Okay, So...

Guess what happened to my laptop! Yes! It did indeed get infected by a virus and then turn off System Restore and make the computer run really slowly and didn't let me turn it on so I would have to do a system repair which then in turn stopped me from using the laptop entirely based on the fact that it didn't know what the problem was so didn't do anything about it, let alone letting me do anything about it so I would have to back up all of my files onto a hard drive that just happened to be lying around in my house being used by no one and therefore should technically be inherited by me because I love new things that nobody knows how to use and so I should own but anyway that's not the point because I had to restore my laptop to its factory settings.

Great.

"Okay," Inside Voice said, "This shouldn't be too bad. All I have to do is back up my hard drive. Let's see... Yes, I do want to back up all of those things that you just said. Hang on, are you not going to let me choose what files I want to keep? But the box I ticked 'Pictures' not only includes my beautiful images taken by my precious camera, but it definitely also includes the thumbnails to all of the pictures and folders and videos and it also includes Microsoft Clipart. Why the fuck would I want to save Microsoft Clipart? There is literally no point in that." 

I proceeded to back up my hard drive. It took a little while, but nonetheless it got through just fine. I then clicked the button that reset my laptop to its factory settings. "Great," said Inside Voice, "This should be a piece of cake. 'Do you want to backup your hard drive first?' I have already performed this task, thank you. 'Are you absolutely sure you want to restore your computer without first backing up your files?' Yes, because I already have a backup of the files. 'Okay, if you're sure.' Yes, Microsoft and/or HP, I am."

The laptop then started to revert back to its factory settings. It rebooted and I was greeted with the welcome screen that told me that this was the first time I had EVER used my laptop. This was a lie, because it was indeed quite along the way of the number of times I've used this laptop. "No matter," spoke Inside Voice, "I'll just get through this quickly and I'll be up and running in no time. It's not like I've been doing this for two hours already."

I pushed the various buttons and typed in the various details. All went swimmingly until HP decided to run their "This is the first time you've used your PC" program that is ironically too much for the processor to handle in one go due to the amount of clean graphics and pointless animations that they put into it. "Let me skip this bit," cried Inside Voice, "I don't need to do this!" But it did not stop. Eventually it came to asking me to connect to the internet. "Brilliant," thought Inside Voice, "That's just reminded me that this system reboot could have well fixed my internet troubles." This was in fact, a lie. "Windows cannot connect to the network." "Okay, Windows, why do I have to retype the passcode if you're the one who can't connect to the network? You're just an idiot." At least I can officially conclude that either TalkTalk or my router is a big pile of stinking canine manure.

Soon enough I got past the pointless over-exhaustive program that takes up a pointless and probably huge portion of my hard drive that will never be used for anything ever again unless I do another system reboot, but the likelihood of me doing that now is quite slim since I am well and truly absolutely pissed off with the annoying amount of trouble you have to go through just to basically say, "Yes, I would like my laptop to work. Thank you."

Norton was next on the list. I don't know why this god-awful virus scanner is automatically put on every computer in the entire world, because the very first thing I did when I got this laptop the first time was to delete it, and that's exactly what I did this time. I then managed to fix my internet woes and finally connect to the router so that I could download ESET, a far superior virus scanner. Although it is definitely not superior enough to stop that virus that essentially set in motion a horrible series of events that led to my laptop saying, "No" when I wanted to restart it. While downloading ESET I also immediately downloaded Google Chrome to stop the tyranny of Internet Explorer and its mounds upon mounds of unsightly toolbars that appear at the top half of my screen. The computer then wanted to restart because it had just done a bunch of updates that I probably won't need. Fortunately when ESET gives you a username and a password for three computers, it actually gives you a username and password for a seemingly infinite number of computers. I count 6 now, if you include this laptop as a new one since Windows thinks it is.

Anyway, it seemed I was in the clear now. But of course I was still missing all the files I had. So I booted up the external hard drive and told it to put the files back on my computer. "Fantastic!" thought Inside Voice, "I can have all of my files back. Oh brilliant! It also seems to have saved the programs- oh... They're not programs at all." Indeed. See, backing up your hard drive without telling the system what to back up means that it looks at a file and goes, "Yup, need that," and then sees the program that it is linked to and says, "Oh but we can't have that," because apparently this would be cheating and not at all money-draining to the individual. I'm not going to sit here and admit that I illegally download all of my programs, because I simply don't. But this recent event is kind of making the whole seedy stealing off the internet thing a really big advert to me. It's actually screaming to me to go onto a torrent website and give Adobe and Microsoft Office two great big slaps in the face for saving all of the files that complete the program, but not the program itself. However, stealing off the internet is still a crime, and I can't condone that. I'll have to do it the old fashioned way. Back alley with a trench-coat and trilby it is. After all, it was trying to download off the internet that landed me with this virus in the first place. Be safe, kids, stay the fuck away from the internet.

I do hope you've enjoyed my large rant about how shit this relatively small and unimportant ordeal has been for me. I also hope you don't end up in a similar situation, having to back up pointless files on a hard drive that you may have accidentally stolen from someone because it wasn't made abundantly clear that it wasn't intended for you, despite the fact the one of the folders is called, "Stuart's-PC", but then again you've never had a friend called Stuart and so it must have been left by some government agent. Oh well, I'm sure his files will remain hidden for a long time.

Anyway, back to the norm in the coming days.

I'm out