Are you following the drama aboard the space station?
On Tuesday, as astronauts were installing new solar panels, three navigation computers crashed and could not be restarted.
Not to make light of a potentially serious situation, but anyone who has worked with computers for any length of time probably knows that feeling.
You install a new piece of hardware or software, and boom, everything crashes. I can still remember that sinking feeling in my gut the very first time that happened to me.
A Windows System Restore won't fix the space station.
But it is a very useful tool, and it can save the day in many cases. In case you are not familiar with it, here's where to find it:
Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Restore
No, you probably don't want to try it right now.
How it works is, over time, it detects "restore points" as you work -- or you can manually set restore points.
When you add or change something, and the whole system goes FUBAR (FUBAR: "Farkled Up Beyond All Recognition". a military term adopted by geeks, or maybe it was the other way around), using system restore will just reset the system to an earlier point in time.
More info on the space station:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/14/healthscience/14shuttle.php
System restore has helped me over the years several times.
My recollection with the space program is that they don't appear to do trial runs of their software.
Remember Hubble?? Got the dang think in space before they discovered that it needed contacts to cure fuzzy vision.
I think their computer needs ear plugs... Contacts won't work here... They are claiming the new panels are too noisey.
I really miss the Blue screens errors <ctrl-alt-del> <ctrl-alt-del> System restart...weeeee System Restore is for sissies...