30 posts in 30 days #7: Workarounds

workaroundToday’s xkcd cartoon inspired this post. (Shown right.)

The most recent and annoying workaround I’ve used was the need to install a virtual machine running Windows XP on my wife’s Windows 7 x64 desktop just to run OCLC’s Connexion Client. Finally, last week, I was able to install OCLC’s v2.2 update which included support for x64 systems.

So I’m going to ask, what’s the most obnoxious workaround you’ve used to solve a problem, computer-related or not?

P.S. Using Firefox and Word 2007 I couldn’t actually get the instructions in the cartoon to work. You know I had to give it a try.

One Reply to “30 posts in 30 days #7: Workarounds”

  1. I don’t know if this counts as an “obnoxious workaround,” but I keep an old machine running primarily to use a late 1990s copy of “Adobe Photo DeLuxe Business Edition” because its built-in shortcuts are the quickest way to accomplish some .tiff to .jpg transitions I use for image editing.
    This composite image combining a drawing extracted from a U.S. patent office .tiff and several photo .jpgs is one example of why I want to do this.
    Other image editing software I’ve tried (both open source & proprietary) either is much more cumbersome or just will not make that transition.
    Unfortunately the software will not run on 64 bit OS.

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