Word starts - that kind of slow…
Anyway, being the nice son-in-law that I am, I offered my work Windows XP laptop for her to use since it’s a newer, smaller, faster laptop, and everything was currently installed and set up perfectly. What really could go wrong with a simple evening slideshow with friends? I was confident they wouldn’t drop or lose it. Showing a slideshow on that (with basic instructions) is a trivial task. I even charged the laptop fully so they didn’t have to worry about the power cables. To be honest, my only concern was I hoped that Windows’ power saving modes wouldn’t cause a problem for them during the slideshow given that it was running on batteries. They are both teachers and very intelligent people. We had a quick lesson. The lesson went something like this:
- Open the laptop and turn it on.
- Since the laptop is hibernated, it will come back to the exact place where it was left. Their photo CD was already in the cdrom drive and I left it in the ideal position for them.
- Press the icon to start the slideshow.
I couldn’t think of anything else I could do to streamline the process and make it any easier. (This shouldn’t be too difficult…)
The next morning I picked up my laptop and asked my mother-in-law how it went. She advised that she encountered some difficulties and the laptop ended up doing “a bunch of things” that took about 15-20 minutes before she could start the slideshow. Strange I thought… I hoped it didn’t put a dent in their evening. She gave back the laptop and I turned it on. Upon starting Windows XP I found the background had been changed to what I remember to be the default screensaver when I first got the system. Then, I couldn’t find Powerpoint. Ok - somethings drastically wrong. It didn’t take but a minute to realize that the “Windows Automated Recovery Process” had been initiated and fully completed, and my perfectly configured laptop and all my applications and work documents were gone. Yes, my laptop drive was restored to the factory default configuration - Windows bloatware, trialware and all! All my documents and installed programs were gone forever. As per usual, it took a while to get rid of that software, install the useful software, and make the system usable again. In thinking of how I could tactfully approach her about this, I decided to replay the process that *must* have happened to cause this since I really had nothing to lose at that point. At one point I showed her the bold, full screen, black-on-white screenshot that clearly read:
“WARNING - PROGRESSING BEYOND THIS POINT WILL DESTROY ALL INFORMATION ON THE HARD DRIVE AND RESTORE THE LAPTOP TO THE FACTORY DEFAULT CONFIGURATION. IF YOU ARE CERTAIN YOU WOULD LIKE TO CONTINUE, TYPE “YES”. ”
She advised that she did in fact see that screen, and she remembered typing YES, but that she thought it was referring to “some other drive or the cdrom or something”. She was obviously mortified when I explained to her that all my work programs and documents were permanently deleted. Since then, my mother-in-law has promised me that she will pay closer attention to the fine print in the future.
Now the way I see it, all of this could have been avoided if my wife only possessed an easy to use, durable (no borked keys), easily understandable computer such as a MacBook that she could lend her mother. Simple, fast, and very user friendly - especially for the technologically inept.
Angela, I still love you to death but I may think twice before handing over my laptop to you again. ;0)
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