A tale of two operating systems - a true story!

WITH APOLOGIES TO CHARLES DICKENS.

It was the best of ... okay, not really - in short, last night I was asked to come over and keep an eye on James and his friend who were working on a school project, while his mother went out to have a coffee with friends.

I arrived and the boys were in the basement - one working on science, and the other working on killing zombies on his PlayStation (apparently they'd switch assignments often). His mother was upstairs watching a stream of a tv show on James' laptop because her battery had died on her Mac.

When her show finished, she closed the browser and I saw James' Linux desktop (James asked me to install Linux on his laptop because he found Windows 7 too slow and he could never get any school work done with it because of that). Before I had a chance to ask her why she was using his laptop and running Linux at that - she stated that since I installed Linux on the laptop, Windows 7 doesn't work any more!! She had tried watching her show with Windows 7 and the internet was really slow and she couldn't get it to work, so she got James to show her how to use Linux.

"Uh - NO it has nothing to do with Windows working or not" I replied. I explained to her that when the computer boots up you are presented with a choice of operating systems, LXLE Linux or Windows 7 - you are either running one, or the other - NOT both. So if Windows 7 isn't working, it's Windows that is causing the issue NOT Linux. If Linux isn't working, it's an issue with Linux, NOT Windows.

Yes, I get the fact that she and countless others were indoctrinated into the "Windows is the greatest software in the world" club, and she insisted that I fix the problem with Linux because she had resumes and other important files she doesn't want to lose on his laptop.

Why don't you put that in your blog, she said with a smile on her face! Well, of course I will, and I reiterated that the issue IS NOT with Linux, but is Windows-based because it's ONLY happening while Windows is running.

As she was heading out, I rebooted the laptop and started Windows 7 - sure enough, when I tried to open a browser I noticed the problem - A popup window informing me that I needed to call a 1-800 number to fix the issues with Windows. Upon disconnecting the laptop from the internet, I closed down the open popup browsers and logged into my Norton account to do a complete scan of the whole system.

As I now had about a half hour to wait for the antivirus scan to complete, I decided to take the dog for a walk. I checked on the boys, and yes, some science work was still getting done between zombie strikes - and in fairness to them, they are off today and tomorrow as the school gives them free days to catch up on school projects and homework, so the zombies wasn't a major distraction.

When Maggie and I got back, Norton had found and quarantined or removed eight Trojan Viruses and a few Malware programs in the Windows system. I decided to leave the results screen open as evidence of the crime, and the innocence of the Linux system in the implication of events.

I can't emphasize enough, that if you are running any version of Windows, you are always susceptible to threats especially with your browsing habits. An antivirus program is a necessity, and it needs to be used everytime the system is turned on, not sparingly because you have other things to do with your time right now on the internet.