Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

This has been one of the most frustrating days for me in recent memory. Two months ago I purchased a new Dell laptop computer and all Dell shipments these days have Windows Vista pre-installed. Well, as configured by the good people at Dell that worked fine. I have an 80GB hard drive with 1.4 GB of RAM. The computer shipped with a Windows Vista upgrade DVD so last night I got the not-so-bright idea of upgrading (???) one step from Vista Home Basic to Vista Home Premium. Well, it installed, sort of, but now I have no sound, the CPU is running at top speed which slows everything else down to a crawl, and my McAfee Security Suite has become unstable.

So this morning I called Dell Tech Support and of course, ended up talking with someone in Bangalore who I could hardly understand due to her soft voice, her accent, and telephone line noise. Well, after three hours nothing had been resolved other than to raise my blood pressure considerably. Now what do I do? Her supervisor was supposed to call me back but I doubt that I will ever hear from anyone in Bangalore or Texas.

I posted the problem on a Dell forum after that and have received a reply to my question about reverting back to the Vista Home Basic and it seems like it is possible but then nothing ever goes as planned when changing computer operating systems or upgrading or reverting back to an earlier time. Grrr again.

Well, I wanted a basic machine mostly for surfing the net and for e-mail and that is what I got. It is too bad I got the no-so-bright idea of trying for more.

So, as I said at the bottom of my post to the Dell forum page: DO NOT EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, UPGRADE AN OEPRATING SYSTEM. I really think the only option is to do clean install and I am ready to do that on my laptop as there is little of new personal documents on it as yet. Even here, I am leery that something else might go wrong. One of the most frustrating aspects of the whole situation is the fact that Dell will come to my apartment on a hardware issue at this time but not for a software issue. I have rarely ever had a hardware issue so they certainly isolate themselves very well with that policy plus the offshoring of tech support.

This could drive a man to drink. Say, that is not such a bad idea at the momoent as I do have a good supply of gin & tonic on hand. Wheeeeeee........