[Sigia-l] Do Make Me Think!

[John Fullerton]

OK, the subject has changed :)

Saturday I installed a well-known program from CD that I had purchased
online.

The starting screen during installation had some other options beside
the main program and after installing the program, I wanted to check
those options, however the installation did not return to that screen,
simply noted that the program was installed, gave me an option of
starting the program or exiting. I exited and when to the CD-ROM to see
how to get back to the starting screen. I decided to click the install
program (probably wrongly) thinking I'd get a status prompt or could
exit if that was not correct. Unfortunately, it seemed to have begun the
installation again, without notifying me of that, even though the
program was installed. It's possible that the button prompts should have
been sufficient to let me know not to choose the options I chose. So, I
cancelled during the installation and when I restarted the program I got
an error that I needed to uninstall and reinstall. Instead I just
reinstalled (probably wrongly). And got an error after the reinstall.
Then I uninstalled and reinstalled and got an error when I created a
work file. Then I contacted customer support chat and it seemed that
customer support was outsourced to a service company. I was typing as
fast as I could, trying to convey what the situation was, and getting
back, OK, OK, and at some point, As I understand it, you're saying that
you're having a problem installing the software? It was recommended that
I copy all files from the CD to my PC and install from there. I did and
got the same error when creating the work file. I contacted chat support
again and was told that I needed to install with an admin account (I
happened to have done so, though I did not know at first.) Then it was
recommended that I create another admin account and install from there.
I did, same error in creating the work file. I think all of that took
about 4 hours, and I felt like the time was wasted, and that I had been
foolish to even try, or to have purchased the software--I'm not saying
that my feeling was accurate, though that was how I felt. While using
the new admin account, I tried to delete a directory for the work files
created (I think) from my original admin account, and got an error that
the files were systems files and that windows required them to work. I
wondered if my originally exiting the second install left those files in
the wrong mode?

A few thoughts for customer support were

1. let me know how I can research this question
2. make the available information useful and thorough
3. let me know if this is a known issue
4. let me know if this is not a common issue

If I were customer support trying to resolve this issue, I'd like to
have a database of cases that was easy for me to check for factors like,
"installation, user error". I'd like to know what methods to recommend
to users for verifying their windows installation. I'd like to have the
option of moving the customer to someone who knew more than me if I
could not resolve the issue or let the customer know how to pursue
that.

All of these issues are relevant for myself because I provide some
customer interaction and support myself, so doubtless I got my monies'
worth :)

ouch :)

Have a nice day
John Paul Fullerton
j-fullerton at tamu.edu 


>>> Patrick Walsh <patrick.walsh at hertshighways.org.uk> 10/16/2006 4:54
AM >>>
Does all information have to be via a web page? Human beings are quite
good
at answering 'soft queries'. Most sites have 'Contact Us' sections
where
you can e-mail queries and usually get a reply anytime from a day to a
month. The company that provides me with a skilled human online and
interacting in real time when I have a difficult query will always get
my
business.
I work in enterprise IA and the most frequent observation I hear is
that IT
is dehumanising. In certain areas an improved web/human interface
might
restore some balance.