I e-mailed in the following experiences, per the above article's request:
"First off, I'm fine with you using my name in any future stories.
I'm bringing to you two stories, one good, one bad.
Good:
Back in my younger days (about 8 years ago or so) my family owned a Pentium II Gateway computer running Windows 98. I was young and naive back then and wasn't too familiar with managing and caring for a computer. A time came when I figured I should update the video drivers (for an ATI Rage Pro Turbo). I downloaded the installer and tried to install it. Long story short, due to something weird with Gateway's drivers and quite possibly an OEM graphics card, the computer crashed and I could only access windows via safe mode. At this point, I had no idea what to do, so I called Gateway tech support. First off, let me say that they did (I don't know if they still do) have excellent hold music. It's like an actual top 40 radio station, with all the ads being for Gateway products. Good music that didn't sound like they put a mic up to the speaker of a home-made AM radio. Eventually I make it through to Chris (which may have been his actual name). He asked me what my problem was and I started out by explaining that I had tried to update the graphics drivers and that currently I had the computer up in safe mode. After I uttered the phrase "safe mode" he stopped me and said something to the effect of "OK, it seems like you have some clue what you're doing..." and skipped ahead to to good stuff: fixing my computer. He talked me through setting the registry back a day, throwing in helpful tidbits as I navigated through things. While we waited through reboots, we talked about old computer games. It was a downright pleasant experience!
Bad:
Shortly after Windows XP came out, my family purchased a Dell 8200 (2.4 GHz Pentium 4) that came with an 80 (seemed massive at the time) GB harddrive. Eventually we decided we needed more harddrive space, so my parents purchased a new PATA harddrive and I was tasked with installing it. I opened up the very well-made tool-less case and attached the drive to one of the IDE chains (having to replace my ZIP drive, as I recall it), attached a power cable and set the jumper to the “slave” position. I closed the case, booted up the computer. During boot-up the BIOS noted the presence of an additional harddrive. I got into windows and it knew the physical disk was present, but I was not able to format it. In hindsight, I had simply neglected the partitioning of the physical disk, but I didn't know that at the time.
I browsed various help documents online (some provided by Dell) and ended up deciding to call Dell tech support. I had called them for something relatively minor in the past and had found them somewhat useful. Anyway, after sitting on hold for way too long, listening to bad, poorly transmitted music (compare to Gateway experience) I was introduced to...shall we call him Bob? It clearly wasn't his given name. When I read him my service tag, he read it back and in that said “X for zebra”. I shook my head, I had a feeling this wasn't going to go well. He started with the beginning of his script and it took a while for him to realize that whatever script he was on wasn't sufficient, and I ended up getting transferred to another support rep. This guy at least seems to have the right script. He starts talking about jumpers, I think. But I'm pretty sure he's never seen a jumper; how he's supposed to explain orienting things he's never seen in two dimensions, I'm not sure. This process involved numerous reboots and jumping around in his script as he asked questions I already knew the answer to/already done. Finally I was transferred to a “manager” who had an even-better script. To summarize their solution: they forced me to remove my primary harddrive to partition my second one, clearly because I couldn't just tell fdisk to partition a drive letter other than C!
It was now 3 hours and 10 minutes after I initially called Dell. If I didn't already have some inkling of what to do, I'd still be lost. He kept telling me I'd later have to “install an operating system to the drive.” If I was clueless I would have gotten out my Windows disk, perhaps and installed windows. He meant for me to just format it into NTFS or whatever. Several times when I talked to the manager he remarked that I really seemed to know what I was doing, harbored this suspicion that I was an IT professional. I should hope not! I was simply performing a routine piece of computer upgrading for the first time, without anyone experienced around to ask for help.
It was that call that caused me to lose faith in tech support systems. I still use Dell's support site for drivers. Otherwise, I rely on tech-savvy friends and the internet to fix computer problems.
One quick comment on you pointing out that Microsoft actually has excellent tech support: they were the people who told me about Adaware and Spybot, two pieces of software I install basically as soon as I sit down at a computer. They also called my house when it took me more than a day to get back to them via e-mail. There are certainly advantages to non-OEM copies of windows; you get some amount of free microsoft tech support."
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