Windows 10

Yesterday, I checked a message I’d gotten from my computer, Lenovo, telling me I could, should, download the latest version of Windows. Yes, Windows 10. So I clicked on the message, which took me to the Internet, where I clicked on the free download. Free, it said. Is anything on the Internet free? It downloaded and downloaded and I sat here clicking on all the little boxes about accepting terms and clicking “next” and “finish” and every other box they threw at me. See, I just referred to them as “they.” Who the hell are “they?” Are there really people out there, up there, who give a good damn about me and my computer concerns? Is someone keeping track of all my stuff on The Cloud? And what exactly is “The Cloud?” I don’t know and I don’t know anyone else who knows? I envision someone who looks a lot like Frank Morgan, the Great Oz, smiling down at me from his place on The Cloud, with that odd combination in his smile of friendliness and evil. The world has gotten too technically complex for a man as simple as I. After it (They) finally finished loading Windows 10, I was asked how satisfied I was with the new look. I checked the box for 4 out of 5. Always good to tell these people that you like what they do but still leave room for improvement. Don’t want to bow too low or scrape too loudly. I sat and admired my new Windows look. Ah, but then I got a box telling me I had twenty outdated drivers. I don’t know what a driver is or what it does, but outdated sounds bad and I trust the Great Oz. Or is it that I’m afraid of what he might do to me if I don’t trust him? I checked the box to say I wanted to upgrade my twenty drivers. I was taken to the Internet upgrade site where I found that I could upgrade for only $29.95. Fearful that bad things would happen to me and my Lenovo if I didn’t have new drivers, I agreed. The download would begin as soon as I called an 800 number to get my verification code. I called and was connected to a young man named Russell who spoke very rapidly in an Indian accent just heavy enough that I couldn’t quite understand what he was saying. An Indian, named Russell? How odd, I thought. Russell wanted my permission to take over my computer so he could expedite the process. I agreed and then watched him speed my cursor here, there, and everywhere, clicking, clicking, clicking. Finally, he was done, but then he wanted to explain about all the potential viruses and Internet dangers that lurked just outside my computer doors, and all the firewalls he could put up for me . . . for a very minimal annual fee. I said no, I didn’t think I needed any more walls against fire or flood or vicious hackers out to get my identity. We parted amicably, and I then began the process of finishing the driver downloads, a process that seemed to take forever. After nearly ten hours, I got a box that said it was all done and that I could now enjoy my new Windows 10 look. It looks good. And I remember not too many years ago when I bought an AT&T word processor, little more than a typewriter that allowed me to type documents without having to use white-out to repair typing errors. Then I progressed to a tiny Mac with only 40mgs of storage, with funny floppy discs for another 40mgs additional storage. Then a Zip drive that had discs with 100 mgs of space. Now, tiny little thumb drives that seem able to hold the entire Library of Congress in their tiny little thumbs. And every few years a new computer when the old one had crashed too many times, each new monitor a little bigger, each computer a little faster, each with more and more space to store documents and photos and music and movies, each with more and more need to connect to the Internet, each more and more complicated for simple folk like me. Now I’m wondering when I’ll have to do this all again when Windows 11 comes out.