Have problem with computer

Search for solution

Find old forum post with the exact problem from 15 years ago

"Edit: Fixed it myself. Nevermind."

That's the support forums. It gets worse with actual support, that goes all chummy friendly, adds emoji and exclamation marks randomly. I would not have been surprised if my last exchange with MS Support ended with "tee hee".

They're weird.

This applies to almost everything tech related whenever there is an official support and non-standard issue. These people (or bots) just follow some script and as soon as there is a bit more complex or non-standard situation, they will have no clue what to do because they are not technical.

As far as Microsoft Support Community goes, if issue is popular there often is a decent answer deeper in thread, do not focus on ″best answer″.

As per this, it seems these Independent Advisors are outsourced by Microsoft from some company called Directly. Answer is from 2019 November so it might be outsourced to different company now. There might be also several. Same happens with at least M365 enterprise support. I have seen supporters from Accenture and other companies.

This will be now my standard template for the technical support

Dear, Valued Customer

chkdsk c: /f /r

Microsoft thanks you for your business

"I see you have problems with GAME NAME crashing. I have played games since my childhood they always let me immerse myself in the world and relax after a stressful day (...)

(...)

Useless suggestion

(...)

Even more useless suggestion that requires you to launch a command prompt

(...)

If that doesn't help, download our totally-not-a-virus.exe to prevent crashes in OTHER GAME YOU WEREN'T GOOGLING"

I just had one today

"Do [registry edit that won't help]. Alternatively, try [setting that does not exist] Anyway this is not supported anymore as of [very old version] (actually still works)"

And in true windows fashion, the thing just needed to be disabled and enabled again. After it was broken by a windows update, of course.

"Help! My computer is slow after an update."

"Try reinstalling window and reformatting you drive"

"Help I can't find my documents!"

Forgot the replies from both the original requester as well as a number of other people who state this didn't work at all, or isn't remotely close to what they were asking. The 7 people who marked this as helpful must be other Microsoft "experts" giving their own useless help. And what I really love is how if I get to this page a simple back click won't get me out, I have to pull down the history to go back to the search page because they have a reload loop built in to trap you.

Somewhere in the not so distant future...

Google Search: "Install printer driver windows 11"

Result from random blog:
"My first experience with printer drivers was 35 years ago. My grandma had an IBM PS2 that ran MS DOS and an HP Deskjet printer. It connected to the computer via a parallel port and printed a whopping 1 page per minute. Every year at Christmas, Grandma would print off her famous pecan pie recipe and we would all gather around the printer, eagerly listening to the sound of the print head slowly whooshing back and forth in anticipation of the tasty goodness to come. Blah blah blah. Five more pages of meaningless stories that have nothing to do with installing print drivers followed by a solution that only works for Epson printers."

I love tech “help” that basically suggests you nuke everything you’re trying to save.

sfc /scannow will apparently fix any windows issue. All of them.

Usually it goes like this:

”Hey I have this problem. I tried this solution, but it didn’t work. Any ideas?”

”The fix is easy: just do the thing you said you already done”

And then radio silence.

I can't believe they are getting away with so many bullshit non-solutions to the point where you wonder if they even know how to read.

I wonder if they trained AI on this. Might explain some things

For me, someone who uses a Mac for work but still has to use the office environment, it goes something like this:

Google the issue

Google the issue + office for Mac

Find a forum about the exact issue I'm having

Loads of people commenting having the same issue

Expert answers and says "That feature is not available for Macs at this time. How about you post it as a suggestion for the devs at this link here>>>"

Post is minimum 3 years old and there's still no solution.

Gee thanks.

Searching for a Linux error: OP: Hi guys', I have {situation }, how do I fix it?

Reply 1: Theres no way to troubleshoot this! Theres not enough information! Reply 2: I have the exact same issue on the same OS Reply 3: Have you tried {solution for a 6 year discontinued linux Distro}

Sometimes, You'll find an arch forum post that is perfect though and that almost makes the rest of the process worth it

Here's a handy Venn Diagram:

(Answers) (Answers DOT Microsoft DOT com)

Applies to macOS as well. These official support forums are such garbage.

Windows: did you run sfc /scannow and chkdsk? (This has never solved a single thing in my entire building PCs life, so since about 1999.)

macOS: did you reset SMC and PRAM? (This is basically a fancy restart and with Apple Silicon devices, it is literally just a restart.)