Having no SENSe

On the fateful day in June, I gave my consent for Vista to apply the latest security patches like I always do. I set Windows Update to download automatically but ask me before doing any updates. Normally, I just want to know what's being updated before I ok it.

It was a different experience that day. After the update, the machine restarted (again, with my permission) but it could not start properly. There is no network and lots of things are NOT working.

I did a lot of digging in the web. I went down to the server to Google for a solution since my notebook could not connect to anywhere. I was appalled to find that many share the same fate. Some even reverted / downgraded back to Windows XP out of frustration.

I kinda like Windows Vista even thought it's sluggish with 2 GB. After trying some suggestions to no avail, I formatted my C:\ drive and reinstalled every thing. My data in in D:\ so no major problems with data loss.

Due to the problem arising during the upgrade, SENS (the System Event Notification Service) could not start anymore. A lot of other services are dependent on SENS. If SENS is not running, they don't run. These services include Event Log (I could not find out what went wrong), the System Restore (I could not undo the damage), DHCP (I could not connect to the network and hence dropped 90% in my resourceful index), among others.

It was the first time I had such painful experience stemming from an innocent Windows Update from Microsoft. Who woulda thunk it?

With no SENS(e), I had time to think while re-installing the notebook.

1. Communication is key. A notebook that cannot connect to a network is pretty useless to me.
2. It's not nice to be isolated.
3. Do not take things for granted. I must have applied Windows Updates hundreds of times. I never expected it to cause any problems, much less a problem of this magnitude.
4. Do on depend on our own ability (or notebook) for it can and will fail us. (Refer to Murphy's Law.)
5. Only God can be trusted.

I pride myself as an IT-savvy person. People turn to me for help and advice (these are the poor folks who don't know anyone better, hehe.) But I was stumped then.

Today, my Dell notebook is running along fine (albeit jogging would be a better fit to the speed it's moving along.) I hope I will not get another such episode. But I will not be surprised anymore.