Issues W/Looney Toons Cable Tech Support

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I'm still having flashbacks on this . . . weekend before last I spent the better part of it trying to get McAfee Internet Security to reinstal on my brother's desktop PC. He's had it on there before, then switched to a trial of Norton, which ran out before we could purchase the full version, now he wanted it switched back.

Frankly, if he'd just leave stuff alone instead of fiddling w/stuff, I'd have less headahces, but I digress.

We have McAfee for free w/our internet subscription (for what Looney Toons Cable bills us each month for the triple play package we should get something for free but I digress again.)

If Death Star was bad enough on their DSL tech support, Looney Toons is . . . let's just say I hope the company they're merging with has better support.

So on Sunday before last, after two afternoons of going in circles myself w/the attempted installation. What's going on is that the product will spend 20-30 minutes just cleaning threats off the PC, then download the files and then give a message saying that the software couldn't install the needed features for the program to work and our only option given is to try to reinstall the software.

(The desktop PC in question is a Dell Insprion 537, running Windows 7 Home Premium.)

So I log into the Cable account, and pull up online chat. I describe the issue and wait for a rep to become available.

A few moments later, a rep comes online and I explain what's going on after the usual exchange of perfunctory greetings. Rep #1 has me attempt a new install of the program.

We do this, and it hangs where it is at stage 1 and cleaning threats (I also looked into the day before on doing a factory install but the 2 discs that came w/the program do not have the install program - Dell specs say it's supposed to be on a partition of the hard drive, which we do not have. And there are no homemade recovery discs - why my brother didnt think to do that, I don't know. But I can't revert the drive back w/the System Restore in Windows far back enough b/c the furthest date back is almost 2 weeks before and 2 attempts to roll back didn't work.)

Meanwhile I've been on chat for about an hour by this point and the rep decides to escalate to the advanced support team. So I sit and wait for another tech to come online.

Go through the same spiel w/the 2nd tech . . . only after another attempt to reinstall, I find out I've been transferred to tech support for Ohio customers. I am in North Carolina, which is nowhere near Ohio.) By this time, it's been two hours or better, all we've done is go in a loop w/attempting to reinstall this program and it's starting to get a bit like the Wabbit Season/Duck Season spiel.

Another tech comes on (this is the 3rd tech now) and it's going on 3 hours now. I am watching the time on the desktop, so I know how long I've been on this damn contraption. We go through the same spiel and by this time, I'm letting this one know that 2 techs before had me in this endless loop that's getting me nowhere. Rep seems to understand and has me remove the download and reboot the computer. I have a link saved to reconnect to chat, so I do this.

Reconnect to chat and I find out I'm back w/tech support in Ohio. Then the first rep that I was originally on chat w/came on

I politely typed in "I"ve been on this for 3 hours now and all it's been is an endless loop w/no result. Issue is still not resolved, I quit," shut down the online chat and haven't even filed out the survey yet (it should be on my brother's email, which is primary.)

So right now he's using AVG free until we can either (a) get a new subscription for Norton paid for or (b) we get him an new PC, which we may end up doing before Christmas.

Am I the only one who hates contacting tech support?

[dawnfire]

stick with AVG free, I've been using it for nearly 20 years with no problems

[Deserted]

Add my vote for AVG Free. I've used both McAfee and Norton in the past, and while they were both good in their time, they... well... in my opinion, they're crap now. Have been for some time, really.

[EricKei]

I was in love with AVG Free until it auto-"upgraded" to their new AVG Zen version earlier this year. It was slow as hell, on both 7 and 10 x.x Using Panda now.

As for the install partition -- It should be hidden, and can be pulled up by going into diagnostic mode on boot.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I

As for the install partition -- It should be hidden, and can be pulled up by going into diagnostic mode on boot.

I think I recall seeing the install partition when searching the drive by going into the C:/Dell folder but it had a lock on it.

This is why on both my laptops I have factory restore options available. On the Dell laptop (which I'm using ATM) it's in a partition. Only catch to that is that I have to activate the hidden administrator account in Windows fist before running it, otherwise I'm golden. I can't recall why there wasn't a set made other than we thought we had those already. . . . it's been a few years since we bought this machine (2009 I think?) and we've not really had much trouble out of it.

Toshiba laptop has a built in program for creating your own restore discs, which I discovered before even turning it on that first time . . . I read through the manual and learned that and quickly bought DVD's for that reason. I have a 4 DVD set of the factory restore image and Windows for that laptop (that came in handy last summer when trying to upgrade to 10 - had so many issues that first week I used the discs twice before getting the thing straightened out. Those DVDs are a lifesaver for that one at least.)

IIRC, that diagnostic mode should be under the Repair Your Computer options after accessing he menu (we use F8 key when the screen starts to come on). So I should be able to access that partition when running under that mode, right?

I've got all week . . . off this week on vacation (yay!) Other than a mammogram scheduled for tomorrow, I've got the rest of the week free to play with it.

And right now, the Toshiba is in my brother's room (no where to put it where the kittens can't climb all over it right now in either office or bedroom) so he can use that while I'm fooling w/the desktop again.

[TheSHAD0W]

AVG Free has been devolving more and more into nagware, and I wound up dropping it. I've switched to Bitdefender Free, it's nice and low-profile.