Two Days Ago

Me: What do you want me to save if I have to reformat?
Client: Oh, nothing really. Just uh, what’re they called? Favorites or something? Those.
Me: You’re sure that’s it? Nothing else? When you reformat, everything gets erased.
Client: Yeah, that’s it. I don’t really do much on that thing.
Me: Okay…

Today

Client: Uh, where’s my address book?
Me: Address book?
Client: (visibly annoyed) You know, the address book. All my email addresses in Netscape.
Me: Oh my. I did a reformat, so it’s gone.
Client: It’s GONE? All of them??
Me: Well, yeah. The reformat wiped everything off, and now it’s using Thunderbird.
Client: (even more agitated) And there’s no way to get them back?
Me: No…I’m really sorry….this is, uh, why I asked you the other day exactly what you wanted me to save…
Client: (grumpy silence)

He didn’t even mention his documents, which I saved and restored anyway just in case.

I killed Windows 98 and put on clean install Windows 2000, which though not as nice as XP, is infinitely more stable than 98. (I consider Win98 such a complete piece of shit that I want to kill it anywhere I see it). I also tripled his memory from 64 to 192–which helped it immensely–but he was so pissed about his address book I don’t think he cared much about these improvements. At some point somebody had suggested to him that he ought to get away from IE, which is normally a very good suggestion–except this time it wasn’t, because installing the elephantine Netscape 7/8 on a Pentium II with a 3GB drive is a little bit like trying to fit a hippo in a VW bug. I wouldn’t have guessed he had a gargantuan address book in it, because he said it was acting funny, and he made it sound like he barely used it.

Last thing, a note to self: using the word “killed” in reference to the programs on a retired person’s computer just makes them panic. Stick with “remove.”