So far, I have heard one horror story regarding the new Internet Explorer, version 7, which has been out for a week or so.
If anybody still uses AOL – even broadband – and wants to update from IE version 6 to 7, take precautions and first save your file cabinet and important files. Back up your data, Teddy!
My father was the unlucky and unsuspecting soul who lost 2 days of his life trying to right Microsoft’s wrong. Once the new IE was downloaded, it installed itself rather voraciously. Trying to get online after a restart showed that AOL was gone and that MSN was now attempting to gain Internet access! Well, what the heck happened?!
Needless to say nothing worked quite right. He couldn’t get online and there was an important auction to monitor. All his personal files associated with AOL were nowhere to be found, even though technical representatives assured him that all files would withstand the update to a new browser version.
Dear ole Dad has had issues with his Windows XP Dell before, especially since upgrading to a broadband connection via Time Warner, who is his cable provider.
If you didn’t know where to start, who would you call? Dell? Microsoft? (yeah right!) AOL? Time Warner? Your cement-shoe-maker friend, Guido?
The System Restore feature in XP only got him so far. After speaking with one too many artificial voices, he finally found his guardian angel in a human voice who helped resurrect his files from an unknown server somewhere in the bowels of AOL.
The story isn’t finished yet as the missing files are supposed to be available for download today. I wouldn’t hold my breath! But you can surely bet that Dad got the helpful technician’s direct phone number.
The moral of the story is to backup-backup-backup everything. If you don’t keep a copy of the files that are important to you, you do have a real chance of losing them. Simply burning a few discs can save you from endless headaches when disaster strikes.
Another option is to upload files to any of the free storage sites that are all over the Net. Just search for “free online storage” or “free file storage” and you’ll find plenty of places to stash your information.