The weirdest thing just happened. All of a sudden a random error message concerning Panda AV appeared on my desktop, complaining about some missing dll file. And then another. And another. And then several concerning Dropbox and more missing DLLs. Then my firefox.exe seems to just have disappeared. So I fire up good old Internet Explorer to download the McAfee Stinger and see if something has gone terribly wrong. Trying to start the Stinger, it fails, complaining about yet another missing DLL. I want to go back to IE to look for hints on what the hell is going on... and IE doesn't start anymore either.
Reboot. Dropbox and AV don't start, instead more error messages, browsers still not working. I try to restore the system to the last Restoration Point this noon before Windows Updates. No luck. I hastily dig out my external HDD and back up whatever I can before this ship sinks. Meanwhile I start downloading the Win8 installation files and putting together a bootable USB drive on my Netbook.
About 2 hours later, I decide to have a look at how broken my system has become in the meantime (I just left it running all the while). And... Firefox started, again. I try starting Stinger... and it works (and finds nothing). I reboot and Dropbox and Panda start again, no error messages whatsoever.
What the hell was that? I think, at some point - I think it was during restoration - I read my Windows partition declared as F: - which it is in fact not. Maybe that's what butchered stuff. In the Explorer I still could access C: normally, and did in fact not find the missing DLLs where they were supposed to be. At first, I suspected my SSD was failing, but maybe it was some weird software glitch. Bah, I hope it doesn't come back.
