At 5:20 I was just about to grab my bag and go, but was stopped by one of the production guys across the hall complaining of trouble with their GP computer. As I was asking him for details, the guy in the production room next door also complained about the machine in his room… with the same symptoms.

Oh, joy.

At first it looked like a server problem, only those two computers were the only ones experiencing problems. (One of the machines was causing a problem on the server, but once I figured that out I was able to remedy it fairly quickly… albeit not without some frustration.) Full comprehension of the problem came when I realized that those two specific machines are identical vintage-and-model IBM desktop computers, the only two of their kind in the building. Coincidence? I think not!

Now, here’s how this is all my fault in the first place. I rebuilt my software update server a while back, and since the new version of Microsoft’s product allowed me to add “device drivers” to the list of things I could offer, I went ahead and told it to grab available drivers and install them for machines that have the Intel graphics chipsets.

I’ll bet you can already guess which are the only two computers in the building that have Intel 865G video hardware, huh?

Repairing the damage involved hooking up my handy-dandy USB “swiss-army-drive” (loaded with Intel’s motherboard and networking drivers) to both computers, reinstalling both drivers on both machines, and rebooting copiously. Oh, and I told my updater server to never again fiddle with device drivers…

Now I just need to wait for the 7:08pm bus so I can go home at last. Whee!