Lowered Expectations

[ptstech.livejournal.com]

Setup: 'Tis the season for people to replace their old kit with new.  I do refurbs and upgrades for those who don't want to buy from the big boys.  On occasion, this leads to some unintended comedy on the part of a potential client.  Hence, the following email:

----------------------------
Dear ptstech,

I have received your quote for the refurbished laptop, and have a couple of followup questions:

Does it come with Vista?  I have heard it is more secure and since my kids will be using this, I thought it would be a good idea.

Will the CD drive burn DVDs?

Can the screen be upgraded to a wider version for watching movies?

Thanks,
Clueless Potential Buyer
---------------------------------------

Now bear in mind that he was responding to a quote which:

• Explicitly described what he was getting both in terms of the hardware and the software already on it
• Explicitly explained that the unit was being sold "as is" with no upgrades or substitutions at the listed price

And all that notwithstanding, Vista? Upgrading to a "wider screen"?  On a laptop?

Why do I do this to myself?

Sharepoint Woes

[yanni85.livejournal.com]

I work for an company that provides IT for small to medium sized businesses. We also do downstream IT for companies with a small IT department that could benefit from our larger resources. This ticket came in this morning from one such client.

I was trying to prepare our SharePoint 2007 Server to be backed up by our new MS Data Protection Management Server and now it is screwed up.
* I installed KB941422 hotfix for SharePoint Services on my SharePoint 2007 Server.
* During the install I received a message stating: After this updates completes run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard to finalize the update.
* After the hotfix installed I ran the SharePoint Products and Technologies configuration Wizard.
* Toward the end of the wizard's run I received a message stating: Failed to start service SPSearchService Instance on this server. After completing upgrade please start it manually.
* Then at the end of the end of the wizard's run I received a failed message which referred me to the log file which turns out to be over 200 pages long.
* I tried to manually restart the SPSearch Service but could not find it.
* I went to TechNet and researched SPSearch and kept seeing SharePoint Service appearing. It appears that SPSearch is part of SharePoint Services but not part of SharePoint 2007 Server
* I read the information about the update that I had installed and it said not to install on SharePoint 2007 Server but to install a different hotfix (KB937832).
* I installed the new hotfix then launched the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard. It failed. I think it is trying to install the first hotfix and will not install the second hotfix until the first is installed.
* I tried uninstalling the first hotfix but it cannot be installed.
* I have no back up of this server. It does have a small amount of production data.

What are my options? Attached is the 200-some log file that I was referred to

Oops.

And now I am waiting for a callback from a Microsoft Sharepoint Tech. Not a call I'm looking forward to.

EDIT: P.S. Here is the first line of the KB article in question

Important The update that is described in this article has been replaced by the updates that are described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base articles:

Cock-upus Tremendumous

[rorted.livejournal.com]

Hi [Head of IT in Central-West African country],

Allow me to share with you my analysis of the factors leading to the loss of data from your Exchange server in [country's head office]. As noted previously [and loudly, by you] all e-mails for users in [country's head office] were lost, resulting in significant impact to business in [country].


( A multitude of sins behind cut )

--

In summary, multiple factors at the [country] level contributed to the unrecoverable loss of data on [server name]. I would recommend that [your team] undertake an audit of all its critical servers to ensure they comply with [IT department standards document] and [another IT department standards document] ASAP.

[I'd further recommend that your entire team is sacked, banned from ever touching a server again, and that they seriously reconsider any intentions they may have of breeding.]

Kind regards,

[Bewildered sysadmin]

(no subject)

[ihateemo.livejournal.com]

Someone wrote in a ticket "this server are using a internal network to comunicate with each other". It's like we're employing lolcats now.