Al, I realise that this isn't personal, so I'll jump in with my thoughts again... ;)
Quoting Alan Pope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Hi Matthew, > > On Wed, May 16, 2007 at 06:08:55AM +0100, Matthew Macdonald-Wallace wrote: >> I work on a helpdesk as a day job supporting windows 2K/XP and an >> AS/400. Most of our users know how to use a computer to get their job >> done and that's it. Any errors at all (from "my computer won't switch >> on" to "the internet's gone down!!!!") are reported to us and we >> basically tell them (after three, 1...2...3) "Have you tried switching >> it off and back on again?" which, as it's windows, usually fixes the >> problem. >> > > Arrrgh! No it doesn't! > > For many issues it makes the problem (and hence the user) go away. It's a > quick bodge to make the user stop calling. It is the typical helpdesk > response in pretty much every company I have been in for the last 15 years. > > Nobody bothers to analyse a problem to figure out what the underlying issue > is anymore. If it takes more than 30-60 mins to "resolve" a problem most > companies just re-image (format and reinstall from a known good image) the > hard disk and forget it. I have written scripts (in vbscript - eurrgh!) to remotely change aspects of the registry based on google searches and the MSDN/TechNet knowledge bases, I've had heated discussions with people who are in higher positions within the team than me about how to fix certain problems and the fact that we need to have test rigs to confirm the fixes before rolling them out company wide, however frequently when I produce a fix, I'm told that I'm not allowed to deploy it because it hasn't been tested. Without permission to deploy the fix, that leaves us with the three options you gave (plus one more): 1) Leave the problem as it is and live with it 2) Reboot 3) Re-image the PC 4) Clear your temporary internet files Whilst I agree that frequently a number of helpdesks do not employ highly trained staff - or indeed provide the training required to improve or retain staff - quite often the fixes provided by MS or Google simply do not work. An example of this is the current issue I and about 20,000 other across the globe have encountered with SVCHost causing the CPU to run at 100%. I have tried every registry hack and hotfix I can find. I have rebuilt my machine twice and rebooted it several times - it turns out that this is an issue with Microsoft Update/Office 2003 and that it should be fixed by a patch issued by MS. I have installed that patch and I still encounter the same issues. I have fed back to Microsoft about this and it still has not been fixed. By contrast, in Edgy I was frequently receiving an error with Gnome-Settings-Demon failing to start and hogging my CPU on startup. I found on the Ubuntu forums the fix: apt-get update/upgrade and it started working immediately. To summarise (because I didn't realise just how much I'd been rambling...), yes, a lot of helpdesks use workarounds instead of fixes, however quite often this is to do with politics and a lack of leadership/training as opposed to a lack of knowledge. Also, the fact that sometimes (and frequently I'm finding) the patch released by the manufacturer either completely fails to work or creates another problem. Cheers, Matt -- Matthew Macdonald-Wallace Group Co-Ordinator Thanet Linux User Group http://www.thanet.lug.org.uk/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] GPG KEY: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xFEA1BC16 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
