My Gift Is My Curse

Not everyone understands that a “computer guy” isn’t good at everything dealing with computers. I write code for a living; building websites, to be exact. I’m not good with software issues (like when Word decides to eat your document) or with hardware (like when your laptop can’t connect to your wireless router). I’m about 50/50 with providing phone support to my friends and family.

However, it is possible that I have some sort of gift when in the presence of someone else’s computer. Whatever issue they describe to me over the phone will go away when I’m standing in front of it, ready to work on it. This happens over 90% of the time. I should probably go work for Geek Squad. It would be the easiest job ever.

This gift reverses itself, becoming a curse, when I deal with my own equipment. My computers and devices begin to implode when exposed to me for too long. As my brother-in-law can attest to, I fall victim to problems that can’t be easily solved. Even asking the internet doesn’t help.

As part of my Unified Media Collection series of posts, I attempted to install Live Photo Gallery Beta to show how I will unify our photo collection. At the end of the install process, I got this error message:

So, it’s got enough permission to completely wipe out my C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Photo Gallery folder, but not enough to put anything back in. Awesome. Perhaps Vista thinks that I’m not the owner of that folder. Let’s take a look:

As far as Vista is concerned, I am not an administrator when it comes to this folder, and a secret user owns it. This issue also plagues my Apple Update Software app, so I can’t update that (and, in turn, cannot update iTunes). Additionally, I can’t run Windows Update anymore due to Error 80240016 (which I believe is related to this, as it seems that I do not have permission to install or to even check for updates).

I’ve tried all the tricks I can find, which total two: enable the super secret admin account to restore permission and to run takeown to take ownership. Neither one work. The William admin account isn’t really an admin. The administrator admin account is not an admin either.

This is the kind of crap I run into with my computers all the time. No one can ever help me. No one has ever run into any of the issues I find. I get angry and just want to break everything (how my PC is in one piece as I write this is nothing short of an amazing feat of restraint on my part).

My solution: format c:\

When that’s done, spend about $200 on Vista Ultimate. I’m not exactly pleased with that plan, but that’s all I’ve got.

Update: I got two bits of advice today about this problem! My brother-in-law told me to boot into safe mode (repeatedly hit F8 during boot up) and attempt to reset my permissions. Oddly enough, the Photo Gallery folder was no where to be found. I logged back in normally, tried to install it again, and it worked! However, that had no affect on the similar problem I was having with iTunes and Apple Software Update.

In comes commenter Eric, who provided two links for me to look through. The first one had my answer! It took a very long time for the program to run, but by the time it was done I was able to uninstall Apple Software Update, then repair and update iTunes. Thank you Eric!

That just leaves one problem: Windows Update. For about four months now, I have been unable to download any updates for my Vista desktop because of error 80070490. I logged a support request with MS to see if they can help.