Friday, February 03, 2006
When you choose Start, Help and Support Center, Windows XP presents you with a wide array of choices. Many of the top-level choices "drill down" to the same bits of information; by giving you many different ways to get to that information, Microsoft hopes to make finding what you need easier for you, even if you don't know the answer to your question in advance.
Windows Help morsels fall into several categories:
Overviews, articles, and tutorials: Explanatory pieces aimed at giving you an idea of what is going on, as opposed to solving a specific problem.
Tasks: Step-by-step procedures for solving a single problem or changing a single setting.
Walkthroughs: Marketing demos . . . uh, multimedia demonstrations of capabilities that tend to be, uh, light on details and heavy on splash.
Troubleshooters: Take you through a series of (frequently complex) steps to help you identify and resolve problems.
Microsoft has tried hard to enable you to solve your own problems. At the same time, Microsoft has made it pretty difficult to figure out how to pick up the phone and chat with somebody in Product Support Services.
Few Dummies will want to jigger with the Search Options. The Help and Support Center already looks in all the places it can; your only options are to cut off certain types of searches entirely.
Live, one-on-one support from Microsoft is notoriously uneven. One day you get a support rep who can solve your problem in the blink of an eye. The next day you spend hours on hold, only to be told that you need to reformat your hard drive and reinstall Windows.
When Troubleshooters work, they work well, but they cover only the most basic problems and the most direct solutions.
Although Remote Assistance is a great idea, in practice the idea has plenty of problems: Both you and your assistant have to be connected to the Internet (or to the same local network) and if firewalls exist between you, Remote Assistance might not work at all.
Windows newsgroups on the Internet are unmoderated, which means anybody can post anything. Many well-meaning support group participants dole out utterly terrible advice.
Sometimes Windows Updates are worse than the problem they're supposed to fix. Wait for an update to be in general circulation for at least a week before you apply it to your machine. That way, Microsoft has a chance to withdraw or reissue problematic updates (of which there are many).
The Hardware and Software Compatibility lists leave much to be desired. If a piece of hardware or software that you want to buy appears on the list, it's probably at least a little bit compatible. If it isn't on the list, you can't really draw much of a conclusion.
Windows Help morsels fall into several categories:
Overviews, articles, and tutorials: Explanatory pieces aimed at giving you an idea of what is going on, as opposed to solving a specific problem.
Tasks: Step-by-step procedures for solving a single problem or changing a single setting.
Walkthroughs: Marketing demos . . . uh, multimedia demonstrations of capabilities that tend to be, uh, light on details and heavy on splash.
Troubleshooters: Take you through a series of (frequently complex) steps to help you identify and resolve problems.
Microsoft has tried hard to enable you to solve your own problems. At the same time, Microsoft has made it pretty difficult to figure out how to pick up the phone and chat with somebody in Product Support Services.
Few Dummies will want to jigger with the Search Options. The Help and Support Center already looks in all the places it can; your only options are to cut off certain types of searches entirely.
Live, one-on-one support from Microsoft is notoriously uneven. One day you get a support rep who can solve your problem in the blink of an eye. The next day you spend hours on hold, only to be told that you need to reformat your hard drive and reinstall Windows.
When Troubleshooters work, they work well, but they cover only the most basic problems and the most direct solutions.
Although Remote Assistance is a great idea, in practice the idea has plenty of problems: Both you and your assistant have to be connected to the Internet (or to the same local network) and if firewalls exist between you, Remote Assistance might not work at all.
Windows newsgroups on the Internet are unmoderated, which means anybody can post anything. Many well-meaning support group participants dole out utterly terrible advice.
Sometimes Windows Updates are worse than the problem they're supposed to fix. Wait for an update to be in general circulation for at least a week before you apply it to your machine. That way, Microsoft has a chance to withdraw or reissue problematic updates (of which there are many).
The Hardware and Software Compatibility lists leave much to be desired. If a piece of hardware or software that you want to buy appears on the list, it's probably at least a little bit compatible. If it isn't on the list, you can't really draw much of a conclusion.
