Ok my daughter borked her computer a few days ago I dont how but the OS just would'nt work and she live's 300miles away so I sent her a vista ultimate 32 retail disk . So with the aid of skype we started yesterday to install after around 30mins I gave up trying to explain how to set boot priority in the bios and went for installing within the old OS . Finally it starts to install well after about 3 hours vista has installed after another couple of hours of config and antivirus installs activation of windows and the obligatoty headache from trying to get someone that knows nothing about computers to do this, Done I think and settle down with some pills for my head . Next morning a phone call help she says IE 8 not working another 5 hours of downloads and updates DOH! now I know whats it feels like to have your harddrive wiped (brain) . Made me realise just how hard it is to do the things on the phone that we do all the time with the rig in front of me. Never again my poor head lol
I feel for you man, whenever I try to help my friends with computers in person I always end up doing it myself out of frustration.
I know this probably wouldn't have helped, but for anyone else in this situation either use VNC or at a push MSN Messenger, which allows people to request assistance from the chat window. A) In the conversation window, click Activities. B) Under My Activities, click Remote Assistance. C) Once both computers are connected, hit Take Control at the top of the Remote Assistance window. It's slow, especially in full screen mode, but novice users are likely to either already have Messenger installed or should be able to install it. .
Sometimes I wished I kept my knowledge of computers a secret from my family... Trying to help my nan (who cant use a mobile phone) troubleshoot her laptop camera over the phone was one of the most genuinely frustrating activities of my life. My mum was talking to 1 of her friends just the other night, when they say "yeah my computer is f'd, I think it's got a virus or something" my mum goes straight in with "Oh really? Luke's good with computers, he can go round and sort it out, defrag it and all that, 1 nigh during the weekt". Oh I can, can I? What in-between working on site during the day and decorating the new house of an evening? Yeah alright, i'll just skip eating and showering that night cus I ***** LOVE spending hours cleaning 10 year old PC's of viruses and spyware....
Yeah the one that really bugs me was I built a i7 rig for a friend of the wife and they bought her a present as a thankyou nothing for me though WTF.
I had to talk my dad through burning CDs... and the CD wasn't taking the burn :/ 'Just do what I said, just keep going down the spindle until one of them works.' Had to get him to read out every menu 'Ok, go into the programs menu. Is there a 'Sonic' or something in the left hand bar? ok, what's in that?' etc >_<
The only person I give tech support to is my mother. She listens and is actually not too bad considering she has only had her machine for a couple of years. Setting up a wireless network over the fone was fun! Anyone else can get stuffed as over the years I know its just a waste of time and people just use you. For example I had a friend who had psu problems. I gave him a perfectly decent 300w antec power supply. Worked great. he then swaps it out for a 400w no name brand one and chucks mine in the bin because 400w is better than 300w. Be ****ed if I have helped him with anything since or in the future!
I don't bother with trying to help people over the phone anymore. I have talked with my parents over the phone on just diagnosing router/connectivity problems and I wanted to kill my self after about 30 mins of it. I simply tell people I will look at it in person, or they have to drop it off for me to look at. Just for the very reason you stated. I admire your perseverance, I would have told her to mail it to me! lol
Load up a HDD with a clean install. Remove the bloatware, and Priority Mail it to her. Easier to say unplg the cable and plug into new drive. Drives are cheaper than the gas for roundtrip on-site tech support.
I managed a team of tier 2 and tier 3 support for 6 years at IBM. I learned more bad words and about more stupid call-ins than you can imagine. "Put the parts back in the box and return it to Wall Mart" john
