Last week my computer went through a routine automatic (scheduled) download and intallation of an update to Windows Live OneCare. The restore utility did NOT work. Subsequent to a wait of more than an hour on the phone, I spoke to a tech at Microsoft who told me that the reason my computer crashed was due to a corrupted hard drive. (No duh.)
The computer crashed soon after I clicked on the balloon that told me that OneCare had downloaded and installed an update, and that the installation had required a restart of my computer. I explained this to the tech, but of course I got a lot of excuses and he refused to admit that Windows Live OneCare was at fault for the corrupted hard drive.
I couldn't get the computer to boot no matter what (the tech walked me through some steps to try to recover from the crash--no luck, of course). So, I had to call in a local computer guru that I've used in the past. After the Microsoft tech told me I would have to reformat my hard drive and re-install Windows XP, my guru friend managed to prove him wrong. When my friend took the computer home with him, he found 1 virus and 6 parasites on my computer. He had it back up and running shortly thereafter. I was elated, but at the same time VERY aggravated that Microsoft would tell me that my hard drive needed to be reformatted. I would have lost ALL of my programs (I have all of my files backed up on an online service, but it doesn't backup programs).
The OneCare restore function sucks. The tech support I received sucked even more.
I'm going back to using Kaspersky.
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