Secret doors that you can't come back through.

Well that was a close one.

I went to hook up my scanner yesterday, and it was no go with XP. The company website just came right out and said "we didn't make a new driver. Too damn bad, losers." Her Worshipfulness flat out refused to even consider buying a new scanner. Wild suggestions of setting up the old machine on an as-needed basis or bringing stuff in to work to scan came up. Things were looking grim.

I bemoaned my plight to an associate at work today. He wove a wondrous tale of websites with drivers available for download. I had heard of such things, but never anything as grand as he described. XP drivers created by users and distributed on a no-pay basis? Who are these guys? At the first opportunity, I went out and found the promised driver. Weary and roadworn, I neglected to read the instructions before attempting to install. In the events that followed, I nearly went mad, lost in a labyrinth of .ini files and dizzied by the timewarp of restore points.

Finally success was mine. With pluck and wit, I beat the machine at its own riddle game, winning its servitude forever.