PCLinuxOS was key to saving a Windows PC. Read how below!
Or perhaps I should say "Windows-less" pit? Yes, it is time once again for me to document some of the more recent issues I have been having with Windows. For those wondering, yes - I am referring to the Microsoft operating system that so many people seem stuck on.
The problems started just a few weeks ago (well, shortly after I got iTunes working - again). Perhaps the best sign of impending doom was my wife's ability to access her e-mail using Outlook, the Microsoft e-mail client (well, one of them). Every time she tried to pull down her e-mail, Outlook would choke on it about halfway through and throw an error. She had to resort to checking her mail via a web interface. We had used that in the past with this problem when there was a "bad" e-mail in the queue. In the past, deleting that e-mail usually restored Outlook to proper functioning. That was not occurring in this case, indicative of some deeper problem. I had started to do some research on it, but had not found a good solution yet.
My son was playing some game and as usual, Windows locked up. Upon trying to restart the computer, we discovered that it was stuck in a repeating loop of booting, but as soon as it reached the "Windows is starting up..." screen, it would reboot. I tried several solutions at that point, like booting into safe mode. Unfortunately, no luck.