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Thread: Little Geek Screwups...

  1. #1
    cat /dev/null streetster's Avatar
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    Little Geek Screwups...

    ...isn't it annoying when you make a few keypresses and end up screwing up an unfathomable amount of stuff?

    Yesterday I was having issues with Symantec A/V... wanted to uninstall it, the uninstaller hung (hanged?), rebooted, and it wasnt in Add/Remove anymore... Googled manual uninstallation, saved the html file, booted into safemode (wouldnt work in 'full' xp), deleting all the files, the reg keys etc... saw it said something along the lines of 'search for S-18-1...' and delete.

    which i did. except the line went on to say 'delete all references to Symantec Antivirus'... what I've done is delete all the registry keys concerning the installation details of programs... ie:

    Fire up office, it asks where the symantec a/v installation (installer.msi type thing) is... no idea mate, cancel that, then asks where adobe reader installation is, no idea either, cancel that... then it installs itself and fires up...

    Msn wont work, tries to install itself. fails...

    etc, etc...

    and because i've deleted the reg keys I cant uninstall them from Add/Remove.

    All because I was too hasty with a 'del/y'. two buttons...


    Anyone done anything equally similar from just a few keypresses? or is it just me having a bad day.

  2. #2
    Comfortably Numb directhex's Avatar
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    Re: Little Geek Screwups...

    "del *.*" when i was in the wrong folder (c:\dos, not c:\test)

  3. #3
    Does he need a reason? Funkstar's Avatar
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    Re: Little Geek Screwups...

    I've developed the habit of shift-deleting, by-passing the recycling bin. Mainly because i hate the time it takes to prepair the files for deleting, them moves them, then you have to delete them anyway to free up space and it goes through it all again.

    Did catch me out a few weeks ago when i deleted abou 400 photos by accident. Active Undelete is worth the $40 is cost

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    HEXUS webmaster Steve's Avatar
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    Re: Little Geek Screwups...

    Back when I was at school (mebbe 6 yrs ago now) one of the technicians was writing a batch script to put in the autoexec that would clean some of the junk kids installed.

    He'd been testing it on one machine, found it to be successful, and was about to deploy it to all the machines.

    I got a look at the batch file.

    "CD C:\Progra~1\crap\...
    del /F /S /Q *.*
    CD C:\Progra~1\......."

    Or something like that.

    I pointed out to him that if the first folder didn't exist (which it might not do on all machines) that it'd proceed to delete C:\.

    Luckily he changed the file before deploying it.
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  5. #5
    www.evilmunky.com EvilMunky's Avatar
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    Re: Little Geek Screwups...

    Many moons ago i accidentally deployed Quake 2 to 300 PC's instead of just the IT staff in our office which consisted of 5 machines.

    And yes - you have to be bored when you start packaging games for deployment.

  6. #6
    Flower Child stytagm's Avatar
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    Re: Little Geek Screwups...

    When I was still using Acorns, I had an idle habit of highlighting everything in a folder, then middle-clicking -> delete. It would then ask "are you sure" and I'd say no.

    Problem was it all got a bit too subconscious, and I hit the wrong button one day and it proceeded to delete all my files in alphabetical order, which started with "!Boot" which was the Risc OS system directory. Mangled it completely before I cancelled.

    Many trips to a friend's house with floppy discs ensued
    They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them.

  7. #7
    Splash
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    Re: Little Geek Screwups...

    Flashing my X800 Pro with a blank BIOS rather than an XT BIOS is up there...

  8. #8
    HEXUS webmaster Steve's Avatar
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    Re: Little Geek Screwups...

    Did that limit the functionality somewhat, Splash?
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  9. #9
    Splash
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    Re: Little Geek Screwups...

    It certainly limited my gaming for the weekend until I found someone with a PCI graphics card so I could reflash it. There was a panicky thread here somewhere about it too...

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    Re: Little Geek Screwups...

    While configuring a standard desktop, I accidentally rolled out Dangermouse! wallpaper to several hundred Hospital PC's across scotland....

    Strangely, no one ever complained !
    Even now, years later, I still occasionally see DM & penfold on a doctors pc

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