back to article Veteran Microsoft engineer shares some enterprise support tips

Microsoft veteran Raymond Chen revealed another product support trick from within the corridors of Microsoft. This time, it's not about blowing on connectors but about avoiding casting some embarrassing shade on a customer's purchasing decisions. When something goes wrong in the Enterprise, it isn't always DNS. It might have …

  1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

    I once had to ask someone if they'd forgotten to plug their computer in. Which was a bit embarrassing. Particularly as I didn't think to suggest a clever way to avoid the shame - say, please unplug from the wall and switch off the plug socket to... erm [emergency excuse generator]... erm... re-polarise the plug socket...

    To be fair, she knew how little she knew about computers - so just being polite solved the problem without any denials or grumpiness. She was checking her emails on her laptop every day, then turning it off. It was plugged in. To an extension lead to reach her dining table. The other end of which had been unplugged, in order to do the hooverying. Probably a week before, and the laptop had slowly drained its battery.

    During the pandemic I went to the hospital for her, to pick up new batteries for her hearing aid. Not sure why I bothered though, given she never changed those either. Perhaps she just didn't believe in electricity?

    On the subject of the excuse generator - I came across something this morning on the Mayak (Kyshtym) nuclear accident from the 50s. To cover up for all the radioactive dust in the air, after the explosion, the Soviet authorities told people that there was an unusually strong aurora borealis that was interacting with the atmosphere and causing it to turn yellow. The BOfH would have been proud.

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge

      The USA has done some similarly sketchy shit regarding noo-cle-arrr errors

      Santa Susannah (the worst nuclear accident on USA soil(+)) was covered up for over 40 years and it's only a little uphill of the San Diego water catchment basin

      Field-butchering cows which were under various radioactive clouds(*) - in order to assess iodine uptake, etc - is what directly led to the "alien cattle mutilation" memes.

      In that particular case, purchasing cattle offal from aluaghterhouses would have given the same data without raising eyebrows

      (*) that the establishment hadn't admitted existed, following atmospheric tests gone wrong or upper atmosphere winds blowing in unexpected directions

      (+) Demonstrating that not only does Molten Sodium burn furiously when exposed to air and explodes on contact with water, it can react with pump bearing grease and directly clog up the reactor matrix - a good reason to reconsider playing with such substances in a nuclear environment

      1. Captain Hogwash Silver badge
        Coat

        Noo-queue-ler, it's pronounced noo-queue-ler.

        1. plrndl
          Mushroom

          "New-cle-arrr" is the correct ENGLISH pronunciation. "Noo-queue-ler" is a particularly nasty American corruption of our language.

          1. Captain Hogwash Silver badge

            You haven't seen a particular episode of The Simpsons.

            1. chivo243 Silver badge
              Coat

              I'm sure Tibor has!

          2. Andrew Scott Bronze badge

            not american, texan pronunciation popularized by bush II i think. Always been pronounced New-cle-ar around here even though dropping "R's" is a popular pastime in this region.

      2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Alan Brown,

        That was a nuclear accident I'd not heard of before. The 1959 Sodium Reactor Experiment incident. Which was quite interesting. Had a quick gander at the wiki page and a little Google around. It seems that there are claims of how terrible it was, but there doesn't seem to be much evidence to back that up. i.e. there's not enough contaimination still existing now to suggest there was a huge release of radioactive material at the time - which makes the one guy claiming that 200 times the caesium released from 3 Mile Island look a bit suspicious. Admittedly records and testing done at the time aren't enough to give proper data.

        I also had a look at the INES scale - but nobody seems to have categorised its severity (possibly due to lack of data) so it's not listed on the scale - and a quick search didn't find it.

        Also it wasn't kept secret at the time. Not that it was widely publicised - but I'm getting vibes of interesting bad thing that happened in the 50s being hyped up as secret and scary for sensation, because nobody has heard of it. Although from only quickly reading 3 pieces online, I might well be wrong - it's just my first impression. I'd be willing to bet that 3 Mile Island is the worst US accident though (which is a 5 out of 7 on the INES scale). The two 7s are Chernobyl and Fukushima and the only 6 is Mayak (Kyshtym).

        1. MrBanana
          Mushroom

          Where are they?

          The clear indication of a severe nuclear accident is the appearance of genetically mutated super villains sometime later. Nothing obvious yet, even after a number of meltdowns - unless Elon has some kind of cloaking mutation he is using.

          1. Blue Pumpkin

            Re: Where are they?

            MrBanana surely you have met Evil Pea?

            Fortunately Supertato is on hand ....

    2. Bebu sa Ware
      Windows

      "She just didn't believe in electricity"

      Seems a challenging alternative world view but then many serious people just before the 20th century didn't believe in atoms (just ask Ludwig Boltzman.)

      Seeing the world is replete with three phase excuse generators outputting electrickery who can blame the lady.

  2. GlenP Silver badge

    A lot comes down to being polite with users and not being condescending.

    Sometimes when they ask for an explanation they'll accept, "How long have you got?" or, "I could explain it but you probably won't understand!" as being reasonable. Saying, "You don't need to know that!" is definitely condescending and inadvisable when the person at the other end of the phone has been an IT professional since before you were born - the service engineer at our support discovered that when he found the sales director* leaning over his shoulder a few minutes later asking what he was playing at, he left a few weeks later.

    Most users are honest enough to know they've made a mistake but I tend to just say something like, "I'm not blaming anyone but the last time this happened it was blah, blah, blah" or similar.

  3. Howard Sway Silver badge

    In the case of enterprise customers, the offender is typically some 'advanced anti-malware software'

    Yeh, because no Windows updates have ever borked a server, have they? Apart from the regular stream of disasters reported on this site for years of course. No, it's those silly "anti-malware vendors" and their reckless programming practices - if only they could learn from Microsoft, the masters of robust system programming..........

    1. MiguelC Silver badge

      Re: the offender is typically some 'advanced anti-malware software'

      I once saw a PFY desperately trying to fix an user's Access application that had stopped generating email reports. He was at wit's end, having tried everything he thought might possibly solve the problem. I nonchalantly asked the user if IT had done any upgrade that day. "Hm yes, they installed new printer drivers".

      Ah.

      After changing the default printer to PDF, the emails started once again being generated. Access (at least the old version in this case) needed the printer driver to generate reports, even if those weren't being actually being printed.

      So, would Microsoft blame HP's driver for this? They might....

      1. david 12 Silver badge

        Re: the offender is typically some 'advanced anti-malware software'

        needed the printer driver

        If not actually a bug, this is widely considered unfortunate. Like Word, it needs the page size, margins and orientation to do pagination, but sometimes you wish it would just do bad, badly paged layouts instead of pop-up messages.

  4. MrReynolds2U

    Been the problem myself before

    I once phoned up Virgin after a new install because the router wasn't seeing the internet.

    I was adamant that everything was plugged in.

    It was, but I had plugged the WAN line into a LAN socket and vice versa.

    The tech on the other end was very understanding.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: Been the problem myself before

      I know that feeling.

      I once came to work at customer site, turned on the laptop and couldn't get a network connection. I was sure the WiFi was working, so I called the Helpdesk (oh, and I knew the guys).

      Helpdesk drone came over and plugged the Ethernet cable back in.

      I have never felt so ridiculous.

      I bought him a croissant for my sins.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Been the problem myself before

      A good reason to always be polite and kind to the helpdesk, even if you're SURE the problem is on their end. 'Cos we're all human - and sometimes it's my fault though I'm sure it isn't.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Been the problem myself before

        Regrettably some help-desks are badly named. Increasingly it seems that what I, as a customer, am encountering, is a decision further up the food-chain that mounts to "it's not a bug, it's policy". The trick from a customer's PoV is to figure out that all they're doing is covering up that situation and take your business elsewhere.

      2. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Been the problem myself before

        ALWAYS be polite to those you depend on: secretary, receptionist, office manager, IT bods, etc. Remember them with a small token at the holidays. Then, when you (inevitably) do something silly, you can all have a good laugh together.

        Sometimes equipment discarded by IT is perfectly useful at home...just getting rid of an APC BackUPS 1000 -- the old metal cased kind -- that finally expired. It came to me 10 or more years ago as an IT discard and has been through several sets of replacement batteries. Sadly, the battery charge circuit seems to have failed and I sprang for a new Eaton unit. Treat your IT bods right and some of those discards may land in your lap.

  5. Greybearded old scrote
    Devil

    Victim Blaming

    So they've noticed that the OS isn't as robust and secure as its maker claims, and looked for a fix. Who to blame?

    Now if only the Suits could be persuaded to abandon the sunk cost fallacy, and begin the long march to freedom.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nothing new here :)

    Back in the days of Windows NT, I had a customer whose FC drivers were woefully out of date and causing known storage problems. They refused to update because that would entail a reboot and "we're doing so well on uptime!". Scheduling wasn't the problem -- time of day did not matter, they just didn't want to reboot, ever.

    "Can't you fix this without updating drivers???? Go twiddle something at the storage array or the switch, but don't ask us to reboot."

    No problem! "OK, just Install the new driver set and don't worry about the reboot. Then, just to make sure they're installed, let's run the [name of FC HBA vendor omitted] diagnostics."

    Which I knew damn well would cause a BSOD with those drivers, because I'd just had 3 other calls regarding that issue.

    Diagnostics run. BSOD occurred. NOW you're gonna reboot, and when you do, your storage problems will disappear. (And they did)

    Thanks for calling, and have a GREAT day!

  7. Jedit Silver badge
    Devil

    "When something goes wrong in the Enterprise, it isn't always DNS"

    Well no, sometimes it's a transporter malfunction.

    1. chivo243 Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: "When something goes wrong in the Enterprise, it isn't always DNS"

      Or the warp engines.

      1. ITMA Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: "When something goes wrong in the Enterprise, it isn't always DNS"

        Or Klingons off the starboard bow..... :)

        1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

          Re: "When something goes wrong in the Enterprise, it isn't always DNS"

          You're all wrong: It's always the bloody holodeck.

  8. heyrick Silver badge

    When I used to fix the machines of friends...

    ...very clear rule: If it doesn't have some sort of antivirus product installed, I'm not touching it.

    Unfortunately a little later on I agreed, against my better judgement, to fix the machine of a retired couple. Pulled off the photos, then set up the machine entirely from scratch. Took several hours. Had it all running nicely.

    A few weeks later I hear I'm being bad-mouthed because that computer is a mess and it is full of viruses once again. She wants me to sort it all out and do it correctly this time, for free (ahem, I didn't ask for anything other then tea and cookies the first time!).

    I called up the logging made by the antivirus and it showed three times something was caught and quarantined, followed by the antivirus being manually disabled. I told them when, to the minute.

    "Oh, that might have been my nephew" was their reply. "Please don't call me again" was mine. I no longer support, or volunteer to support, anybody's computer. It's not worth the hassle. So if anybody asks, knowing that I'm a bit of a nerd, I start talking random nonsense about the ESP32 and various ARM boards. Yes, I "know computers" but my definition is very different to what they're expecting. Windows? Don't use it. Mac? Don't use it.

    1. jml9904

      Re: When I used to fix the machines of friends...

      Yep. My response is "If your computer costs less than $100k, I probably don't know how to fix it."

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: When I used to fix the machines of friends...

        If it's not running Linux I don't now how to fix it.

        1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
          Linux

          Re: When I used to fix the machines of friends...

          MY late brother was atechnical. He could USE a computer, but maintaining it and handling out-of-the-ordinary situations was beyond him.

          I set him up with some version of Windows; XP, 2000, something like that. I'd get calls once a month, "Windows updated and now [whatever] doesn't work" and off I would go to set him right again. After about a year of that, I got fed up. Antivirus, Windows updates, driver issues...every one required a drive over to his place and an hour of futzing with his machine.

          So, I made him an offer he couldn't refuse. "Here's a new hard disk, we're going to take yours out and replace it with this new one, on which we shall install Linux. If you don't like it, you can go back to Windows. I'll move all your files and show you how to do basic stuff." It worked. I'd get the odd phone call, but it was usually "how do I do this?" instead of "something broke my computer and I can't do anything"

          This worked for almost 20 years. There's something to be said for an OS that isn't subject to the whims of a mega-corp.

      2. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

        Re: When I used to fix the machines of friends...

        I often said "If it's got a monitor connected to it, I'm out"

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What Chen claims may have been an issue in the past. Nowadays ? If shit goes wrong it’s always Microsoft itself. From flaky Teams/Outlook (*not* the new Outlook, which is an abomination unto itself) which after digging points to an issue on the MS backend to user tickets complaining about changed fonts in Outlook/Word : It is always Microsoft.

    A pox on Satya’s House, and all that inhabit it. Just a pox, mind you, the House of Larry can completely burn down for all I care.

  10. Howard Long

    Same thing when 3rd party firewalls came onto the scene 30 years ago.

    Customers would typically install with mostly default settings such as session timeouts.

    Problem was there was still tons of client/server stuff around that relied on reliable TCP sessions that didn’t just drop after a few minutes of non-use. User would pop out for a fag, only to come back to their desk, find an unresponsive machine, and had to do the old three fingered salute (remember that???).

  11. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

    Troubleshooting assumes that underlying systems behave in a deterministic manner

    Unfortunately Windows belongs in Witchcraft territory.

    One of my customers has been complaining that their payroll package can't connect to HMRC. This has been going on since April (a workaround has been in place). Every so often we'd give it another look, but same result, the manufacturer's test utility, and everything else says it should work. Today we go to Factory Reset his pc (for other traumas) and I'm told "oh btw, Payroll's now working." He swears he did nothing. Unlike another of my clients, where things right themselves after a hefty effluxion of time, this client does not have a cat. Now I'm not suggesting there is any connection between witchcraft and cats, but...

    (Can we have a cat icon?)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Troubleshooting assumes that underlying systems behave in a deterministic manner

      That's interesting. Last year I found that I could not submit a Self Assessment to HMRC because it would not connect via the internet. The software used Excel to prepare the return, then some macro's to connect to the HMRC site and submit the form. Have been using it for years - but last year it did not work. I was doing the task on a Windows 7 machine and thinking it might be some issue with that, or some recent update, I worked round it by temporarily putting Office on a Windows 10 machine (I usually use LibreOffice).

      Realize there might be confidentiality considerations - but would be interested in knowing if there were any similarities with your customer's set up

      1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

        Re: Troubleshooting assumes that underlying systems behave in a deterministic manner

        I suspect W7 is where the problem lies in your case. HMRC Devs were given details, but that message may not have found its way to end users.

        https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/any-answers/moneysoft-payroll-wont-connect-to-hmrc

        The reason this was left in limbo was that my client unfortunately died whilst this matter was in progress, his successor had the same problem but suddenly rectified itself of its own accord, many months later.

    2. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: Troubleshooting assumes that underlying systems behave in a deterministic manner

      The latest problem I've wasted hours on - still ongoing - is a program that needs Office 365 32-bit. So you uninstall the 64-bit version, then install the 32-bit version, which it says can't be installed because the 64-bit one is installed. But it's not on the Apps list. Trying to run MS's Easy Fix [sic] didn't work either. MS seem completely unable to uninstall and reinstall programs cleanly.

      1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

        Re: Troubleshooting assumes that underlying systems behave in a deterministic manner

        A Factory Reset is the new method of Burning Witches at the stake.

  12. Craig 2

    Many times have I given a device back to a customer and they say "wow you're great, how did you fix it? I was trying for hours..."

    Yea, I just put in your correct password or read the popup dialog and did what it said...

    Normally I would say it's such a convoluted process and "damn Microsoft" etc etc so they don't feel bad.

    1. abend0c4 Silver badge

      read the popup dialog

      I've lost count of the number of conversations that have taken the form:

      - There's an error message

      - What does it say?

      - Something about a failure

      - What are the exact words on the screen?

      - Oh...

      There's something about computer error messages that seems to induce temporary dyslexia.

  13. vistisen

    The more educated user will take a screen dump of the error message, being carefull NOT to include the system clock in the dump, så that you still have to wade through all the logfiles to find the message

  14. Snapper

    Well....

    One has to wonder why Windows software needed such strong anti-virus software in the first place.

    Microsoft has always said that 'other' OS's suffered from viruses too, but did anybody fall for that excuse?

    1. amacater

      Re: Well....

      Linux allegedly suffers from viruses - but I wouldn't know because all of the AV software I've ever seen running under Linux is a bad port of Windows software and generally searching only for known Windows viruses.

      Vendor: We have an AV product that runs under Linux

      Me: Show me that it *actually* scans .deb, .rpm, arbitrary size .tar.gz

      Vendor: You what, mate??? = then silence

      All AV software running under Linux has ever shown me is false positives - but I might be very wrong here.

  15. nautica Silver badge
    Happy

    Dave Barry covered this a VERY long time ago...

    From the title:

    "How to tell a customer they're an idiot without telling them they're an idiot".

    From a very prescient Dave Barry, when he had to use a modem with his computer:

    “The word user is the word used by the computer professional when they mean idiot.”

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