Some weird issues and more SCs.

[sld72382]

1). Tales of wireless utilities gone bad.

As anyone in tech support knows, many times you have to disable the 3rd party wireless utility the client is using and switch to the microsoft utility in order to get him/her back online. Pretty much 100% that's enough, but this week I had TWO cases where I actually had to uninstall the 3rd party utility to get the client back online.

The first case was her IBM utility - even when it was disabled from starting up, it would grab a hold of her internet connection and not let go. After removing it, problem fixed. Second case was even worse - it was the linksys utility and when I disabled it from starting up it would freeze windows. I uninstalled it and that was that.

2). I'm not failing an audit just so you can keep something.

A long time ago, we used to be able to let the client keep the software we used to troubleshoot the machine. Until we got a few calls where the client was having trouble with the software, and if they were out of warranty we told them they needed to pay, and they screamed "if you installed it you should support it for free!"

Well this week I see the problem is fixed and I begin to uninstall the software starting with CounterSpy. He puts up an argument "how would they know," I explain policy that we need to remove it and if he wants he he can go to the vendors website and re-download it. He accuses me of "hiding behind policy" and hangs up. Thankfully, I was able to uninstall it before he did.

3). I can see this happening with IE - but firefox?

Woman calls up with a weird issue - she can't get her AOL email through Firefox.
First it takes me 20 minutes to connect to her via remote access because she can't find the address bar in Firefox and she seems to not know how to use IE.

Well I get in and have a look - first off she has too many startup items, I disable that and reboot. Next I found the reason why she couldn't find the address bar in Firefox - she unchecked the "navigation toolbar!" She claims she never did that and "it happened after it said I needed to update it," so I uninstall and reinstall it just to appease her.

The problem basically was fixed, but here comes the sucky part. Her machine was running slow even after clearing startup (her PC was clean of spyware as well), but that's because she only had 448mb of RAM after the onboard video - and she had Vista basic. When I tell her she should upgrade the RAM because the computer is running below spec to run Vista, she immediately went into a tirade that included "but it's only 3 months old!," "I told the salesguy I wanted a good computer, now I found out they sold me crap!" and "why would they sell a computer that can't even handle the software that's put on it?!" She said she would get the memory, but not after basically accusing me of bashing the machine (which I did not, and I could get docked on an audit for that). But what I am supposed to do, lie to her?

[Midnight12]

cussed out if you do, docked if you don't....not fair

[HawaiianShirts]

Her machine was running slow even after clearing startup (her PC was clean of spyware as well), but that's because she only had 448mb of RAM after the onboard video - and she had Vista basic. When I tell her she should upgrade the RAM because the computer is running below spec to run Vista, she immediately went into a tirade that included "but it's only 3 months old!," "I told the salesguy I wanted a good computer, now I found out they sold me crap!" and "why would they sell a computer that can't even handle the software that's put on it?!"

Honestly, I don't know why we sold Vista systems with 512mb memory in them. Thankfully, I don't have any more.

But I'll bet you dollars to donuts that this woman was one of the cheap customers I get from time to time. They tell me they want the best computer available and won't give me any information as to how they plan to use it. So I show them the best computer we've got. They tell me to slow down because that's WAY too expensive and they don't need "all the bells and whistles." What they actually want is the best computer for the lowest price. Well, naturally. So does everybody else. But for these folks that translates into the cheapest computer I have.

I'll try to sell them something inexpensive but good enough to do what they want (and, sometimes, with just a little bit extra for them to grow into). But many will insist that they only need and only want the cheapest possible and refuse to listen to anything I say. That's why they end up running Vista Basic on a 512mb system. And, of course, when they call you, it's my fault for selling them something slow and your fault for pointing it out.

Argh.