techrecovery | For those of you stuck at work...(crossposted)

Cut for length...some funnies to read if you're bored.

A tech get drafted!

One of Microsoft Network's finest support techs was drafted into the Army and sent to boot camp.

At the rifle range, he was given some instructions, handed a rifle, and a couple rounds of ammo. He loaded the rifle and fired several shots at the target which was fifty yards away.

The report came from the target area that all of his attempts had completely missed the target.

The tech looked at his rifle, and then at the target. He looked at the rifle again, and then once more at the target. He placed his finger over the end of the rifle barrel and squeezed the trigger with his other hand.

The end of his finger was blown off -- whereupon he yelled toward the target area...

"It's leaving here just fine; the trouble must be at your end!"

The following are new Error Messages are planned for Windows 2000:

1) Smash forehead on keyboard to continue.
2) Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue.
3) Press any key to continue or any other key to quit.
4) Press any key... no, no, no, NOT THAT ONE!
5) Press Ctrl-Alt-Del now for IQ test.
6) Close your eyes and press escape three times.
7) Bad command or file name! Go stand in the corner.
8) This will end your Windows session. Do you want to play another game?
9) Windows message: "You have just made a type mismatch! Shall I format your brain?"
10) This is a message from God: "Rebooting the universe, please log off."
11) Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to continue.
12) BREAKFAST.SYS halted... Cereal port not responding.
13) COFFEE.SYS missing... Insert cup and press any key.
14) CONGRESS.SYS corrupted... Re-boot Washington D.C? (Y/N)
15) File not found. Should I fake it? (Y/N)
16) Bad or missing mouse driver. Spank the cat? (Y/N)
17) Runtime Error 6D at 417A:32CF: Incompetent User.
18) Error reading FAT record: Try the SKINNY one? (Y/N)
19) WinErr 547: LPT1 not found... Use backup... PENCIL & PAPER.
20) User Error: Replace user.
21) Windows VirusScan 1.0 - "OS/2 found: Remove it? (Y/Y)"
22) Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic.

New Win98 Error Codes

The Latest Report on Windows98: New Error Codes Assigned

Winerr 000 - Unexpected Intelligent User Detected; Please Reload Everything
Winerr 001 - Intimidation Failed; Attempting to Crash Repeatedly
Winerr 002 - Erroneous Error; No Error Occurred (Yet)
Winerr 003 - RAM Depleted; Annex Japan (Y/N)?
Winerr 004 - Deluxe Error. Please Send $75 to Upgrade Your Error
Winerr 005 - Long File Name Error; Tape Erased to Make Room for Filename
Winerr 006 - Insufficient RAM to Crash Properly; Attempting Fake Crash
Winerr 007 - Alphanumeric Sequence "OS2" Prohibited
Winerr 008 - This License Has Expired; Please Purchase Another Copy
Winerr 009 - Error Buffer Overflow; Too Many Errors
Winerr 00A - Non-Microsoft Application Encountered
Winerr 00B - Push Error; Removing Files to Make Room for Advertisement
Winerr 00C - Windows Loaded Correctly This Time
Winerr 00D - User Error; Lemming Not Found
Winerr 00E - Open Standard Encountered; Attempting to Redmondize
Winerr 00F - Reserved for Future Coding Errors
Winerr 010 - Virus Error - Other Applications Will Be Closed Instead
Winerr 011 - Orwell Not Found; You Must Use MSN
Winerr 012 - Cash Underflow - Credit Card Number Will Be Assimilated
Winerr 013 - Keyboard Error; User Must Learn to Slow Down
Winerr 014 - User Error; Reading License Agreement Mandatory to Continue
Winerr 015 - Error Message Deleted
Winerr 016 - Expected Error Did Not Occur; Attempting to Restart Error Sequence
Winerr 017 - Multitasking Attempted; System Confused
Winerr 018 - Network Error - Your Crash Will Be Replicated to All Stations
Winerr 019 - Freedom-of-Choice Error; Select a Microsoft Browser To Continue
Winerr 01A - Insult Detected -- Your Bill Gates Joke Will Be Deleted
Winerr 01B - Error Removing Temp File; a Permanent File Will Be Substituted
Winerr 01C - Wrong Disk Formatted. Sorry About That.
Winerr 01D - Mandatory Error Inserted to Meet Error Quota
Winerr 01E - Please Insert Your Favorite Error Here
Winerr 01F - Error In Progress; Please Wait....
Winerr 020 - Unknown Error Occurred But Was Lost. Windows Will Try To Remember
Winerr 021 - Error Parsing Error List; Please Wait For Next Error
Winerr 022 - Upgrade Error; Please Format Your Drive And Reload Everything

Support Part 1

Customer: "Your sound card is defective and I want a new one."
Tech Support: "What seems to be the problem?"
Customer: "The balance is backwards. The left channel is coming out of the right speaker and the right channel is coming out the left.
It's defective!"
Tech Support: "You can solve the problem by moving the left speaker to the right side of the machine and vice versa."
Customer: (sputter) (click)
Tech Support: (snicker)

Support Part 2

I had been doing Tech Support for Hewlett-Packard's DeskJet division for about a month when I had a customer call with a problem I just couldn't solve. She could not print yellow. All the other colors would print fine, which truly baffled me because the only true colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow. For instance, green is a combination of cyan and yellow, but green printed fine.

Every color of the rainbow printed fine except for yellow. I had the customer change ink cartridges. I had the customer delete and reinstall the drivers. Nothing worked. I asked my co-workers for help; they offered no new ideas.

After over two hours of troubleshooting, I was about to tell the customer to send the printer in to us for repair when she asked quietly,

"Should I try printing on a piece of white paper instead of this "yellow" construction paper?"

Support Part 3

A man attempting to set up his new printer called the printer's tech support number, complaining about the error message: "Can't find the printer."

On the phone, the man said he even held the printer up in front of the screen, but the computer still couldn't find it! (YEE-HAW!)

Support Part 4

Customer: "Hello? I'm trying to dial in. I installed the software okay, and it dialed fine. I could hear that. Then I could hear the two computers connecting. But then the sound all stopped, so I picked up the phone to see if they were still connected, and I got the message, 'No Carrier,' on my screen. What's wrong?"

Support Part 5

An unfailingly polite lady called to ask for help with a Windows installation that had gone terribly wrong.

Customer: "I brought my Windows disks from work to install them on my
home computer." (Training stresses that we are "not the Soft-ware Police," so I let the little act of piracy slide.)
Tech Support: "Umm-hmm. What happened?"
Customer: "As I put each disk in it turns out they weren't initialized."

Tech Support: "Do you remember the message exactly, ma'am?"
Customer:(proudly) "I wrote it down. 'This is not a Macintosh disk. Would you like to initialize it'?"
Tech Support: "Er, what happened next?"
Customer: "After they were initialized all the disks appeared to be blank. And now I brought them back to work, and I can't read them in the A: drive; the PC wants to format them. And this is our only set of Windows disks for the whole office. Did I do something wrong?"

Support Part 6

For a computer programming class, I sat directly across from someone, and our computers were facing away from each other.

A few minutes into the class, she got up to leave the room. I reached between our computers and switched the inputs for the keyboards. She came back and started typing and immediately got a distressed look on her face.

She called the teacher over and explained that no matter what she typed, nothing would happen. The teacher tried everything. By this time I was hiding behind my monitor and quaking red-faced.

I started to type, "Leave me alone!"

They both jumped back, silenced. "What the . . . " the teacher said.
I typed, "I said leave me alone!"

The kid got real upset. "I didn't do anything to it, I swear!"
It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. The conversation between them and HAL 2000 went on for an amazing five minutes.

Me: "Don't touch me!"

Her: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hit your keys that hard."

Me: "Who do you think you are anyway?!" Etc. Finally, I couldn't contain myself any longer and fell out of my chair laughing.

After they had realized what I had done, they both turned beet red. Funny, I never got more than a C- in that class.

Support Part 7

I have a friend who just bought a computer and was instructed to load a program by typing "A:" and then the name of the program. My friend told me it would not work because his keyboard was no good. He said he couldn't type the "dot over dot thingie" and that every time he tried to type the "dot over dot thingie" he kept getting the "dot over comma thingie" no matter how careful he was to press only on the very top of
the key.
When I taught him about the shift key, he thought I was a genius.

Support Part 8

This guy calls in to complain that he gets an "Access Denied" message every time he logs in. It turned out he was typing his user name and password in capital letters.
Tech Support: "OK, let's try once more, but use lower case letters." Customer: "Uh, I only have capital letters on my keyboard."

Support Part 9

Email from a friend: "CanYouFixTheSpaceBarOnMyKeyboard?"

Support Part 10

My friend was on duty in the main lab on a quiet afternoon. He noticed a young woman sitting in front of one of the workstations with her arms crossed across her chest and staring at the screen. After about 15 minutes he noticed that she was still in the same position only now she was impatiently tapping her foot. He asked if she needed help and she replied, "It's about time! I pushed the F1 button over twenty minutes ago!"