Posts tagged patches

Welcome to the Everyday IT blog!  My sincere hope is that I can bring some pretty considerable experience to bear to help you, Joe User with your everyday computing needs, issues, questions and problems.  If you have specific computer-related questions or concerns you would like me to answer or investigate please feel free to leave a comment here.. I’ll respond to you as quickly as possible. Who knows.. I might even blog about your question!

Besides being the IT manager for a suburban Atlanta technology firm I find myself frequently playing the role of “computer guy” for my family, friends and a few small businesses around town.  I really enjoy doing this sort of work.. I take great pleasure in turning those frustrating situations around, especially when I can save someone real money.  Unfortunately, many regular computer users forget that once the problem has been solved they need to learn from the mistake that got them in the weeds in the first place and change their computing habits.  Over the next few articles I’m going to outline a few of these very common mistakes.. so off to lesson 1!

I’m going to focus on Windows users for this lesson.  One of the most common mistakes I see when I initially diagnose a computer issue is the lack of attention paid to Windows Updates.  Everyone loves to beat on Microsoft for one reason or another and in many circumstances they have brought this criticism upon themselves.  In my 17 years in the IT field I have seen many Microsoft programs released to the world that should have never made it past their corporate bug-checkers.  That said, Microsoft is pretty decent about releasing bugfixes and patches for those products when a flaw or security hole shows up.  In many cases these updates that wait patiently for your attention behind the Windows Update shield could be the very solution for those strange issues your computer is having.  Take the time to notice and apply those updates.. while they may be time-consuming from time to time to run I have rarely seen the application of a patch make a problem worse.  Better yet.. schedule those updates to run while you’re not using the system.. your computer will be better off for it!