Ranting about Microsoft and Tech Support in India

I highly recommend this Star Wars story since it is an excellent take on tech support by a company that doesn't really care about such things.
Just remember, things could be worse...

In India someone is laughing about you and your pissant piddly problem.

Take comfort in that, you are he bringing joy to the world.

Recently, I went to house and discovered they had 3 computers in the den. The gentleman had 3 pcs (2 working only 1 used) around the desk. He was telling me the sad tale of how the cable company had sent 3 tech's to fix or upgrade to highest cable speed. They all left without doing anything. When I went to look at the setup, their was wires everywhere. As a result, I spent 6 hours of removing equipment, putting ties on wires, and figuring out that internet network setup. They had a linksys wireless router but no-one knew the password to access it. So the wife had to log onto the neighbors wifi. I replace that router with dual band gaming wifi router. The new router would not work until the cable company flashed the cable modem remotely. Then I could setup the Netgear wireless router. One of the major problems was they are using the cable company cable modem for telephone service and using a 3rd party cable modem for maximum internet speed due to business reasons. His wife would not come into the den because she would see all those wires and would have to leave the room!

As a result, I left with 1 computer running on 2 monitors with a wires neatly tied down. Two printers setup on a stand on tied into the desktop and the labtop tied into the wireless printer. Now for some reason, the HP LaserJet 6L does now work. I can print a test page no problem but when I have it set on default printer it win not print in Windows 7. I think I need to double check the wire connections to the HP LaserJet 6L. I tried reinstalling the printer from printers. Also, the old computer machine needs to be run and all personal info wiped off the XP machine.

Now, the wife loves me and wants to adopt me as a 2nd son! The only other thing I would do is buy some type of conduit from Lowe's or Home Depot to hide the wires. A long time ago I used to work at IBM and had to always make sure that the clients computer wires were neatly done and out of the way. So that meant always tieing down the wires!

Similar story concerning Lotus (Car company). They brought out a new hi tech (for those days) model that had carbon fibre panels. Every third door would delaminate after a couple of months. Put in security cameras and found that a worker would open the conditioning kiln to heat up his pie for lunch on one of the three shifts. There is a similar story going around of an intensive care unit in Africa that kept having mysterious deaths in one bed that were traced back to a cleaner who unplugged the life support system for her polisher.

Thucydides wrote:Back when I worked IT we also had a hilarious problem in a warehouse complex. It seemed that most mornings between 1000hr and 1100hr one leg of the LAN would go out, then restart. The timing was variable, and whenever the tech guys got there, they couldn't find anything wrong.

Finally one of the smart guys decided to get to the warehouse complex before 1000hr and wait. Walking down the hall, he heard the obligatory cursing as the network went down, and rapidly moved from office to office, In one office, a worker was enjoying a cup of tea and seemingly unaffected by the outage. Looking under the desk, the tech discovered the local hub had been unplugged so the tea kettle could be plugged in.....

Later that day my gang showed up with spools of CAT 5 cable, an electrician and a new network hub cabinet to bolt on the wall outside the office.

Lord Skimper wrote:In India someone is laughing about you and your pissant piddly problem.

Take comfort in that, you are he bringing joy to the world.

Or they wonder how we got to be a super power with so many stupid people.

My cursed PC just killed my dvd burner. This computer has had a motherboard replaced & chip replaced, new hard drive, the OP was upgraded to Win 7. Nothing but problems, so I replaced the power supply. Also, I think I am going to replace the surge protector. If that does not fix the problem, it is time to call an electrician to check the wiring for the electric plugs in the wall. I am stumped why I keep having all these problems.

Now, I do think I have solved the problem by replacing the power supply. Just too many weird things have been happening. Anybody else have ideas why this one windows 7 computer system seems to be the bane of my existence. My only consolation is that I have had to back up my hard drive and make system image of it. I at least don't have to call Microsoft about these problems. I don't have to deal with India because of the implementation of regular backup of computers in the house. I have enough spare hard drives and external cases to do the job. Now, if any of the readers have some knowledge & expericance that can recommend some good but fairly inexpensive backup or system imaging software.

DVD burners can be killed by switching from Zone (geographic region) to Zone on DVDs. Thank Sony for this little monopoly maintainer, as they pushed it across the manufacturers to control DMR. I had some UK DVDs and Pacific DVDs, grandson keep switching between them & it died after five changes. Found out it is a hardware switch used to enable them to maintain artificially high media prices in some areas, by preventing you from importing them from cheaper areas. End result is I never buy Sony on anything now, and ensure my DVD equipment does not have a zoning control.

smr wrote:My cursed PC just killed my dvd burner. This computer has had a motherboard replaced & chip replaced, new hard drive, the OP was upgraded to Win 7. Nothing but problems, so I replaced the power supply. Also, I think I am going to replace the surge protector. If that does not fix the problem, it is time to call an electrician to check the wiring for the electric plugs in the wall. I am stumped why I keep having all these problems.

Now, I do think I have solved the problem by replacing the power supply. Just too many weird things have been happening. Anybody else have ideas why this one windows 7 computer system seems to be the bane of my existence. My only consolation is that I have had to back up my hard drive and make system image of it. I at least don't have to call Microsoft about these problems. I don't have to deal with India because of the implementation of regular backup of computers in the house. I have enough spare hard drives and external cases to do the job. Now, if any of the readers have some knowledge & expericance that can recommend some good but fairly inexpensive backup or system imaging software.

Daryl wrote:DVD burners can be killed by switching from Zone (geographic region) to Zone on DVDs. Thank Sony for this little monopoly maintainer, as they pushed it across the manufacturers to control DMR. I had some UK DVDs and Pacific DVDs, grandson keep switching between them & it died after five changes. Found out it is a hardware switch used to enable them to maintain artificially high media prices in some areas, by preventing you from importing them from cheaper areas. End result is I never buy Sony on anything now, and ensure my DVD equipment does not have a zoning control.

smr wrote:My cursed PC just killed my dvd burner. This computer has had a motherboard replaced & chip replaced, new hard drive, the OP was upgraded to Win 7. Nothing but problems, so I replaced the power supply. Also, I think I am going to replace the surge protector. If that does not fix the problem, it is time to call an electrician to check the wiring for the electric plugs in the wall. I am stumped why I keep having all these problems.

Now, I do think I have solved the problem by replacing the power supply. Just too many weird things have been happening. Anybody else have ideas why this one windows 7 computer system seems to be the bane of my existence. My only consolation is that I have had to back up my hard drive and make system image of it. I at least don't have to call Microsoft about these problems. I don't have to deal with India because of the implementation of regular backup of computers in the house. I have enough spare hard drives and external cases to do the job. Now, if any of the readers have some knowledge & expericance that can recommend some good but fairly inexpensive backup or system imaging software.

Poor you guys. NZ has had a requirement for around a decade plus that all products must be region lock free as it was determined that that infeinged on some of our trade laws. so I dont need to do any of that to wach dvds from the family in the uk, and my phone i just swap the sim if i go overseas....

I have been working in the yard all day with a ratty old tee shirt from a computer show. It says:

Macintosh 95
Why wait for Windows 99?

Some service locations have been so bad in providing support (software, utilites, credit cards etc) that I have taken to having the Weather Channel up on the screen when I have to call and then as where the service person is located. When they give an answer, I ask them what the weather is like and punch in the location to WC. Dam funny how badly wrong the service people can be about the weather. I realize they are probably in some windowless room but saying that you have a nice sunny day vs the thunderstorms with tornados that is actually happening is just dumb.

Brigade XO wrote:I have been working in the yard all day with a ratty old tee shirt from a computer show. It says:

Macintosh 95
Why wait for Windows 99?

Some service locations have been so bad in providing support (software, utilites, credit cards etc) that I have taken to having the Weather Channel up on the screen when I have to call and then as where the service person is located. When they give an answer, I ask them what the weather is like and punch in the location to WC. Dam funny how badly wrong the service people can be about the weather. I realize they are probably in some windowless room but saying that you have a nice sunny day vs the thunderstorms with tornados that is actually happening is just dumb.

It´s an extension of the "How are you?", "Good, and you?", "Just fine." greeting ritual.
Most people don´t ask because they want to know, so the norm is to answer "fine" or some variation on it.
I´ve done it on reflex myself far too many times, took me a decade to stop doing it most of the time.