At 03:52 PM 12/8/2009 +1030, Geoff wrote: >has anyone found Microsoft's support of VFP to be immensely valuable anyhow? >Ive always found solutions or workarounds to problems from the user ...
I have never found any MS support useful for any product. In the past I used to try and get support from them on everything from simple network issues, to database performance problems (SQL Server), to application code (VB, C++, and VFP of course). Basically, I NEVER got what I'd consider a good response. I remember some cases (just a few years ago) that the person actually referred me to some other web site/group. To be fair, they may well indeed provide good responses to people calling in and asking how to do underlining in Word - or how to calculate a column of numbers in Excel. And I suppose MS is probably getting good at helping people 'unlock' their 'locked-out' windows due to some "authentication" problem. But from what I've seen (and heard) their support for truly technical issues is terrible. I pretty much gave up on it. Last year we did try to use them again for a particular problem with an app on Vista. Spent about a week getting bumped around to different people at MS. During the last conversation, WE (me and another network guy) suggested a workaround - we set it up - and the problem went away. The MS guy said "case closed" and we say "oh no it isn't!" (basically, our workaround seemed to prove that certain code in the Vista Winsock implementation was either broken, or not completed). But that was the end of it. Nothing to show for a week of grinding teeth other than we were able to work around MS's problem (and we later found out that others had been reporting the same type problems with Vista). All this really makes you wonder just how stupid the "higher ups" truly are. If your workers let you know that support from MS is practically meaningless, but you still shell out the millions per year to have it, what kind of fool are you (is there really more than 1 kind)? And these same higher ups are the ones that get into a tizzy when they hear "MS will stop supporting Windows version x in 6 months." Their panic would be laughable if it weren't so damaging. Their ignorance is appalling - and it's due to their own laziness, the laziness of the developers under them, and the FUD-barrage that MS masters. Pretty shameful huh? Probably the only wake-up call they'll hear is when their company goes out of business - replaced by a competitor spending a fraction of their cost on IT issues. Anyway, I would imagine that .Net support HAS to be better. Maybe that's why everything else is still so bad. They took any support person that could figure out how to at least open a paper bag and put them in the .Net group. That's where MS has bet the farm. Too bad there are so many still ignoring the past painful lessons. <shrug> Oh well, things will continue. They say that after the age of about 18, it takes a life-crisis to change a personal opinion. So until that crisis is hit, the MS-heads will take issue with what I've said, and the struggling MS developer will keep struggling. All the while the open-source folks will grin, nod, and get back to work. :-) -Charlie _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
