LinuxBBQ

Adventures in tech support, post 'em here.

I think I have said before that I am the defacto IT guy at work, being the one most knowledgeable about computers and operating systems. Having said this, I don't really know dick about Windows, yet I still am the one who is asked to deal with these machines when they go tits-up. Usually it's getting rid of malware, or figuring out why Windows seems to randomly change settings, resulting in end-user confusion.

Today it's a non-booting XP system in the shipping department. Disk seems to be OK, but is not booting to XP desktop. Tried recovery from XP disk (chkdsk, etc.), and then would boot to black screen, white arrow, still no desktop. Safe mode yields same results, only with "Safe Mode" in each corner. SystemRescueCD shows drive and partitions, and I can browse the files therein, but that's all. I'm about at the end of my Windows knowledge, I may need to just reinstall. I'm tempted to tell management that it's fucked, and make them buy a new computer for shipping. Then I can use this as another Linux box! Mwahahahaha!

I do tech support here. Mainly Linux, but I have to deal with Windows and Mac users every now and then. Though my lovely enemies are tablet users. Simply because I don't have any smartphone or tablet, they just don't get that the IT guy can't fix their issues.

That said, latest fix I did for a customer was installing XUbuntu on his old HP. Windows Vista wasn't booting anymore. He asked for XUbuntu, I gave him just that. He's happy, he paid, so I'm happy too.

Right now I'm reformating, prepping for a fresh XP install. We'll see what happens. The only thing they really use this for is FedEx shipping, although I guess they have to do that through the FedEx proprietary software, rather than just over the web. Of course, there is no Linux version of that software, Windows only. They don't have the original XP disk for this machine, so I'm seeing if one that I have around here will work without running into licensing issues.

^ And cross your fingers the network/gfx/ works on reinstall :) Although that seems to be mostly Lappies, for me.

You might have to limit me to one post a day... 8)
At work I'm the least knowlegable ,apart from the security guard, who still knows how to find a server and plug a KVM into it.

This morning, "can you get this machine to boot off of a USBCD-ROM (yes, we still use CD's IDK why) - So we can boot the kernel from the backup drive, last nights shift was trying, couldn't get it to work"
Sure thing, BIOSis up already, check the boot order - no USBCD found - USB keyboard yes...
Ok fiddle with the BIOS, no joy. hmm, try one more old school trick...
I swapped the USB plugs of the keyboard and CDROM around -rebooted, Bingo.
CD booted fine 8}

Got XP reinstalled just fine, now jumping thru FedEx hoops to get the software, as their floppy (yes, floppy!) doesn't work.

hahah, and I thought CD's were out of date. is that a 5 1/4? heheh

Thankfully not THAT old, just a 3.5". The machine is a Dell Optiplex GX620 SFF (Small Form Factor), with a P4, 512MB of RAM, 80GB drive. Would have made a sweet BBQ box. :(

Those GX620 SFF's are seriously problematic machines in my book. Some run like a charm, but I once had a whole lab of them slowly die to various reasons, and they're pretty notorious for it. They like to stay too hot was one of our problems a few years ago.

10 yrs from now, there'll still be thread just like this, but for Android.

EMAILS AAARRRGGHH.

user: My emails don't work, i can receive but not send...
us: see above. on the phone, with the server tail -f'ing the mail queue: "what client are you using?"
user: outlook.
us: uhm, have you tried closing outlook and starting it up again?
user: will that keep my outgoing message?.
us: should do ("don't care" is implied)
user: OK, now what...
us: "hit send and receive"....we can see the mail going through the queue now...
user: oh that works.
us: for future reference, thats the first thing to try, close the prog, next thing: turn it off and on again, if that doesn't work - then contact us. good day

True story.

Happened to me yesterday.

user: I can't update Anki.
me: it's pretty easy, follow the link that pops up when you open your current version, download the latest version, and install it.
user: I already downloaded the latest version, I can't install it, it gives me some errors.
me: what errors?
user: I don't know.
me: seriously?
user: I can't see the errors now.
me: let me see.

[I grabbed his computer, Windows 7 and a desktop full of icons, and double-clicked on Anki installer. Installation was easy-peasy, no errors, everything's good when I started Anki.]

me (smiling): there you go. Wasn't that hard, was it?
user: easy for you, you are an expert.
me: see you.

wuxmedia wrote:us: see above. on the phone, with the server tail -f'ing the mail queue: "what client are you using?"
user: outlook.

Outlook: "There's your problem, right there." Around here, I got everyone off of Outlook, and onto Thunderbird. That solved a bunch of crap, right away.

^ fucking Exchange server bullshit.

i dont do sysadmin, but they are installing a new linux server here... it is running like some RedHat Nasal Natal or something... man, does that shit suck ass or what? amazing. slow, bloated, fugly.

funny thing is also, being a small company they resort to security through obscurity. and i was recently browsing some files, came across a 'IT migration report', and it just had the su password in plain text right there. >> into my file :)

rhowaldt wrote:funny thing is also, being a small company they resort to security through obscurity. and i was recently browsing some files, came across a 'IT migration report', and it just had the su password in plain text right there. >> into my file :)

WOW! Emmanuel Goldstein has something to say about that:

[yt]wlMvYx11V-Y[/yt]
"Oh man. That's universally stupid, man!"

Continuing adventures with the WinXP machine in Shipping:

So this machine is out in the warehouse (separate building), which is not wired into the T1 network of the main building. It uses DIAL-UP (!!!) to connect to FedEx for shipping purposes. The FedEx "customer integration consultant" guy was out today to get their software reinstalled and back up and running. Software is installed, but can't dial-up because the modem driver is not installed. Yeah, gee, duh, why should I expect that doing a Windows XP Pro installation from the ORIGINAL OEM disk would install the modem driver? Of course not, this is fucking Windows! So, I bring the computer over to my department, to hook up to ethernet to download the modem driver, aaannnddd, you guessed it, simply plugging it in, entering the appropriate info into TCP/IP settings yields NOTHING, because the ethernet card driver is not installed! You got to be fucking kidding me! Grab the WinXP Pro disk again, try to install both drivers... nope, ain't happening. Fuck this shit, get this Windows crap outta my face! Told the boss to call someone who knows/cares about Windows to make it right. I keep telling these people "I don't do Windows," but they do not listen.

Probably should be filed under "Rant here," but oh well.

^ fuck that shit 8)

Email #2
Got a mail, from our customer saying - that his customer was having email troubles.
Couldn't get him on the phone, turns out that he was in Sweden, great. So they gave me his girlfriends phone 8)
tried everything, he said he had teamviewer installed, cool, installed it no hassles from their website, logged in to his win7 machine... clicked on everything, couldn't get outlook to config, found he had thuderbird on it...tried it all again.
Turned out that the ISP was blocking port 25 8}
So we opened another port which worked.

@bones: was the dial-up a FedEx requirement or simply the way things were set up over there? curious, because in my experience the 'go-to software' for certain things where there is no alternative is so blatantly crappy and old that i want to slam my face into my keyboard.
i remember drivers on Windows... a fucking pain in the ass. then again, i remember drivers on Linux... they can suck pretty badly as well.

^ It's currently the only option in that building, as there's no network infrastructure out there. Talking about running a long-ass Cat 5 cable out there, we'll see.

^ Cat 5e cable is good for 100M, apparently.

The FedEx guy is bringing a 500 ft. Cat 5, so presumably it's a 5e. We'll see!