ever notice how much tech support sucks?

A friend of mine had an old computer running windows ME that she let her daughter take to college. When she got there, the moron running the IT desk upgraded it to windows xp even though it only had 64mb of ram. So, of course it barely ran.

So, they came to me to downgrade it back to windows ME. I didn't have a copy of the actual OS, so i was using the HP recovery software. I got a "no OS found" error when I tried to run the system. I called HP 4 times to try to get a resolution and all 4 tech support people told me to repeat exactly what I had already done. I later realized that there was an error in one of the text files thats needed to load windows and was able to fix it by copying it from a system disk.

I'm tempted to call HP and offer to sell them the solution to the problem in case someone should come up with it again. Why do people have such terrible tech supports?!

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Comments

kalebksp

I hope you made sure the option to uninstall XP was unavailable first, it would have been a hell of a lot easier.

woodworm

HP Tech Support for Desktops, Laptops and Printers are just as bad. I hate having to spend an hour troubleshooting with them on the phone when I aleady know what the problem is ... My most infuriating call was when I had a power supply in a printer fail, but they insisted I had to check drivers, etc before they could escalate the call!

They are better for server support though, you just tell them that you have a failed MB, HDD, widget and they send you a new one.

I guess all large companies are just as bad

TeKniques

I feel your pain having to call Tech Support, it can be the worse experience ever. (Well, close to it anyways). The best option in this scenario I see that you could of done was just upgrade the memory in the computer to 512 mb at least. System RAM is pretty cheap if you buy it from the RIGHT places.

johnnyg5646

I hope you made sure the option to uninstall XP was unavailable first, it would have been a hell of a lot easier.

i couldn't even get the thing to open anything in XP. It would freeze immediatly up, so i deleted the partition with a boot disk and started over

sprkymrk

TeKniques wrote:

I feel your pain having to call Tech Support, it can be the worse experience ever. (Well, close to it anyways).

I deal with Symantec and Dell quite a bit and the Enterprise support is very good in both cases. When having to deal with (Dell/HP/whoever) from a home user perspective I have found the best thing to do is to tell them you don't have a phone by the computer. Whenever they tell you to do something, just say "ok, hang on" and set the phone down. Grab a cup of coffee or a coke, come back and say "that didn't work, what do I do next?". Then go make a sandwich or surf the Internet for a while. Repeat this process until they come to the same conclusion you already knew about an hour ago. This technique has worked for me on a couple of occasions and also for a friend I shared it with. It's much less frustrating than arguing with them.

mikej412

sprkymrk wrote:

I have found the best thing to do is to tell them you don't have a phone by the computer. Whenever they tell you to do something, just say "ok, hang on" and set the phone down. Grab a cup of coffee or a coke, come back and say "that didn't work, what do I do next?". Then go make a sandwich or surf the Internet for a while. Repeat this process until they come to the same conclusion you already knew about an hour ago. This technique has worked for me on a couple of occasions and also for a friend I shared it with. It's much less frustrating than arguing with them.

I found a speaker phone also helps for those long waits on hold.... but if you watch TV while "trying" what tech support suggests -- use headphones incase you confuse the mute buttons on the phone and TV remote.

kalebksp

I've just stopped calling tech support all together, except in two specific cases, if it's my DSL thats screwed up, or if I just want a refund or replacement. If it doesn't fall into those catagories I'll figure it out myself, or completely break whatever it is in trying to do so.

Hopefully you won't be in that situation again, but if you ever are, it is possible to uninstall XP from a command prompt.

Megadeth4168

sprkymrk wrote:

TeKniques wrote:

I feel your pain having to call Tech Support, it can be the worse experience ever. (Well, close to it anyways).

I deal with Symantec and Dell quite a bit and the Enterprise support is very good in both cases. When having to deal with (Dell/HP/whoever) from a home user perspective I have found the best thing to do is to tell them you don't have a phone by the computer. Whenever they tell you to do something, just say "ok, hang on" and set the phone down. Grab a cup of coffee or a coke, come back and say "that didn't work, what do I do next?". Then go make a sandwich or surf the Internet for a while. Repeat this process until they come to the same conclusion you already knew about an hour ago. This technique has worked for me on a couple of occasions and also for a friend I shared it with. It's much less frustrating than arguing with them.

Wow, isnt that the truth! I deal with Dell quite a bit also. Ive found it to be very similar with Corporate accounts vs home account.
I actually have learned to just call our Dell rep first... He then sends me to tech support and even if its a home issue they give me a lot less trouble

TeKniques

sprkymrk wrote:

I deal with Symantec and Dell quite a bit and the Enterprise support is very good in both cases. When having to deal with (Dell/HP/whoever) from a home user perspective I have found the best thing to do is to tell them you don't have a phone by the computer. Whenever they tell you to do something, just say "ok, hang on" and set the phone down. Grab a cup of coffee or a coke, come back and say "that didn't work, what do I do next?". Then go make a sandwich or surf the Internet for a while. Repeat this process until they come to the same conclusion you already knew about an hour ago. This technique has worked for me on a couple of occasions and also for a friend I shared it with. It's much less frustrating than arguing with them.

Yes the tech support at the Enterprise level is very good. I agree with that, because big companies like Symantec and Dell make most of their money at the Corporate level. I was more so talking about the 'Consumer' part of tech support which is almost 100% outsourced to Pakistan, India, or somewhere in Southern Asia.

Megadeth4168

TeKniques wrote:

sprkymrk wrote:

I deal with Symantec and Dell quite a bit and the Enterprise support is very good in both cases. When having to deal with (Dell/HP/whoever) from a home user perspective I have found the best thing to do is to tell them you don't have a phone by the computer. Whenever they tell you to do something, just say "ok, hang on" and set the phone down. Grab a cup of coffee or a coke, come back and say "that didn't work, what do I do next?". Then go make a sandwich or surf the Internet for a while. Repeat this process until they come to the same conclusion you already knew about an hour ago. This technique has worked for me on a couple of occasions and also for a friend I shared it with. It's much less frustrating than arguing with them.

Yes the tech support at the Enterprise level is very good. I agree with that, because big companies like Symantec and Dell make most of their money at the Corporate level. I was more so talking about the 'Consumer' part of tech support which is almost 100% outsourced to Pakistan, India, or somewhere in Southern Asia.

Outsourcing really annoys me.... I think some companies will switch you over to someone stateside if you request it but they don't tell you that you have that option.

Honestly I think I would pay a little more for the product to make sure they don't outsource support ect.... Just my thoughts on it.

johnnyg5646

Hopefully you won't be in that situation again, but if you ever are, it is possible to uninstall XP from a command prompt.

I wish I had known that. How do u do it?

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