Ranting about Microsoft and Tech Support in India

To set the stage, I had to upgrade 2 computers from windows xp to windows 7. The computers use office 2007. Now, I had to upgrade my router that sent signals through the phone wire to create a network that hooked up to my cable modem. Well, I replaced the phone router with a wireless router. I spend 4 hours on tech support based in India. I get the router all set connected to the internet through an ethernet cable from the router to the computer. It works great but when I try log on using one of the labtops wirelessly. Well the tech says for small fee of $99 that they would fix the problem? Are you kidding me? I took that router back and bought a button push auto configuring router. It took 10 to 15 minutes to start running wirelessly.

Problem 2: I updated to Windows 7 from windows XP. I had to reinstall office 2007 on the upgrade. The dang problem of office licensing kept coming up. I looked through the office support forums at Microsoft and found that it's a listed problem. Now I tried running the Microsoft Fix-It program and it would not work. As a result, I call Microsoft Tech support and reach a tech based in India. I run through the troubleshooting process and the tech can not understand why I can not use telephone support menu. I give the guy to Microsoft's support page explaining the particular problem. At the end, he explains for $99 fee that his tech would fix the problem. At this point, I blew my lid because it's a known problem listed as one of six possible scenarios that could occur. I recall and get another Indian tech support. Next, I call customer support and explain the problem. They transfer me to tech support based in America. We go through the problem and American based tech support suggests reinstalling. I felt so stupid...I could have saved myself so much time. It took about 5 or 6 reinstallations before office 2007 reactivation would allow me to use the telephone reactivation menu would work. No problems since then but the outsourcing to India and the $99 small fee to fix the Microsoft created huge customer dissatisfaction. I don't want to hear that Microsoft warranty is good for a year after purchase when I bought multiple volume licenses for Windows 7 and Office 2007. Their Microsoft products and should be able to upgrade seamlessly. I would have gone and bought an Apple just to spite Microsoft. This upgrade was for my parents and my big sister. It's weird because their usually is never a problem with my Microsoft upgrades.

You can replace MS Office with freeware called OpenOffice. Will run under Windows, Mac or LINUX

You can replace Windows on any PC with LINUX, which can be had for a nominal fee or for free, depending on what distribution you choose.

Problem solved

You can send me a small fee of $98 if you wish

Alternatively if you want your Windows 7 problems to not seem so bad you can install Windows 8. You will then think of the Windows 7 days as the golden era.

Too true. I've avoided Windows 8 myself, where ever possible. But I recently purchased a laptop and it came with that evil program. I promptly reformatted and installed 7 on it.

But the rumbles I have heard in the tech community are that Windows 8 has been a huge bust on the private consumer side. Companies such as Dell and Toshiba, etc, who build premade machines bought Win 8 in mass quantities, boosting revenue and sales numbers. This happens all the time for major software releases. But they did this without realizing how much people dislike Win 8. Tanking sales have gotten their attention.

Consumers, by and large, have expressed this by doing what I did, loading Win 7 back on their machines. So Microsoft has seen a large down check in the use of the update feature on Win 8. They recently announced some planned changes to in the next revision of Win 8. To bring back the start menu, to change some of the side bars, and include a 'boot to desktop' option.

Tablet and touch screen computer users find Win 8 more palatable, I am told. But even they are crying foul over the changes.

IMHO Microsoft should recognize the fundamental difference in what most users need and want. People buy PC's all the time. PC's which are far in excess of their needs. GPU and CPU wise.

For the majority of home users, I would suggest a glorified tablet will do just fine. A keyboard, mouse, touch screen and speaker set up. They are using their PC's for media, web surfing, e-mail and documents.

Work machines might need a bit more horsepower to handle the some software, but little more than the home PC user.

The people who drive much of the industry development in the home PC world are gamers. The development of new GPUs and audio devices which are in the higher end systems are far more overkill then the average users need.

So you end up with a few categories of users: tablets for media and basics, basic PC's, and gaming machines. Microsoft could tailor their products with a simple series of selections during install of a Windows OS to support all three types with a basic set of improved user interfaces.

What I find funny is MS claiming abou how many people bought Win 8, then you look at the OS figures provided by research groups who found that a large percentage have promptly switched back to XP and 7. MS is in it up to its ears at the moment regarding 8. stuff 8.1, bring on a good win 9 that is an improved XP/7. You can polish the poop of the interface which 8 has, but its still a poop interface.

lol Pretty much covers it. The figures Microsoft likes to boast are the ones for mass purchases, such as Dell makes to preload on their machines. A better number, IMO, is how many people purchase upgrades for their existing machine or buy the new software in whole, outright.

That will tell you how much people are truly interested in the product. Most people just use whatever Dell, or HP provide. They don't care very much about the OS as long as they can get their job done.

Fireflair wrote:lol Pretty much covers it. The figures Microsoft likes to boast are the ones for mass purchases, such as Dell makes to preload on their machines. A better number, IMO, is how many people purchase upgrades for their existing machine or buy the new software in whole, outright.

That will tell you how much people are truly interested in the product. Most people just use whatever Dell, or HP provide. They don't care very much about the OS as long as they can get their job done.

And I bet that numbers around a million, if that......

Alienware is owned by Dell and they offer windows 7 64 bit version...that tells me the geeks and techies like the old operating system. Normally, the geeks and techies adopt the newest operating system before anyone else does. Hmm....Windows 8 sounds like a dud!

Fireflair wrote:lol Pretty much covers it. The figures Microsoft likes to boast are the ones for mass purchases, such as Dell makes to preload on their machines. A better number, IMO, is how many people purchase upgrades for their existing machine or buy the new software in whole, outright.

That will tell you how much people are truly interested in the product. Most people just use whatever Dell, or HP provide. They don't care very much about the OS as long as they can get their job done.

smr wrote:Alienware is owned by Dell and they offer windows 7 64 bit version...that tells me the geeks and techies like the old operating system. Normally, the geeks and techies adopt the newest operating system before anyone else does. Hmm....Windows 8 sounds like a dud!

Probably a good point. Though I'd add that no serious gamer uses Alienware anymore. Before Dell bought it up, they were top end custom systems. Now they've been changed a lot by dell.

Build a system on the Alienware site. The best one you can.

Then go to any of a half dozen other sites, iBuyPower for example, and build the best system you can there. You'll get far more bang for the buck away from Alienware. And if you want to pour the money on, you'll get a far better system then the best that Alienware has.

One of the sadder things in life, for me, was seeing Alienware go the corporate route of Dell.

Fireflair wrote:

smr wrote:Alienware is owned by Dell and they offer windows 7 64 bit version...that tells me the geeks and techies like the old operating system. Normally, the geeks and techies adopt the newest operating system before anyone else does. Hmm....Windows 8 sounds like a dud!

Probably a good point. Though I'd add that no serious gamer uses Alienware anymore. Before Dell bought it up, they were top end custom systems. Now they've been changed a lot by dell.

Build a system on the Alienware site. The best one you can.

Then go to any of a half dozen other sites, iBuyPower for example, and build the best system you can there. You'll get far more bang for the buck away from Alienware. And if you want to pour the money on, you'll get a far better system then the best that Alienware has.

One of the sadder things in life, for me, was seeing Alienware go the corporate route of Dell.

I never bought alienware computer but I always wanted a gaming labtop. My desktops are home built and usually better than the big business builds of HP, Samsung, Sony, or Dell.