Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Whats the worst? how many of you on your first pc's deleted .dll's from Windows 95 thinking it would make it run better?

Come on has to be a few classics here.

Mines on a old Windoze 95 laptop at school saving work on Word 95 every few minutes it crashed, just froze. On rebooting the save file was corrupt and I had been working on it for hours. So I hit the screen hard, my hand went right through it.

Was fun explaining to my teacher about her new screen design :angel:

Re: Worst thing you done to a computer
 

i deleted loads of stuff of a win95 pc and it would only boot into dos i told the wife that typing "win" was the password to make it boo tinto windows :erm:

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

del *.* in the c:/ directory of a win3.11 machine

Managed to restore for the computer next to it but a worried few minutes

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

A few things myself and my friends have done to various PCs..

One, I unplugged an IDE data cable without realising the PC was one.. Luckily the hard drive was fine (it was a researchers, and he had years of research on it, none of which was backed up), but the motherboard IDE interface was trashed. Luckily I was able to plug in an IDE interface and get it working without him noticing.

My boss plugged in a SCSI data cable slightly out of alignment with the pins and set fire to it (I kid you not - a flame shot up the middle wire).

I also blew up one of the Uni's then state of the art 15 inch Hitachi monitors when I tried to set the refresh rate too high (this was before the days when monitors shut down when you sent them the wrong refresh rate).

Going back further, I hacked into the administrator account on our school network, and was able to play all the games our teacher didn't think we knew about.. The funniest part of that whole few weeks was when a friend and I were testing the schoole network we had just helped extend. I was in a room on the third floor, and my friend was in the computer room and we were using a chat program. My friend started to pretend to be the head of computing, and carried on doing a convincing impression (in text anyway). Trouble is, he didn't realise, the head of computing was standng behind me reading everything he was saying. He got a few detentions out of that.

Oh, and a couple of times, I have been known to format my PC without checking I have an up to date and readable backup.

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Deleted config.sys from a DOS machine because I thought it might stop the machine from insisting it was configured for USA use. :disturbd:

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Accidently formatted C: drive on win95 instead of A: drive

Machine was ohhhhhhhhhhh about 6 hours old. lol

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

i hope 95 wasnt on floppy for reinstall (please insert disk10 and press any key):Yikes:

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

A while ago I used a program to delete duplicate .dll files .. not much worked after that !!

More recently used Add/Remove programs to remove several programs I didn't recognise thinking my youngsters had installed some sus applications :shocked: Took a while to reformat and restore my PC. :dozey:

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

I only had a 2gig hard drive on my first comp and so I was always sort of space, any way found some stuff that I thought was of no use and deleted it...... complete install of windows 95 was needed :(

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Tried to create a new CVS module but setting the import directory as CVSROOT setting off a recursive sequence until after several hundred files/directories had been created I remembered I could hit ctrl-c to quit.

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1. Crashed the school network just as we were waiting for parents to come in for a demonstration. There was nothing to do, I guess we got carried away. We had to race to get the machines up again and still they werent all back on in time.

2. Sucked up the keys off the keyboard with the vacuum cleaner.

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

;) Funny stories!

I once tried del *.* in dos thinking the A:\ drive was active. It was actually C:\ and I lost all the accounts for the department. I had to go through file by file with an undelete tool, guessing what the first letter of the file was. Stayed in the office repairing it like that all night. No-one ever knew.

Bought a new computer case (ATX, I think) and tried to fit it into an old style 486 case. The power cables didn't fit so I pulled the wires out and guessed where they should go and stuffed it all back in. (Don't try this at home).

All the lights in the house went out and I had to replace some fuses. The motherboard smelled a bit funny after that (burnt plastic) and surprise, surprise, it didn't work again.

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Incog thinks that maybe she is such a duff on the PC after all.Passwording ZAP and forgetting the password doesn't seem so silly now. :)

All the other things that went wrong were M$'s fault anyway.. ;)

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

It was bad enough when the dust & fluff in my power supply caused it to blow, taking the motherboard with it - but then I proceeded to ruin the new motherboard by managing to force the memory sticks in the wrong way round...

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

I was replacing a PC, so I brought the new PC down, set it on the desk and proceeded to disconnect the old one. Once disconnected I picked it up and turned around only to knock the new PC off the table and onto the floor. Luckily when i reseated the components it was as good as new (if you ignore the dent that is.)

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Installing OS/2 across the network (only the server had a CD drive in it). somebody assumed something else was on the disk ran a command and broke the hard drive partion on a production machine...

Wrote a prog in rexx that auto replied to emails i received, sent an email to the IBM CEO.. saying i couldnt be buggered to work today.

Office version 6 came on 31 floppy disks, always corrupt disk 30!

going through msconfig on a customers computer, stopping all the unaceesry junk from starting up.. restarted the machine it wouldnt start... the customer was sat behind me going from mildly panicked to complete coranory!

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Buying a Time/Tiny pc - need I say more? :eek: :D

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

That still shouldn't have touched any hidden system files and it wouldn't have removed any directories either ;) You might have lost your autoexec.bat and config.sys but that would have been about it.

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Another friend of mine, when he first started, walked into his nearest "patch panel" room (room where the telephone and network sockets are connected to the switchboard/network - example piccy attached), and thought "Hmm, this could do with a tidy up". It's only when he pulled all the red cables (telephone cables) out that he realised he hadn't made a note of which cables were connected to which socket.

He spent his entire weekend running round the building phoning extensions, and picking up externsions and phoning switchboard to find out what number he was calling from. Just so he could get the right extension connected to the right socket number.

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Last year i had two 160 gig hard drives set as slave and master ( c & d ),

used c drive for Win xp and d drive for all my mp3`s video`s, pictures and videos of my Grand daughter etc, etc and ran KILLDISK.EXE on the c drive and went to bed.
Next morning i checked the machine and KILLDISK.EXE had finished c drive and wiped d drive as well!:Yikes: Lost every single thing but using some recovery software i managed to get back 120 gigs of my d drive stuff back. Thank you Ontrack Easy Data Recovery Pro!:disturbd: :D :)

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

I shouldn't really admit to it, but hey...

I typed "DEL *.*" in the root directory of a CP-M machine (yeah - I'm that old!) which unfortunately hadn't been backed up for 3 weeks.

At the "Are you sure?" prompt I typed 'Y', immediately realising that was the wrong answer!

But, as it happened, I managed to recover 3 week's worth of work (all assembly language code!) from memory (i.e. my memory - no printouts) over the next 3 days.

Let's just say it was an object lesson to affirm the need for regular backups. (And maybe also to read a prompt twice before typing!)

On a slightly similar note, I know someone who had an iPod/Imac and collected a HUGE amount of music, which was sync'ed between iPod and iMac. Now this stuff obviously was taking up a lot of disk space on the iMac, and since it was all on the iPod, he decided to delete the stuff off the iMac to save space.

Of course, the next time he connected the iPod, it sync'ed to the iMac...

Yeah, you guessed it - the iPod promptly deleted all the files stored on it! It was probably cruel, but I couldn't help laughing.

And before you think of suggesting it - NO! - it was NOT me!

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Configuring Tweak UI to hide my name at startup. Little did I know, it was refferring to my username. So the next time I booted, there were no users. Locked out. Had to log in manually by booting in safe mode w/ command prompt. Scared the hell out of me at first.

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

I put AOL version 8 on my computer once.

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Surely putting ANY version of AOL on your PC is a Major F*** up!:D

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

ok ok i admit it a pc bounced down the stairs coz i'm clumsy

on a lighter side i got a brand new one of the insurance
but my premium went up :(

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Stripping down a machine in training someone who shall remain nameless managed to kill a machine by clicking the heatsink on when the processor wasn't seated correctly. :erm:

One new motherboard later the system was working again.

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Taking apart a computer and knocking out the yellow lead from the spare floppy power lead socket . Then thinking it would be fine and only a few volts I powered up the machine after inserting a brand new 64mb sd ram (when it was not so cheap). think all was well then standing the case back up to pop the case cover on.

Well the lead flopped onto the ram stick and set it alight. poo:disturbd:

I then tried to exchange the ram but they made me buy another one:cry:

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

:rofl:I notice Wayne hasn't posted about installing AOL on his PC..... :D
__________________

I was once trying to remove the thermal pad from a GPU chip, it was hard going using a cotton bud and nail varnish remover so I decided to use a large head flat screwdriver to make things a bit easier. One deep groove carved into the chips surface later I realised that I should go back to using a cotton bud :disturbd:
I made sure that the thermal paste was in the groove before the heatsink was replaced and it worked fine......phew! :D

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Which reminds me of the time I inserted a 68K processor back-to-front into a system. Worse still,I was on site abroad at the time with no hope of getting a replacement!

Turns out it must have been well made, cos it worked fine after it was re-inserted correctly...

BTW - someone reading this post over my shoulder reminded me of something else. In this case, we have to categorise a GameBoy as a 'computer'.

Well, in order to 'teach someone a lesson' I took their GB and splatted it with a lump hammer. The lesson was received as intended. The GB did NOT work afterwards.

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"My husband is a pratt" Need i say more :bsmack:

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

LOL!!!

BTW - didn't know Mrs Markymoan frequented this corner of the 'net.

BTW[2] - Why 'markymoan'? It's been bugging me for ages!!!

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Installing Halo.

I never forgave myself...

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Don't let Saxo see that! :D

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

when i first used this forum i had a real moan about ntl and things
i since changed my name :)

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There was a period where i used Windows for a while. Horrible.

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Agreed. I have more fun getting the old Snes out and playing on Super Mario.

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Took a brand new computer out of its box once ... it's been downhill ever since ... :erm:

My computer cockups
 

When I was a wee nipper (and when BBC micros were in vogue ;) ) I proceeded to hit the power button on a series of daisy chained extension blocks powering a number of these BBC micro computers. Oops.

Twice I've nearly trashed a few hundred quids worth of TFT screen and computer. On the first occasion I tripped over some of the monitor cables. Result, two monitors came flying off the desk and hung by their wires and swayed a bit as a deafening silence ensued around the room whilst the teacher glared at me.

On the second occasion, a friend of mine was sitting towards the middle of an ordinary office style desk with two computers on and I decided to lean on the desk next to him whilst he sat there. A few seconds later, there was a huge crack as the weak welding at the back of the desk gave way - he fell to the ground as I caught the desk in time and tried to stop the computers from sliding off and crashing to the ground. I was lucky in some respects as the wires saved the day again and stopped the computers from coming off completely.

Luckily I was saved by some people nearby who helped who lifted the computers and placed them on a desk next to the now broken one. I just wanted to die at that moment. I was soooo embarassed, and so was he. Again, there were many sharp intakes of breath and a stunned silence began not soon after the event. I made a pretty quick exit after I was relieved of my computer bearing duties. :blush:

Other minor computer cock-ups include opening the original photos transferred off my digital camera, resizing them for web use and saving them. Except I forgot I was working on the originals and not copies - the result; some tiny compressed JPEG images. Whoops. :dunce:

In the days when I was new to computers and had a Packard Bell PC running Windows 98 the only way to reinstall anything was to use the recovery CDs. The problem - the recovery CD didn't work as per manual on a number of occasions and wiped my HD without prompting. I lost all of my personal files on the HD. On other occasions where I've had to use the CDs they didn't work; and at one point the whole recovery program (an unstable beast that it is) stopped working as it couldn't detect the "tattoo" on the PC and so left me with a useless machine stuck at the c:\> prompt. Needless to say I persevered and the damn thing finally worked and vowed never to buy an off the shelf PC with any sort of recovery solution ever again.

I've also broken my CD drive by not bothering to close it. Opened it to take a CD out and couldn't be bothered to shut it straight away. As sod's law would dictate, I knocked an object off the desk and as the tower with open CD drive was beneath, the tray snapped off as the object clipped the tray on its descent.

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Taking my PC to the guy who owned the little corner shop up the road for repairs.
A gold fish could have known more about computers than this guy who messed up my whole system.
Since that time about 6 years ago, I now do everything myself. Saves money, you learn more about computers, and its more fun.

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Changing my mother board.

*WHY* this should stop Win 2k from booting and require practically a total re-install of everying I will *never* know...!!! :grind:

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

how true for me, :erm: along with plugging in and starting up my pc in the first place ;) it`s been a major headache ever since.

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

The game started off well, but it was sooooo bloody boring from about 1/3 of the way through. The weapons seemed wrong (plasticky and weedy), the AI was nothing special, so many of the building just the same, and I just wanted to complete it so that I could get rid of it.

I thought it was hugely disappointing after the level of hype it was given. :(

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Try the multiplayer good if your starting out but depends which arena's you use, I recommend the bungie offical ones.

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

I tried all the different arenas that came with the game. To be honest, they provided about 5 minutes of entertainment each, but I didn't feel it was any good. I know there are people out there who adore Halo, but I felt it was massively overhyped and just didn't produce a good gaming experience. I was bored most of the time. :(

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

At home... bit too much alcohol, playing with a power supply and forgetting to check the 115/230v selector. It makes a nice bang and smells a bit when it dies.

At work... deleted wrong directories from *nix boxes on numerous occaisions, and once dropped a load of tables from the wrong Oracle instance (not my fault... both instances used the same username and password, and I just kinda forgot to check my ORA_HOME and ORA_SID variables :rolleyes: )

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Different Chipset, IE different drivers in use, PC tries to start up with drivers for another motherboard, chipset says "WTF" and Windows Dies. :tu:

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

In which case it *should* work in basic Safe Mode, shouldn't it?!

Did it? Did it hell!!

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Well mine got covered with pink silly string a lil while ago ...never been the same since https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2005/10/3.gif

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

In theory, yes. In practice (as you found out), Windows often has a lot of trouble running if you change a motherboard without re-installing windows.

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Bored at work one morning, I was looking for things to tryout in the config.sys file of a very old Dell 386 (16MHz I think - cutting edge then!). Came across this file keyboard.sys, hmm, I wonder what that could do - entered DEVICE=KEYBOARD.SYS in the config.sys, re-booted and it trashed the hard drive. :doh: Spent the rest of the day rebuilding it.

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

I have never messed up my software too badly (or at least not enough to be worth telling). However, when two of my friends and I found an old PC in the basement some years ago, we decided to open it and kill it. I'll just say that we opened the hard drive with a hammer and ruined all the slots with a scredriver. :D

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

That must have been a good stress relieving experience.

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

I shall amend my worst thing I done to a pc.

This is what is left of a very unreliable Fujistu Siemens ScaleoT

I tried everything with this pc, in the end I bought a loverly laptop and sorted this thing out.
:D:D:D:D:D

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Years ago, we had a network of RM machines with the printer in a distant room. If you were careless, then you could end up with each line of the print-out starting on a new page of fanfold paper. You'd go to the print room and there, on the floor, would be a 2 ft high stack of paper, with a single accusing line at the top of each otherwise blank page.

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Once at school we was bored and noticed the printer on the computer we was on, had one of those sheets of huge paper on it which connected to the next page.

We then printed down with homework in huge size font, after break time the teacher went back to a huge HUGE HUUGGEEE pile of paper printed on the floor.

To this day I have not been caught :rofl:

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I rember from school copper networking (10Base-2) and you could remove one machine from the network and all would fail, oh so much fun...

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i put SDR memory in a DDR memory slot with a lot of pushing it when in then sat back to see the motherboard go bang and smoke come out of the case , 3 hours old and not even my pc . not so good .

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How did you manage that its idiot proofish :erm:

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Spoke from the person who threw a processor across a room to break it even more, dropped a pc down the stairs.... oh the fun :rofl:

/hides

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

not if you try hard . :Yikes:

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Did you use Windows ME in proximity to working on the pc, it is known to have such mental effects.

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Look really close :bsmack:

We first had a Win95 machine and I dunno what happend to it... Ya couldnt do anything! (Clicking a link on desktop wouldnt go anywhere) -- I dunno if I me$$ed it up by mistake or what........
(.lnk was not assigned anymore for some reason..... Nothing was!!!)

I didnt know much about computers then... I didnt know how to fix it.... Then we got a 98se computer and had a problem so we brought that in for repair and they SAID there was a fire in the power supply..... I dunno if it was a lie or not just to keep our GOOD computer,I dunno.... They gave us another 98se they had there and this poor thing had been majorly abused!!

It was set for 2 monitors so when I put it on 1,it caused problems... I finally got it set to 1 monitor (It kept going back to 2)

It also had alot of memory issues and this thing kept freezing and I didnt know why..... I looked at the BATCH file and it had this insane line: "IF ERROR THEN PAUSE" so whenever something happend it would just STOP.... Totally stupid!!

The IE setting was set to 2 (Max connections) I changed it to 48 in 2004 when I saw a thread on another site I was on where someone said they changed thier Firefox setting to 48 and it made a big difference..... I tried the same on IE6 and its incredible!!! (Why was it set so low??)

I have brought this poor computer along way since I got it......... She still has memory issues but not like she did when I got it in my room.. (It was in my parents room for awhile when we first got it)

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

I thought you were just gonna say bump 15.5 year old threads for the crack hehehe

Oh no buddy.... When I reply I have a reason :)


I look for an existing thread and if there is one,I reply as it looks silly having multiple threads of the same topic all over the site.. (Especially on the same base)

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

I think that way too because all the information is kept together for anyone interested in the subject matter. However, many forums don't like this though and prefer a new thread to be created. I'm told that this is because the presence of old threads on the front page makes it look like the forum is quiet and little used.

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

A lot happens in 15 years!

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

True, the information may be out of date (depending what it's about).

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Well I once got so angry, that I smashed my fist onto the keyboard, only to see most of the keys leave (I should say this was a newish IBM AT system, with a massive 30MB HDD).


Well it was the keyboard or a work college wo had peed me of big time

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Silly things:
Many many years ago on a now defunct forum, one of the members fitted a new sound card to his PC. When he fired it up his external speakers didn't work.

Being a PC savvy kind of chap, he spent hours re-seating the sound card, configuring drivers, checking for conflicts etc.

He eventually reported success . . . when he remembered that he had forgotten to push the 'on' switch to power the external speakers. :D

Took him a while to live that down

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In the mid-80s, working on a client site, installing a new programme which had been developed back at the office (IBM S/36 programmed in RPG).

It was after 5pm on a Friday, so no one was on the system (in those days, in small companies, the clients didn’t have development environments on site). I put a comma in the wrong place on the Delete command, so instead of deleting the old programme, I deleted the entire programme library of compiled programmes - oopsy!

Found out the customer hadn’t backed up the source programme library in over six months (many changes had been made in that time), so I dashed back to our office (after ringing my Development Manager to let him know what had happened), took our copy of the library back to the customers, and I and two colleagues spent the weekend re-compiling and testing the programmes before the client arrived back on site Monday morning.

We had also let the customer know about the problem, as we had a very good relationship with them, and they brought staff in to help with the testing.

Everything worked fine after that, but was a brown trousers/career-limiting moment for a couple of hours whilst we put a recovery plan in place.

(A learning point from that was that we ensured all of our clients had current programme library back-ups in place from then on, both on and off site, as well as us having a copy).

Other worst thing I’ve done on a computer was implement SAP.

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Some CF Legacy names in this thread.... :erm:

As well as installing AOL on a computer once (see my post from page 1) I also installed Bonzi Buddy once back in my days of high ignorance.....

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

AOL was awesome, got me so many one night stands and allowed me to travel the country on bonking expeditions. Loved it

I once years ago installed something that supposedly made your pages load faster when all it was doing really was collecting data!! (I got rid of it within months)

Yes its sad,we should try to invite them back :)

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Not "totally stupid" in a batch file, have done the same many times myself.

If the batch file is run from a shortcut in Windows then the command window will just close so no chance to see the error.

Or if there are more commands after the error it could have scrolled off the top of the screen, again never to be seen!

I also like "the BATCH file" like there is only ever one!!

---------- Post added at 15:58 ---------- Previous post was at 15:41 ----------

We had Atari STs when I was doing my A-Level Computer Science course at college, would put an existing project disk into the A: drive to speed up booting, then promptly format it whilst still holding the new floppy in my hand!

As a developer, many many things, but all the usual like:
Deleting records from the live database instead of the test.
Running a SQL table update and forgetting the WHERE clause so every record updated.
Powering off a test server one day in the server room as it was just normal desktop PC sat on a desk, this was the day when a power switch was a proper hardware switch and I stood there holing the button in as I realised what I had done, but had to let go eventually!

While working on the helpdesk one day had a call from the Chief Exec, some error with a file (can't remember exact problem) so a ran a check disk and it ended up pretty much wiping everything

Im so sorry that happend buddy :(

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Using eDonkey in the late 90's o download MP3 of music I couldn't find or wasn't willing to spend the money on an CD for just one track.


Case in point was Fleetwood Macs "The Chain" just for the very end bit and the then BBC F1 theme.


Some of the videos I downloaded were NOT what they said and my god I'm broad minded but holly poo.

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Similar experience, spent over a week downloading a Montrose album I couldn't find anywhere.

When I finally got to play it, it was Simon & Garfunkle :shocked: :D

I love that song...... I have it on the record and 8track :)

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Rumours is one of the greatest albums of all time

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Install Norton Anti Virus on it lol.

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I once uninstalled NAV but didn't download the removal tool.

As a part of the NAV protection it blocked access to the internet because it was uninstalled incorrectly.

Luckily my dad's PC was next to me, so I was able to download it from there and use the home network to copy the file across.

Re: Worst thing you've done to a computer
 

Sold one to an older member of the family. Constant phone calls for support

---------- Post added at 10:46 ---------- Previous post was at 10:45 ----------

Had similar with Kaspersky on a clients machine and Avst locking a system down on another. They can all be flakey at time I am sure

Yes and I am glad they didhnt digitally compromise it!!!!

I believe that is thier last analogue record..... The next one was digitally mixed :(

On the jacket it says "Digital mix down" so Im assuming that means that.....