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Apr. 9th, 2003 12:08 amTidbit of information #1: My first job in the tech industry was as a support engineer doing outsource support for Windows 95 (and IE 4 at launch).
Tidbit of information #2: I was, if i do say so myself, damn good at it
Tidbit of information #3: The most important thing i learned there was how to juggle three objects while talking to someone on the phone.
Tidbit of information #4: OEM support are inevitably lazy- they take the easiest route out of an issue often without regard for what's in the best interest of the end user. Good support engineers use the smallest "hammer" necessary to resolve the issue with minimal impact on the user whenever possible. Sometimes it's essential to use the BIG FUCKING HAMMER and totally wipe someone's system but fdisk, format, reinstall should be the last option in most cases.
Tidbit of information #5: Windows Me is a kludged together piece of shit, but, even if you've only ever run it in Hebrew and Arabic, it's possible to troubleshoot if you have a solid understanding of how Win9x and/or 2000/XP work.
I got to help![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hottoastermama and her father fix a problem caused by someone who should not be allowed within 3.25689283753 parsecs of computer hardware and compounded by an inept OEM technician at Dell, who, as near as i can tell, didn't even attempt to diagnose their problem, much less find a suitable solution approach to it. Word of advise to the Dell dude- put down the hookah you've been toking with the annoying-ass kid that appears in the commercials and learn something about the products you support.
When installing a new piece of hardware causes a computer boot issue, the solution is not to run a system restore to an earlier software configuration. The solution is to diagnose the hardware issue and correct it- namely properly assigning IDE devices as master and slave and coaxing Windows into recognizing the change. Restoring Windows is only going to at best hopelessly fuck up the hardware enumeration, and, at worst (as happened in this case), cause WinMe to think of itself as Ouroboros and swallow large chunks of itself.
When Windows can't launch, say Add/Remove Programs from the Control Panel, it's ugly. When Find Files and Folders can find a particular executable, but Windows can't find it when attempting to launch it by double-clicking it from that same search window, that's double-plus fucking ugly.
Fortunately, in order to fix it, it's just necessary to have a cool head, know something about operating system dynamics, and be smarter than Windows ME (which isn't saying much). Convince setup to rerun; reinstall WinME on top of itself (otherwise all the software on the system will need to be reinstalled to reintegrate it into the user hives of the registry, which is a major pain in the ass for the user), which will rebuild the system hives in the registry, including, most importantly, the hardware enumeration and restore the basic OS system file structure. Forty-five minutes after gathering enough information to assess the problem, the system was back up and apparently stable, everything functions as expected, and none of the user data has been lost or compromised. Took an hour and a half or so longer than paving the system and starting over, but this was elegant and unintrusive.
revseandoe: Remember these words:"Thank you for choosing Microsoft products. I hope you've been very satisfied with the support you've received today?" Remember walking out of the building at Keane knowing that you fucking owned Windows and that if it was a bonafide software problem you couldn't fix it was pretty damn likely something so unsupported (or someone else's problem)that no one else was gonna make it work either?
*sigh*
I can't wait until major software manufacturers get really serious about releasing their products for Unix derivatives. Windows isn't much of a challenge to troubleshoot, even remotely, anymore. For what it's worth, i can fix a kernel panic on a Linux system, recompile a kernel from the command line, play with the OS, and run GIMP as readily as Photoshop, but i'd really miss most of the games which run under Windows but won't under the WinE emulator for Linux.
Tidbit of information #2: I was, if i do say so myself, damn good at it
Tidbit of information #3: The most important thing i learned there was how to juggle three objects while talking to someone on the phone.
Tidbit of information #4: OEM support are inevitably lazy- they take the easiest route out of an issue often without regard for what's in the best interest of the end user. Good support engineers use the smallest "hammer" necessary to resolve the issue with minimal impact on the user whenever possible. Sometimes it's essential to use the BIG FUCKING HAMMER and totally wipe someone's system but fdisk, format, reinstall should be the last option in most cases.
Tidbit of information #5: Windows Me is a kludged together piece of shit, but, even if you've only ever run it in Hebrew and Arabic, it's possible to troubleshoot if you have a solid understanding of how Win9x and/or 2000/XP work.
I got to help
hottoastermama and her father fix a problem caused by someone who should not be allowed within 3.25689283753 parsecs of computer hardware and compounded by an inept OEM technician at Dell, who, as near as i can tell, didn't even attempt to diagnose their problem, much less find a suitable solution approach to it. Word of advise to the Dell dude- put down the hookah you've been toking with the annoying-ass kid that appears in the commercials and learn something about the products you support.When installing a new piece of hardware causes a computer boot issue, the solution is not to run a system restore to an earlier software configuration. The solution is to diagnose the hardware issue and correct it- namely properly assigning IDE devices as master and slave and coaxing Windows into recognizing the change. Restoring Windows is only going to at best hopelessly fuck up the hardware enumeration, and, at worst (as happened in this case), cause WinMe to think of itself as Ouroboros and swallow large chunks of itself.
When Windows can't launch, say Add/Remove Programs from the Control Panel, it's ugly. When Find Files and Folders can find a particular executable, but Windows can't find it when attempting to launch it by double-clicking it from that same search window, that's double-plus fucking ugly.
Fortunately, in order to fix it, it's just necessary to have a cool head, know something about operating system dynamics, and be smarter than Windows ME (which isn't saying much). Convince setup to rerun; reinstall WinME on top of itself (otherwise all the software on the system will need to be reinstalled to reintegrate it into the user hives of the registry, which is a major pain in the ass for the user), which will rebuild the system hives in the registry, including, most importantly, the hardware enumeration and restore the basic OS system file structure. Forty-five minutes after gathering enough information to assess the problem, the system was back up and apparently stable, everything functions as expected, and none of the user data has been lost or compromised. Took an hour and a half or so longer than paving the system and starting over, but this was elegant and unintrusive.
revseandoe: Remember these words:"Thank you for choosing Microsoft products. I hope you've been very satisfied with the support you've received today?" Remember walking out of the building at Keane knowing that you fucking owned Windows and that if it was a bonafide software problem you couldn't fix it was pretty damn likely something so unsupported (or someone else's problem)that no one else was gonna make it work either?*sigh*
I can't wait until major software manufacturers get really serious about releasing their products for Unix derivatives. Windows isn't much of a challenge to troubleshoot, even remotely, anymore. For what it's worth, i can fix a kernel panic on a Linux system, recompile a kernel from the command line, play with the OS, and run GIMP as readily as Photoshop, but i'd really miss most of the games which run under Windows but won't under the WinE emulator for Linux.
