Last Saturday afternoon, I had a computer snafu that was more annoying than destroying. I thought I would talk about it here so that you won’t be surprised if it happens to you.
On Friday, I got a message that Microsoft wanted to do an update and restart my computer. I put it off until the evening and then let it run. On Saturday morning, my computer worked, but a couple of my settings had changed.
I am participating in Nanowrimo and writing about 5,000 words a day. Needless to say, I’m on the computer a lot, and I need it to work. On Saturday, I got a notice that Microsoft wanted to do another update. (Or maybe it was the same update. I have no idea.) I waited until I was done writing for the day (which was about 3 p.m), and I started the update.
I did chores for the rest of the afternoon, and when I checked on my computer, I expected to see a blue screen with the percent of the update left to run. Instead, my laptop had a black screen and the words “Undoing changes made to your computer…” across the bottom. I would have been concerned, but it also had a spinning circle of dots, so I figured something was happening.
I left my computer alone until after dinner (about 6 p.m.), but the screen never changed. That was when I decided something was wrong. I used Google on my phone and found out this was a common error message. The solution was to restart the computer in safe mode and remove the update.
Sure.
I followed the instructions to do that, and nothing happened. My computer had no desire to be in safe mode. I spent about two hours, while watching a movie, researching what to do, and telling the computer I DID NOT want a factory reset.
I eventually did a Dell diagnostic test, not because I thought it would help, but because I knew it wouldn’t hurt. It ran for about three hours, and I went to bed.
My computer beeped at 11 p.m., and I tried to open safe mode again without any luck. At that point, I just turned off my computer and went back to bed.
I woke up at 3 a.m. (I had to go for a walk at 4) and tried to start the computer. I restarted it about ten times. On the eleventh time, my computer started normally—no more error message.
I had to enter my Microsoft password, not my PIN, but everything worked perfectly. Microsoft must have fixed the error because I never did anything helpful.
One friend of mine got the same screen after doing a Microsoft update that I did, and I don’t know if his computer has recovered yet. From what I read on Google, this error wasn’t unusual.
I hope this doesn’t happen to you. It’s not fatal, but I couldn’t use my computer for about twelve hours, and if I hadn’t finished my writing, I would have been pissed.
Also, I hadn’t backed up my computer for a week and hadn’t backed up my Nanowrimo project at all. That concerned me more than the error message. I already had 35,000 words typed and didn’t want to lose them. Don’t add to your panic by not backing up your computer. Errors can happen at any time.
Get a large usb stick (very cheap) and direct your file history to save there (in control panel) and make sure wherever your word documents are saved, in documents or your desktop or another location is save by file history. Create a word autosave folder on the stick also, then go to file-options- save in Word and make sure that autosave is clicked as well as save the last autorecovery save if I close without saving and that the autorecovery file location is pointed at the word autosave folder on your stick. Then you never have to worry about losing work and you know right where to go if you need those autosave files. And they are accessible without any hassle if your computer croaks as well as all your other Word documents.
And of course, keep the usb stick plugged in all the time (except when you need the port for something else and plug back in right away.)
Addendum: File History just works and you should always use it. It will save everything you told it to as often as you tell it to, so you don’t need to worry about backups, everything is saved. With Microsoft pushing Office 365 and Onedrive things can get hinky every time they update office and just in general so unless you test and know how to mess with built in default file locations with office maybe you shouldn’t deal with changing autosave file locations.