Yesterday I spent the better part of the afternoon taking my daughter’s computer back to ground zero. I reinstalled a fresh copy of XP, which took two hours, and then updated everything I thought she needed: Windows update, flash, shockwave, adobe reader, the latest Firefox. She is six years old, and it doesn’t take her long to botch up a computer, even though I lock things down pretty well.
After I was finished, she was happy to have her computer back and running well, and I had her test a few of her favorite websites so I could put them on her desktop. She immediately noticed there was no sound on any of her favorites, including Noggin, Barbie.com, playhousedisney, etc. But when I went to YouTube, videos played just fine, sound and all. And her educational CD’s, like Putt Putt goes to the Circus, and I Spy Puppet Playhouse, worked fine as well. I toyed with the sound controls, looked for weirdness in the device manager, and could not figure it out. After about a half-hour, it occurred to me; this was a Java issue. I installed Java Console, requested an update, and voila, all of her websites were working.
What bugs me is all the “pick up” stuff I have to do every time I install a new machine, or reinstall an old one. I keep a list of things to “check” but Java wasn’t on that list before. In fact, I’ve never had to forcefully load Java in any previous instance of an install/reinstall, so I’m a bit perturbed. Why is that when we install a new browser on a new machine, all of the requisite plug-ins and updates to browser-associated software doesn’t occur too? Is it really that much to ask that the web browser, upon install, goes out and prompts for any updates so you can get them all done in one fell swoop? There is no purpose to running any browser unless you have flash, shockwave, Adobe Reader, and Java all at their latest levels. Surfing is virtually impossible without them in this day and age.
After about three hours of working on that machine, wasting another half hour trying to figure out why something wasn’t working correctly was really pushing my buttons. No wonder we geeks are getting a bit cranky these days, when what should take an hour and be easy can’t be accomplished without a playbook close at hand.
My New and Improved playbook now includes the note to update Java. But I contend that my playbook shouldn’t need such detailed instructions.