Wishing You Were In A Windowless World

This happens back in the days of Windows XP. Many of my family members are able to do simple computer tasks like browsing the web, playing games, etc., but I am known as the family “computer genius” due to my ability to perform such wizardry as Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V and “Save As”. I have also learned to do some basic troubleshooting, so one day, my mom calls me up as she’s having some trouble with her laptop.

I arrive and spend quite some time poking around her system to be sure what the problem is. Eventually, I tell her that this looks like one of those problems that can be most easily fixed by reinstalling Windows, and I advise her that we need to transfer any files she wants to keep to an external medium.

We spend some time searching for a USB stick and going through her system to determine what she wants to save. At this point, I’ve spent more than three hours on her system and am finally ready to reinstall Windows.

Mom: “You know what? I don’t think you really need to do that. I have a warranty with [Big Box Electronic Store]; I’ll take it to them and have them fix it.”

Me: *Stares in shock*

I tried, to no avail, to convince her to just let me finish and she could be up and running again within the hour. She insisted on taking it to [Big Box Electronics Store].

They had quite a few repair orders in, so she had to wait two weeks to get her machine back. When she went to pick it up, they informed her that software issues were not covered by her warranty, and she had to pay them $150.

Guess how they fixed her problem? They reinstalled Windows.