NB>> The only way you'll be able to fix that problem is to set Windows    
    NB>> to download the updates, but not apply them or reboot your machine    
    NB>> until you say so. That way you can safely download/install    
    NB>> updates, shut down Irex safely, and reboot.    
      
    ML> that may not always work the way you want it to... m$ can still    
    ML> override and force the update in along with the reboot... this is    
    ML> exactly what happened to bob juge's large and very popular    
    ML> system... it corrupted the VM that his fidonet stuff was running    
    ML> in, the backups were bad, and the drives the original image(s)    
    ML> were made from were no longer available... it was too much to    
    ML> loose and too much to try to recover so he ended up leaving    
    ML> fidonet because of it... it was a huge blow to the network and    
    ML> there was a lot of folks having to adjust their systems to connect    
    ML> elsewhere for their traffic...   
      
    NB> Eh.. I've always been able to set Windows to download updates, but   
    NB> never install them until I tell it to. This problem may lie in the   
    NB> fact that noone ever takes a LOOK at the updates before they   
    NB> install them. You DO have the option to NOT install an update if   
    NB> you don't want to.   
      
   true but this is not what happened to bob's system... an update was forced by   
   m$ even though his settings were to not apply them automatically... the update   
   then required a reboot which it also performed... apparently that reboot   
   process didn't shutdown the VM and corrupted it beyond recovery...   
      
    NB> Letting everything M$ puts through go by is a problem in itself.    
      
   i've only had problems with update a few times in all the years since w9x came   
   out... they were worse in the beginning but have gotten better... most of   
   those problems were hardware driver related... outside of that, my systems   
   have installed all security and important updates...   
      
    NB> That's why I switched to Linux over a decade ago, and only keep a    
    NB> small Windows partition for any gaming addiction I may encounter.    
    NB> :)   
      
   linux updates have their own problems, too ;)   
      
    NB> As for the huge system you speak of, they basically lost interest,   
    NB> more or less. If they were still interested, they would have come   
    NB> back up from scratch, because that's what Sysops do. Simple rescans   
    NB> would have gotten them their message bases back in order.   
      
   you can't rescan what isn't available from your upstream... there weren't many   
   top level hubs retaining messages for rescans...   
      
    NB> I/You/We/All of us may back up our stuff daily, but if the interest   
    NB> isn't there anymore, that's it.   
      
   unless a backup is tested by restoring it, one will never know if it is good   
   or not until it is too late... even then it may work for one or two test   
   restores and fail on the one that's absolutely necessary... i can't count the   
   numbers of times that i've run backups with verification that all passed but   
   were total garbage when needed for restoring... especially bad were the   
   corporate ones for my clients at the time... the worst was after investing in   
   DAT tape backup as an upgrade from the "normal" tape backup stuff...   
      
   i won't even mention the problem of where to backup to...   
      
   in any case, bob worked on his system for a week or two trying to recover it   
   and it was just too much... one of the problems with starting over again was   
   also that the OS being run in the VM was not windows and his setup was not   
   workable in windows... kinda like mine... there's no way i can do on windows   
   or linux what i do in OS/2... especially not with how i've used 4DOS/4OS2   
   scripting capabilities and definitely not with all the DOS software in   
   operation... heck, it won't even work in a pure DOS environment any more...   
      
   )\/(ark   
      
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