Thursday, May 01, 2008

The biggest waster of time ever invented

I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to get my Sony Ericsson phone to communicate with my laptop via bluetooth.

Because the battery on my phone was on its last legs, I'd been using a Nokia which my daughter had given me. In the process, I uninstalled the Sony software on my laptop in favour of the Nokia version.

Since I actually prefer the Sony phone, I ordered a new battery and put it back into service. That meant re-installing the Sony software. But instead of re-installing the original software, I decided to try a newer version downloaded from Sony's website.

The installation seemed to stall just before completion; so I abandoned it using Task Manager. You would think that all I'd have to do then was go through the process again but life is just not that simple. You can't even uninstall an application that hasn't installed properly.

First of all I had to try and restore the system back to the state it was in before the failed installation using System Restore.

Now that worked well but of course still left bits that need to be removed by hand. I had to delete the various Sony Ericsson folders from their locations on the hard disc.

Now came the coup de grâce; I used PC Tools Registry Mechanic to delete all the unlinked references to the Sony software in the registry. Finally I was able to install the Sony software properly and get it working as it should.

I reckon that installing and then uninstalling software is one of the main causes of problems with Windows PCs and as Pam would say, "the biggest waste of time ever invented".

Will I ever do something similar again? Probably not this week!

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