The Hopefully Test

Here’s something I’ve noticed over the last 12 months of project work…where IT is involved, the word “hopefully” gets used a lot. I’ve started pulling people up on that, although it’s not something I can carry on doing without becoming annoying!

It’s a reflection on how complex, unpredictable and unreliable most IT systems and projects are. People who say “hopefully” are reflecting how un-empowered they feel and how unsure of behaviour and outcome.

So far today I have heard it used a dozen times in an IT context, the last time by the receptionist at the local clinic when I needed a password reset. It’s surprisingly hard to stop saying it, I’ve tried but still catch myself doing it. It’s become embedded in our psyche about IT.

Windows backup

Just wanted to remind myself of the outcome of a fairly lengthy battle with Windows 7 trying to figure out why my backups stopped working. With the emphasis on moving to Windows 8, I wanted to P2V my physical laptop and see if I could restore it from a Windows backup – maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t.

Before I could get to this stage though my backups started failing. The link that described my problem and gave a solution is here http://superuser.com/questions/411474/windows-backup-fails-with-0x80070002-the-system-cannot-find-the-file-specified.

The relevant piece being:
DISKPART> automount enable

Although I have no idea how it got turned off.