So, I have been running Windows Vista 64-bit for over a year now. Yeah, some bugs here and there, but nothing like you would expect. I run most of the typical applications at work: Adobe Reader, MS Office, a bunch of Google apps. Most issues were fixed pretty quickly by those companies. At first I used it as a "side machine" but I slowly transitioned to using it for my main work. We still have a few apps that don't work (Windows Messenger over TLS) which I run on a machine that I remote on a second screen.
I decided a few months back to enable (the Microsoft approved away) the download of Vista's SP1 Release Candidate. Installed and ran all the same apps without any issues. I think I noticed some improvements, especially the file copy stuff.
Last week I decided to uninstall the RC so I can install the full blown release. I go to Programs, and uninstall. It goes through the various stages, gets through Stage 3 and reboots, then it just hangs with the little green "Cylon" bar at the bottom with two bars. I try safe mode, safe mode with networking, with command prompt, Last Known config, etc. NOTHING!
So, I call Microsoft's free support for SP1 issues. I get through in about 5 minutes and they prequalify me (64-bit Vista Enterprise, just uninstalled SP1 RC) and tell me there is about a 5 minute wait. WOW! only 5 minutes? Can't be right.
You guessed it. It was not right, and when I finally got through, they asked me a bunch of questions and determined I was in the wrong group. So they transferred me. I was on hold again for a while. I get another lady who after a few minutes and most of the same questions that since I am on a Domain, she can not help me and she proceeds to transfer me to another group. She holds with me and when we eventually get through, we go through the same questions and this guy says, "Well, since you are on a Domain, you support will cost ....." and he didn't get much further before I said, "OK, it's no longer on the domain" as I "unplugged" the network cable (as far as they knew). He asked the lady if they could help, she said she had to check with her supervisor...more waiting.
Eventually she came back and gave me a disclaimer about group policy and such. She then asked me to boot to the recovery Disk, which I had been for about the 8th time, and open up command prompt, which I already had, and go to the directory where the "5 system restore files are". Since booting form the DVD would not do a repair and it said I had no recovery points, she had me "manually do a recovery." We renamed these files to .old and copied files from a sub-directory, rebooted and PRESTO!! my PC still didn't boot!!
Well, she says we just did a manual recovery so I don't know what else to tell you. I look at my phone and see that that was a nice 2 hours and 15 minutes of listening to outsourced tech support give me 5 minutes worth of useless information. I thanked her, told her I was not happy and we hung up.
Needless to say on the follow up email, I was not happy either.
No wonder this country is going to pot. I wish people from CEOs all the way down to the street cleaners and garbage men would stop and realize that it's customer service that is suffering EVERYWHERE, and this is the perfect example.
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