As the day draws to a close, I pack my bag for the long commute home, up the stairs. On my Mac, I finish what I was doing and get up. On my laptop, I close the lid. As the Mandalorian might say, "This is the way". I have carried this habit across to the ThinkPad. I just close the lid.
This is very much NOT the way. Windows is all together a primmer operating system than MacOS. A place for everything and everything in its place. It does not audibly object when I close the lid on a series of open windows, but I'm sure it huffs and puffs internally. Gradually, though, performance begins to suffer. Yesterday, the laptop had a strop and sulked. Seriously, Windows Hello stopped working. It crossed its arms, pursed its lips and shook its head.
Windows Hello is how the machine greets me. It runs face recognition through the camera or fingerprint recognition on a chic little sensor next to the trackpad, or it will even allow me to type in a PIN like some troglodyte. While Apple Users crossed their fingers and hoped that their device would soon have their favourite opening biometric method, Windows machines included all of them as standard.
However, yesterday, face recognition stopped working. I got various error messages, including "Could not open camera". Only PIN entry would allow me in.
Mildly irritated and more than a little intrigued, I opened Edge and began searching for a solution. Guided by a support article, I scrolled through various Windows settings, and long-buried memories resurfaced, and a smile came to my lips.
Unbidden, my fingers reconfigured to opposite corners of the keyboard, settling on Ctrl, Alt and Delete. I hit the power icon and selected restart. I thought I heard a satisfied sigh as the screen darkened and then returned. The slightest glance at my face and Windows Hello welcomed me to my desktop.
"Turn it off and turn it on again."
Now, I know I'm back on Windows.
What had upset the mechanism, I have no idea. I prefer to think that the system is wagging its finger at me, scolding me for not tidying as I go.
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