I can sympathize with any of you who have had trouble with Bill Gates’ Windows. I went through another journey to Hades when I decided that I would improve my operating system.

I‘ve got to quit reading magazines. A recent copy of PC WORLD had the cover story on software bugs. They mentioned that Windows95 had an upgrade that would solve a little bitty problem I was having. I had fooled around and accidently messed up my Internet access so that it wouldn’t remember my password. It is a pain to type it in each time, because I log on several times a day. I called the Internet provider, who assured me it was a Windows problem.

After reading the article, I logged on to MicroSoft’s website, and there was an upgrade to correct password problems. Hurrah! Just what I need. One small problem. The instructions said I had to download another upgrade and install it first. It was a bigger sucker, but what the hay? I was going to improve my system up to the latest bug-free status. After I downloaded and installed them, I saw one more upgrade listed, so I went for broke.

Broke was the right word. When I installed the upgrades and booted up my system, it was a mess. I could hardly get anything to work. I couldn’t get back on the Net to fuss with MicroSoft, so I called their number to talk to a tech rep. This is a toll call to Arizona. The rep was a young, very friendly guy. I got to know him well, because we were on long-distance for over three hours with him walking me through procedures to delete each file in Internet Explorer one by one.

That didn’t work. I was in worse shape than when I started. The next day I called again, and this time got an old hand who had been with MS for over 20 years. After an hour or so I complained about the long-distance charges and he called me back on their dime. When we got through working all day, a Friday, my computer was down to a DOS C: prompt and I couldn’t even talk to my CD-ROM to install whatever he wanted to try at that point.

I panicked. I told him I had a tape backup. Could we get back to my last backup? I put the restore disks in and after the second one finished grinding, a message came up saying that my disk had a problem and the tape drive wouldn’t work until it was corrected. I really panicked. I shut the machine off and started it again. A miracle. The Windows desktop came back. I immediately went to the tape backup and restored back to the previous Sunday, so that I could try to work again.

I got back where I could get on the Net, but now Internet Explorer doesn’t work as a browser. I called AOL, who told me how to download Netscape, so I can now get back on the Net, but not while I am using AOL. A real bummer.

My lesson for today is be very careful about upgrades. They may make the problem a lot worse. I am going to look at Linux as an operating system. You can e-mail me your problems — and solutions — at crodenberg@aol.com.