(no subject)

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Dear cable company:

I realize that the Motorola SB5100 cable modem says on the box that it's compatible with Windows 98SE. There is s USB driver on the CD that claims to be a USB cable modem driver for Win98SE. I am aware of this.

The driver does NOT WORK RELIABLY. We have phoned you 4 TIMES to inform you of this - if the driver isn't recognized the first time Windows tries to load it, we cannot do a damn thing about it.

Would you please stop promising your subscribers that we will get their Win98 machines online, given that we have told you repeatedly that we can't?

The next time I hear a user tell me you promised them support for this, I will forward them back to your Customer Service department and promise that you will give them a free NIC installation and/or OS upgrade.

Comments

[harmer.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, I totally just had a Windows 98SE SB5100 USB drivers call and the friggin' drivers WOULD NOT install and I tried several different ways.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

they usually don't.

About 30% of the time they work right away, the first time Win98 notices the modem.
if they don't, there is NO amount of battling you can do to install them.

[silveryrose.livejournal.com]

I can honestly say that's one good thing about the cable company here in my home town. They won't give out the SB5100 models if you tell them you're using Windows 98 or 98SE unless you tell them you'll be using the ethernet connection instead of the USB one. They offer the SB4100 and some other model by a different company that I can't think of off the top of my head if you tell them you're using USB on win98

[teriwyn.livejournal.com]

I seem to think there was a registry fix for this, but it's been a few years and it was the 4100, heh.

[teriwyn.livejournal.com]

I couldn't find what the VID is for the Surfboards, so I can't tell you which of these to delete, heh... but the offending key in a failed USB install (not just of SBs, but of many devices in Win98 - USB was still very flaky back then) is in here:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB

These are all the USB items. If you can figure out which one is Motorola's VID (Vendor ID), you can probably tell which key to yank out. I did this several times back when I was a phone jockey for a cable co, and it fixed those borked USB installs probably about 80% of the time.

Not sure what your role is in dealing with these installs, but maybe this info will make your life easier. And sorry, I just don't know for sure which VID to tell you to yank.

[jecook]

Yeah, but do you really want a clueless luser tromping around the registry in his size 11's ?

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

exactly.
there are huge liability issues surrounding me even teaching a user how to open Regedit.

[valiskeogh.livejournal.com]

dood... like... get a nic card... they're 5 bucks... hell, walk down the street and someone may pay you to take one off their hands, i throw away about 6 of them each day at work...

[valiskeogh.livejournal.com]

um... i kinda misread, but that's something you can tell your lusers :)

[110billion.livejournal.com]

nic ftw

[compwizrd.livejournal.com]

If Microsoft doesn't want to support Win98 anymore, why should you have to? (and that's the reason a lot of companies give now)

[teriwyn.livejournal.com]

After doing phone support for several years, I've gotten to be pretty good at gauging what is beyond the capacity of the user to comprehend.

I've also gotten really good at scaring even the most unruly user shitless with regards to the registry. It usually involved threats like, "If you don't click exactly what I tell you to, and nothing but what I tell you to, you will end up with problems much bigger than just your cable modem not working."

This, along with the Winsock2 registry fix, was doled out to users who would appreciate it. Because at the end of the day, I fix things. Scope of support meant nothing to me when I was dealing with an appreciative customer. But if the end user was being a jackass, or just wouldn't get it, they were shuffled off without a second thought.

Regardless, my post with the fix was aimed more to share it with a fellow tech who didn't seem to think there was a fix than to advocate actually walking customers through something that was outside of "scope of support." The information is there, but I sure won't be offended if you don't (or can't) use it.

[canray.livejournal.com]

They're still supporting it at the moment, but not for much longer.

I figure the day they stop, and, thusly, everyone else stops as well, is going to be the worst day to call tech support! I know I'm going to be partying!

[canray.livejournal.com]

USB Drivers on Win98SE are a crap-shoot to begin with.

Which ticks me off, because I deal with Wireless Network Connections, and the majority of our Wireless NICs are USB devices.

The alternative is having our Shaved Trained Apes (Only without the training!) open up cases and try to install these.

Heck, just got a call this week over that: "The computer won't start up at all after your idiot sold us on the PCI Card!"

[compwizrd.livejournal.com]

guess it comes down to what we call "support"

security fixes haven't been available for quite awhile now, and even windows 2000 is seeing an artifical lack of support with some new games.

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=6513

[harmer.livejournal.com]

No kidding, I spent just under an hour trying!

[compwizrd.livejournal.com]

is that cable modem usb 2.0?

usb 1.1 is just barely fast enough for cable internet around here.