How Not to Make Your Technicians Day
We've all had them. An irate customer calling at an atrocious hour with an ultimatum: "You have thirty minutes to have me back online or your fired, AND I'm telling all my friends to fire you."
Normally, the problem is caused by a - moronic at best - user error. Some new program update fried the server, somebody spilled coffee all over the most expensive printer, one of the employee's children decided it would be fun to unplug every patch cable in the office... the details may be different but the result is the same. Here's a couple of my favorite.
"MY PROFILE IS BROKEN!!!"
=============================
The Scenario: One of our more problematic clients uses a very difficult piece of software. In fact, updates seem more likely to damage the data and break the program than fix their intended error. As a result, every time this software is updated, we expect a slew of calls about all the errors it has caused.
On one such upgrade, we receive a frantic call from our client: one of the user's has lost her entire profile. This user was, of course, in charge of payroll for both the employees and investors and therefore had a LARGE number of irreplaceable, not duplicated, and not backed up files on the profile in question. No questions, no hesitation, we were on the scene.
The Real Scenario: For users who use the "Windows XP" style start menu, an option called pinning exists. Basically, this start menu is divided into two major sections. The right side offers shortcuts to programs most people use frequently (My Documents, My Music, etc) and DOES NOT CHANGE. The left side heuristically offers shortcuts to programs you use frequently and frequently changes. Now on the left, anything that you want to not move, you can pin. This moves the item from the bottom left (where Windows manages links), to the upper left.
To pin an item, you either right click it and choose "Pin to Start Menu", or simply drag and drop it. To unpin the item, you choose "Unpin from Start Menu" on the context menu. Intuitive, simple, and pretty self explanatory. Our user who had been suffering from a "broken" profile had accidentally unpinned an item, and pinned another its place. This resulted in her being completely unable to work until I gave her a brief primer on how the Start Menu works.
SCORE: Computers 1 | Users 0
"WHERE ARE ALL MY FILES?!?!?!?"
====================================
Automatic file organization has come a long way since the days of MS-DOS.
Most users consider files to be stored on their Desktop (actually located at "C:\Documents and Settings\>username<\Desktop". They place shortcuts to their files here and are terrified if anything happens to those shortcuts. I am frequently hailed as a genius when I restore these shortcuts, or in my clients eyes, perform a "miraculous file recovery".
Even with this error being so common however, I couldn't stop myself from laughing when I came across this. A user was approximately the fourth person to sit at a particular station. The computer was configured to use automatic login (to the Administrator account no less... GAH) and previous tech consultants hadn't bothered to create new profiles for each successive user. As a result, every user, not wanting to accidentally delete old files, had created a folder for themselves in the previous users folder then shortcutted it to the desktop. This resulted in the following file path being the location of basically every important file on the computer: C:\Documents and Settings\Joe\My Documents\Carol's Files\JL\Current Documents\Winery Files.
After the computer was upgraded and the files transferred, the previous desktop shortucut didn't work (the original owner had configured the hard drive to store profiles on a seperate partition). I get the phone call explaining that in our upgrade we've unwittingly deleted all the files. It honestly took me twenty minutes to find the files this user wanted because of the levels of nesting in My Documents that was going on.
"WHY CAN'T I ACCESS COMPANY DATA ANYMORE?"
=============================================
This is my personal favorite of today's three stories. All the bussiness networks we support have at least one central file server/application server/e-mail server (depending on the networks needs). Computers are configured to access data directly off the server so 1) They all see the exact same data, and 2) That data is backed up daily. Now, this does unfortunately some times cause data access errors.
A user called to tell us that she seemed unable to open any accounting files. We went through the basic troubleshooting first: is the program opened correctly, are your data paths set properly, are you connected to the internet, etc. Everything checked out and we still couldn't get at the data.
Time for step two: Remote Desktop so I can fix the problem. In general in scenarios like this which call for more advanced troubleshooting, RDC is a lifesaver. I RDC'ed into the server and was ready to nest to the user's laptop, but the connection wasn't working. For some reason I couldn't even ping her. This lead me to suspect firewall issues, so we spent about twenty minutes troubleshooting that with no luck.
At this point, I have no choice but to start walking the user through advanced troubleshooting using the command prompt. Her IP address is set fine, her DNS lookups are all getting replies, she can ping any website, it's just the company network that seems to be malfunctioning.
I have her run "netsh int ip show dns" and she tells me her DNS is configured via DHCP. Bingo, I think to myself, DNS error leads to local name lookup errors. No luck after we manually set it to the server. At this point I'm about ready to give up. We run ipconfig one more time and I have her read me all the data line by line. When she mentions that her connection specific DNS suffix is set to sbcglobal.net a red flag is raised for me. This particular company uses Charter Cable internet, not Verizon as their ISP.
I have her check her Wireless Networks and it turns out she's connected to "linksys", not "company" like she should be. I figure she must have picked up one of the neighboring offices signals and accidentally connected to it. "Go ahead and choose connect to 'company'" I tell her only to find out "company" isn't listed as an available network for her.
Odd. That means someone turned off the WAP at the office. That's not supposed to happen.
ME: "Go talk to Heather, the WAP is in her office, maybe she unplugged it."
USER: "Oh, Heather's at work right now."
ME: "Yes... and you are?"
USER: "I'm at home. I went home early but wanted to finish some work up now."
ME: (flabbergasted) "Your at... home?"
USER: "Yes. Is that a problem?"
Obviously, that's a bit of a problem. In case your ever wondering, files on your company network are... ON YOUR COMPANY NETWORK.
Normally, the problem is caused by a - moronic at best - user error. Some new program update fried the server, somebody spilled coffee all over the most expensive printer, one of the employee's children decided it would be fun to unplug every patch cable in the office... the details may be different but the result is the same. Here's a couple of my favorite.
"MY PROFILE IS BROKEN!!!"
=============================
The Scenario: One of our more problematic clients uses a very difficult piece of software. In fact, updates seem more likely to damage the data and break the program than fix their intended error. As a result, every time this software is updated, we expect a slew of calls about all the errors it has caused.
On one such upgrade, we receive a frantic call from our client: one of the user's has lost her entire profile. This user was, of course, in charge of payroll for both the employees and investors and therefore had a LARGE number of irreplaceable, not duplicated, and not backed up files on the profile in question. No questions, no hesitation, we were on the scene.
The Real Scenario: For users who use the "Windows XP" style start menu, an option called pinning exists. Basically, this start menu is divided into two major sections. The right side offers shortcuts to programs most people use frequently (My Documents, My Music, etc) and DOES NOT CHANGE. The left side heuristically offers shortcuts to programs you use frequently and frequently changes. Now on the left, anything that you want to not move, you can pin. This moves the item from the bottom left (where Windows manages links), to the upper left.
To pin an item, you either right click it and choose "Pin to Start Menu", or simply drag and drop it. To unpin the item, you choose "Unpin from Start Menu" on the context menu. Intuitive, simple, and pretty self explanatory. Our user who had been suffering from a "broken" profile had accidentally unpinned an item, and pinned another its place. This resulted in her being completely unable to work until I gave her a brief primer on how the Start Menu works.
SCORE: Computers 1 | Users 0
"WHERE ARE ALL MY FILES?!?!?!?"
====================================
Automatic file organization has come a long way since the days of MS-DOS.
Everything will be installed to the root of C: or your computer will cease to operate. If you choose to store any file in a subfolder, you risk losing it.Today, (most) programs conveniently install themselves in "Program Files" (a folder your average user doesn't even need to know exists), system files (critical to the operation of Windows) go in "WINDOWS", and everything else is stored in the user profile "Documents and Settings\>username<". Surprisingly, or perhaps inevitably, this automatic organization has done little, if anything, to combat file atrophy.
Most users consider files to be stored on their Desktop (actually located at "C:\Documents and Settings\>username<\Desktop". They place shortcuts to their files here and are terrified if anything happens to those shortcuts. I am frequently hailed as a genius when I restore these shortcuts, or in my clients eyes, perform a "miraculous file recovery".
Even with this error being so common however, I couldn't stop myself from laughing when I came across this. A user was approximately the fourth person to sit at a particular station. The computer was configured to use automatic login (to the Administrator account no less... GAH) and previous tech consultants hadn't bothered to create new profiles for each successive user. As a result, every user, not wanting to accidentally delete old files, had created a folder for themselves in the previous users folder then shortcutted it to the desktop. This resulted in the following file path being the location of basically every important file on the computer: C:\Documents and Settings\Joe\My Documents\Carol's Files\JL\Current Documents\Winery Files.
After the computer was upgraded and the files transferred, the previous desktop shortucut didn't work (the original owner had configured the hard drive to store profiles on a seperate partition). I get the phone call explaining that in our upgrade we've unwittingly deleted all the files. It honestly took me twenty minutes to find the files this user wanted because of the levels of nesting in My Documents that was going on.
"WHY CAN'T I ACCESS COMPANY DATA ANYMORE?"
=============================================
This is my personal favorite of today's three stories. All the bussiness networks we support have at least one central file server/application server/e-mail server (depending on the networks needs). Computers are configured to access data directly off the server so 1) They all see the exact same data, and 2) That data is backed up daily. Now, this does unfortunately some times cause data access errors.
A user called to tell us that she seemed unable to open any accounting files. We went through the basic troubleshooting first: is the program opened correctly, are your data paths set properly, are you connected to the internet, etc. Everything checked out and we still couldn't get at the data.
Time for step two: Remote Desktop so I can fix the problem. In general in scenarios like this which call for more advanced troubleshooting, RDC is a lifesaver. I RDC'ed into the server and was ready to nest to the user's laptop, but the connection wasn't working. For some reason I couldn't even ping her. This lead me to suspect firewall issues, so we spent about twenty minutes troubleshooting that with no luck.
At this point, I have no choice but to start walking the user through advanced troubleshooting using the command prompt. Her IP address is set fine, her DNS lookups are all getting replies, she can ping any website, it's just the company network that seems to be malfunctioning.
I have her run "netsh int ip show dns" and she tells me her DNS is configured via DHCP. Bingo, I think to myself, DNS error leads to local name lookup errors. No luck after we manually set it to the server. At this point I'm about ready to give up. We run ipconfig one more time and I have her read me all the data line by line. When she mentions that her connection specific DNS suffix is set to sbcglobal.net a red flag is raised for me. This particular company uses Charter Cable internet, not Verizon as their ISP.
I have her check her Wireless Networks and it turns out she's connected to "linksys", not "company" like she should be. I figure she must have picked up one of the neighboring offices signals and accidentally connected to it. "Go ahead and choose connect to 'company'" I tell her only to find out "company" isn't listed as an available network for her.
Odd. That means someone turned off the WAP at the office. That's not supposed to happen.
ME: "Go talk to Heather, the WAP is in her office, maybe she unplugged it."
USER: "Oh, Heather's at work right now."
ME: "Yes... and you are?"
USER: "I'm at home. I went home early but wanted to finish some work up now."
ME: (flabbergasted) "Your at... home?"
USER: "Yes. Is that a problem?"
Obviously, that's a bit of a problem. In case your ever wondering, files on your company network are... ON YOUR COMPANY NETWORK.
posted by Mike at 9:21 AM
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