Googling problems with Windows I find the majority of the results are MS support telling them to reset the OS. No attempt to debug the issue just nuke it and see if that fixes it. Then you read the next comments and inevitably they say “Nope, didn’t fix it”. I really dislike scripted responses like this.
Yeah the MS support forums are very hit or miss. And even the hit ones usually start with a response that doesn’t appear to understand the question very deeply, followed by a “that didn’t work”, “I said in my post that I tried that and it didn’t work”, or maybe a “that’s not what I’m trying to do, I want to do x”, and then a reply with useful links.
Though to be fair, problems can come from software the user installed or fuck ups they’ve made to settings along the way. Or quiet sabotage from another user.
Once upon a time I provided phone support for Comcast and had a caller call in unable to access Facebook. I did the usual script and found her internet was otherwise working. Narrowed it down to a dns issue. I was aware of the hosts file because I was using it for ad blocking at the time so had her open that up on a whim (which I would have gotten in trouble for since it was off script). Sure enough, it was there. Someone didn’t want her accessing it.
Who knows what kinds of methods people have used to discourage other things on shared PCs. Is edge really broken or did the user’s kid get tired of everyone clicking “make it the default browser” when it begged each time it was opened so they wrote a small program that kills it as soon as it starts?
Googling problems with Windows I find the majority of the results are MS support telling them to reset the OS. No attempt to debug the issue just nuke it and see if that fixes it. Then you read the next comments and inevitably they say “Nope, didn’t fix it”. I really dislike scripted responses like this.
Yeah the MS support forums are very hit or miss. And even the hit ones usually start with a response that doesn’t appear to understand the question very deeply, followed by a “that didn’t work”, “I said in my post that I tried that and it didn’t work”, or maybe a “that’s not what I’m trying to do, I want to do x”, and then a reply with useful links.
Though to be fair, problems can come from software the user installed or fuck ups they’ve made to settings along the way. Or quiet sabotage from another user.
Once upon a time I provided phone support for Comcast and had a caller call in unable to access Facebook. I did the usual script and found her internet was otherwise working. Narrowed it down to a dns issue. I was aware of the hosts file because I was using it for ad blocking at the time so had her open that up on a whim (which I would have gotten in trouble for since it was off script). Sure enough, it was there. Someone didn’t want her accessing it.
Who knows what kinds of methods people have used to discourage other things on shared PCs. Is edge really broken or did the user’s kid get tired of everyone clicking “make it the default browser” when it begged each time it was opened so they wrote a small program that kills it as soon as it starts?