Hello. Tech support
Sep. 17th, 2005 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luckykaaMy parents have just bought a new computer.
This means I keep getting called to help deal with problems.
I guess I don't mind that much, but Windows is really quite tricky to troubleshoot over the phone. Especially since I really don't have a lot of experience with breaking it these days, so I really don't know a lot about how to fix XP when it goes wrong.
When I was a student I had enough time to keep messing it up and trying to fix it. I got quite good at solving those minor problems as well. I still have a Windows 95 partirion that shuts down cleanly. These days I know what not to do. I'm out of practice when it comes to solving these issues.
Still. I gave them the advice they needed.
It seems that Windows XP has information that tries to be friendly but is still written by people with too much knowledge. It asks about how to partition the hard disk. My mum's reaction was "what's a partition?". This is really something an average user has no need to know.
The other problem was the printer wasn't printing. I ahd no idea how to solve that one so I went back to basics.
Turn it off.
Turn it on again.
Which worked. After a fashion. the other problem with tech support is that when I'm on the line, my parents are frightened to do anything. I let them decide whether to select "shutdown" or "restart". They need to learn to make these life choices for themselves.
This means I keep getting called to help deal with problems.
I guess I don't mind that much, but Windows is really quite tricky to troubleshoot over the phone. Especially since I really don't have a lot of experience with breaking it these days, so I really don't know a lot about how to fix XP when it goes wrong.
When I was a student I had enough time to keep messing it up and trying to fix it. I got quite good at solving those minor problems as well. I still have a Windows 95 partirion that shuts down cleanly. These days I know what not to do. I'm out of practice when it comes to solving these issues.
Still. I gave them the advice they needed.
It seems that Windows XP has information that tries to be friendly but is still written by people with too much knowledge. It asks about how to partition the hard disk. My mum's reaction was "what's a partition?". This is really something an average user has no need to know.
The other problem was the printer wasn't printing. I ahd no idea how to solve that one so I went back to basics.
Turn it off.
Turn it on again.
Which worked. After a fashion. the other problem with tech support is that when I'm on the line, my parents are frightened to do anything. I let them decide whether to select "shutdown" or "restart". They need to learn to make these life choices for themselves.
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such a good boy
Date: 2005-09-17 08:13 pm (UTC)