Man finds himself in Dell, Microsoft nightmare

It's my first day back from holiday and I offer you a tale of woe and frustration as a gift. How nice is that?

One of our Dell computers has developed an annoying fault which results in a Blue Screen Of Death whenever several files are accessed simultaneously over our network. The crash is pretty fatal - the applications which were open fall over and the work is lost.

However the cryptic BSOD error message helped us track down an article on the Microsoft support site, here.

The problem is down to a buggy network redirector (Vredir.vxd) and as you can see from the article Microsoft have a fix available.

So what's the problem?

Well, Microsoft don't have the fix available as a free download from their site. Their advice is: "To resolve this problem, contact Microsoft Product Support Services to obtain the fix."

So, I dutifully jumped through all their hoops (obtain a MS PassPort etc) and then I was asked to input the Windows Product ID, which I did. Uh oh! It's an OEM version of Windows, and as such I am supposed to contact Dell for technical support!

Great. Log on to the Dell website, go to the support section, fill out all the forms, wait for an answer.

24 hours later, Dell contact me to say "Dell hardware support technicians are not trained in software issues...Please contact the software support department...

The software support department does not have an e mail support department. You have to contact them only through telephone." It just gets better! A software support department which doesn't have email. Right, as it's my last option I ring the phone number provided (0870 366 4026)...

...where I am informed I have to pay £19.99 for all software support issues!

All this to get hold of a fix for a piece of crappy buggy MS software which does not work as intended. I've looked on the net and managed to find a file on the MS website which fixes it but it's password protected (it looks like the passwords are time-dependant, so a password which works in February won't work in March and so on).

This is a huge con. It's not only the £20 I object to paying it's all the time we've wasted with the crashes and the chasing to even get hold of a fix.

Is this legal? If I buy a bike and the chain keeps falling off shouldn't I be entitled to a free repair as the bike is not fit for purpose? If so, why doesn't this apply to software?

Grrrrrrrr Jon B

I have worked on the Dell side of the equation (although with IBM instead of Dell) and have some insight into the quandary you are in.

Here's a tip: No matter what you do, don't pay Dell for Software Support. The reason is because Microsoft, despite directing you to your OEM for support, DOES NOT provide OEMs with their nice confidential fixes that you have to call microsoft to get your paws on. That means Dell doesn't have the answer. Microsoft knows this, but they still direct you to Dell because that's their standard policy: They don't support OEM Windows installations.

What you need to do is cut through all the red tape. Explain to Microsoft what your problem is, explain Dell does not have the fix and if they did they'd pay you for it anyway.

Quote them their own document ID and ask for the fix, and say that Dell has neither the expertise nor the inclination to help with this. If the trained monkey on the other end still refuses to help, escalate to his manager. You'll eventually get what you need.

Name supplied

Hi Letterman,

Your recent article about Dell, Microsoft and a buggy network redirector inspired me to write of my possibly even more ludicrous experience with Toshiba and a Portege 2000. For those who don't know it, the Portege 2000 is an ultra-slim notebook which Tosh in their infinite wisdom choose to ship with no removable media; but at £2000 this can hardly be considered a bargain basement, cost cutting measure.

Earlier this year my hard drive started making a noise like a jackhammer. As the noise got louder and louder and fearing for my data I backed up my data to the network and contacted Toshiba for a warranty repair. “No problem” they said, contact one of our service agents and they will arrange a replacement. This is where the problems started. Toshiba service agents do not touch software. This includes installing Windows XP on a new hard drive. They wanted to ship my laptop back with a blank hard disc for me to reinstall Windows XP with my recovery discs. But there's the rub. Although my laptop was supplied with recovery discs it was not supplied with a CDROM drive. To buy one would cost not £20 but £100.

I contacted Toshiba again. Surely this cannot be right. I said. You shipped me a system with pre-installed software and a 3 year warranty; the hard disc which contained that software has failed. It must be your responsibility to return the system to its original ex-factory condition. Ah, they said, the operating system is software and software is not included in the warranty. But, I said, it's the hard disc which failed and that's hardware. Like your bike/chain analogy, mine was whether a car with a blown engine would have its engine replaced for free but a charge made for the re-installation of engine management software. The OS on my laptop is every bit as vital to normal (indeed any!) operation. This discussion bounced back and forward for several days with little conclusion.

After more conversations than I can remember a senior desk manager eventually agreed as a ‘goodwill gesture' to take the system back from the repairer and install the OS. But, I was told, I'd better go out and buy a CDROM drive, because they wouldn't do the same thing again. Surely, I said, Tosh would not make a laptop where 2 HDDs could fail within warranty! They had to agree it was unlikely.

Should the worst happen I “look forward” to having this discussion for a second time!

Jon G

Is Tony Blair a leftie?
Tony Blair's Labour Party web site hacked

To describe the Labour Party as Ultra left does take some vivid imagination ..... it's even more right than the Tories........

Eva,

I can only assume your references to Tony Blair and New Labour as being 'Ultra Far left' and 'arch-leftie' were made with tongue firmly embedded in cheek. IMHO, and that of most of my friends, Tony Blair and his bunch of lapdog cronies are an 'old' (i.e. pre-Maggie Thatcher) Conservative administration in drag.

But I can get squarely behind the sentiments expressed by the hackers...

Name, email supplied

OpenVMS, IBM and HP
Thanks for keeping abreast of the "invisible" OpenVMS story. The "NIH" theory is plausible, but perhaps there is another reason lurking about. While Ms Horan, of IBM's Software Group Strategy, can with aplomb say "most enterprise customers are now looking for more open operating environments" she reveals what must be the true source of her bias: she is a former DECcie, quite possibly one of those who were entrusted with the marketing [sic] of the venerable product. She also appears to be quite creative as well, ascribing the decline in OpenVMS customer base as the result of the custodial companies' not having "invested to keep up with the requirements of the customer base" rather than to the dismal and sequential failure by either custodian to market the product. The crowning innuendo, and insult, is that OpenVMS is somehow deficient for the current marketplace and it would take too great an investment to "bring it back up to currency in terms of capabilities". Of course, she offers no proof for this sweeping - and bogus - synthetic objection.

Thus it is obvious that the official IBM (and therefore true) view that "this is now a mature product without a lot of growth opportunity" and therefore not "an attractive business proposition" revolves around the fact that it isn't (1) Linux or (2) any flavor of Un*x.

Ramon L. Tate

Go back to pimping in Tiajuana (sic)
hey there mike

whatsa matta- pimpin down there in Tiajuana not payin as well as it used to sos you took up writen fro the Inquiror?

better be ready to move back -after the MSFT "eyecandy XP os" article don't you think

most pimps try to avoid being authers and writers

your one pimp that needs to follow suit

Walt Steffan

Sagem Software
Sagem MY X-6 multimedia phone reviewed

Hi Mike,

The little utility delivered with the SAGEM Phone is a software developed by SmartCom a small French developer. It supports most GPRS phones on the market.

The full version, available for PCs, Macs and PocketPC (at http://www.wellphone.com), is able to set up and automate GPRS Connections from your PC or PDA. The current version is also supposed to facilitate syncing with Outlook/Outlook Express...

Regards

Christophe Bardy

SCO woe hey the lads
SCO's whole position seems to have become a SIW (Self-Inflicted Wound). Perhaps other Linux contributors will join the fray - will 'More Penguins SOCk SCO' be an Inq headline in the near future?

SCO's choices would seem to be (1) to eliminate certain lines from their FTP server and pay damages to the claimant - and any additional legitimate claimants - for past infringement, (2) to fight it out in court against each and every claimant (and lose, given the evidence of the tagged lines) or (3) to declare their FTP server to be - and to have been - open source, in which case their lawsuit(s) - and their price structure - will collapse.

[In case (2), I suspect that there are several interested parties (one in particular!) who just might provide legal assistance to those whose rights have been infringed by SCO.]

Offhand, it would seem that any of these choices would necessarily involve a hemorrhage of red ink for SCO. I wonder if, at some point in the future, the SCO Suits who started this idiocy might well be successfully prosecuted for SCOicide.

John

Forums not Easy Enough

Hello Mike,

Until recently I had been a regular reader of The Register. Finally I became fed up with them (for reasons I will go in to below), and "switched" to the Inquirer (a friend suggested it to me). I'm not sure exactly what was behind your own similar (albeit, production-side) sojourn to The Inquirer, but I expect you will agree with some of the things I say here.

The Register did many things right, which charmed me and kept me coming back. But the few things it did wrong eventually made spending any time there, for me, a losing cost-benefit analysis. In terms of content, I became extremely annoyed by some of the simpering, "socialist" undercurrents to the articles. I found this rather ironic, for an industry publication. And in general, the writing seemed a little too self-confident, and a little too ready to stick to a platform established by earlier articles.

But none of this would really be a problem, were there adequate talk-back facilities. By this I mean direct reader feedback; comments posting, not handpicked republication of letters to the editor or article authors. In my opinion, publications like The Register are really limiting their potential, and "missing the boat" by monopolizing the production of content in their publications. It limits the exchange of ideas in a very damaging manner. To me, it makes the content very uninteresting.

For every major point in the article, I want to be able to instantly access an intelligent counterpoint from the pool of readers. I want to see relevant things discussed that the article's author omitted, either intentionally or unintentionally.

I might even want to post something of my own. All of these abilities serve as a check on many things that are "wrong" with Old Media, in my opinion.

I think sharing the "airwaves" via talkback really brings journalism to life, and it is basically free content. Many sites have discovered this: Slashdot, Kuro5hin, LawMeme, even ZDnet.

You probably agree so far; I've checked out The Inquirer's forums, and it was obvious from the statements there that you believe having forums is a major means of value-addition over The Register.

And indeed, I was overjoyed when I first saw the "discuss in forms" link on an Inquirer article. But this joy was soon tempered. I think The Inquirer's forums have the following problems, which are really limiting the potential of the publication:

1) The forums are essentially on an entirely different site, rather than embedded on the article page (see ZDNet's Talkback). This pushes the ideas put forth by readers into a peripheral "side band". I imagine 99% of readers will never see any of them.

2) Logging in as guest to read the comments is a separate step, rather than a transparent, default mode of presentation. Poor design, IMHO.

3) As far as I can see, there is no 1-1 correspondence between Inquirer articles and forums. Maybe I am wrong here, but it seems silly to have to create a new discussion for an already-existing article. It'd really lower the confusion factor to have a discussion ready-made, with the same title as each article, and accessible *directly* by the link at the bottom.

I suppose this comes from weak coupling of forums software to your publication's content. While modularity is great, you generally need some integration, which I think shows in this case.

4) You might want to go with a system that does not require accounts to post. This lowers the barrier to contribution even further, though, it may shut the door to self-moderation systems. Ultimately it depends on the characteristics of the specific setting.

5) The beehive forums software appears to be buggy. It's got a slick interface, but last I checked, accessing any discussion resulted in a mysql database error. It also has a queer interface; I can't tell why frames should be necessary (though maybe I just didn't get a chance to get used to it.)

If Inquirer were to address these issues, I think it could be a really awesome site. I really feel like giving more weight to enthusiastic, contributing readers is the New Way. I'm not sure how many others share my sentiments, but I imagine the proportion will be increasing.

If you are short on resources to perform these augmentations, maybe it makes sense to consider them an investment rather than a burden.

Sincerely,

Aaron Krowne

Greetings, In your most recent letters roundup in article 10049, Aaron Krowne writes:

"But none of this would really be a problem, were there adequate talk-back facilities. By this I mean direct reader feedback; comments posting, not handpicked republication of letters to the editor or article authors".

I've made this point before in a direct letter to the Mageek: please god, no, for the love of cricket...

There are already innumerable places on the net where I can read the uninformed, ungrammatical, poorly-spelled ramblings of random internet twits -- I like the fact that the Inq goes to the trouble to cull out the cruft before posting a selection of letters. That's one of the functions of an editorial staff, and one sorely missing from much of the "new media".

The Inq has a web forum; Mr. Krowne can read it and post to it if he wants, but please, oh please do not integrate feedback, comments, etc to the main site. It'll all end in tears; I know it.

Thanks for the great site, and keep up the good work.

Loyal reader since the beginning,

Charles