Damned computers...

jinjuku

jinjuku

Moderator
I'm telling you what. I'm not sure how the non-computer literate get along.

Been switching over to a desktop (modest Intel Celeron J3455 Quad Core with 8GB RAM and 1TB SSD) and virtualizing my old desktop.

The virtualization goes smooth:

I use Acronis TruImage to make a very compact backup. Created a dynamically expanding VHD, mount it in Disk Management and use Acronis to image from the TIB file to the VHD. That all goes smooth.

Create a new VM in Hyper-V (Windows 10 Pro) and use the VHD, boots up and runs great (after optimizing the memory footprint is 1089MB!).

So that's all the hard stuff.

I get a 34" 2560X1080P monitor and my old 21.5 1080P monitor. That's were the fun starts. Fricking 6 monitors in the display control panel using the integrated Intel HD Graphics (This $65 mainboard has VGA, HDMI, DVI) and thank god PCIe x3 because this becomes important later on.

I remove the numerous Generic Non-PNP monitors in DevManager. That seems to fix it. Reboot and Windows adds them all back. So now I launch the Display settings and can't see them. I have to do the old hover the mouse over the icon on the task bar and click move and then use the ARROW keys to get the window over to my display that I can actually see.

Delete them again and uninstalled the Intel HD Graphics program/driver set.

Shut down the machine. Install a 6 year old AMD Radeon PCIe card (thank god I keep parts around). Go into BIOS and set the main display adapter to PCIe, boot, and it's working fine for a few minutes. Unknown to me in the back ground M$ is happily downloading Intel HD Graphics. In the middle of working it goes sideways again.

So back to DevManager and I don't uninstall Intel HD Graphics, I simply elect to disable.

Fine and holding steady now.

I really feel bad for end users now days and understand why people get Macs.
 
panteragstk

panteragstk

Audioholic Warlord
I'm telling you what. I'm not sure how the non-computer literate get along.

Been switching over to a desktop (modest Intel Celeron J3455 Quad Core with 8GB RAM and 1TB SSD) and virtualizing my old desktop.

The virtualization goes smooth:

I use Acronis TruImage to make a very compact backup. Created a dynamically expanding VHD, mount it in Disk Management and use Acronis to image from the TIB file to the VHD. That all goes smooth.

Create a new VM in Hyper-V (Windows 10 Pro) and use the VHD, boots up and runs great (after optimizing the memory footprint is 1089MB!).

So that's all the hard stuff.

I get a 34" 2560X1080P monitor and my old 21.5 1080P monitor. That's were the fun starts. Fricking 6 monitors in the display control panel using the integrated Intel HD Graphics (This $65 mainboard has VGA, HDMI, DVI) and thank god PCIe x3 because this becomes important later on.

I remove the numerous Generic Non-PNP monitors in DevManager. That seems to fix it. Reboot and Windows adds them all back. So now I launch the Display settings and can't see them. I have to do the old hover the mouse over the icon on the task bar and click move and then use the ARROW keys to get the window over to my display that I can actually see.

Delete them again and uninstalled the Intel HD Graphics program/driver set.

Shut down the machine. Install a 6 year old AMD Radeon PCIe card (thank god I keep parts around). Go into BIOS and set the main display adapter to PCIe, boot, and it's working fine for a few minutes. Unknown to me in the back ground M$ is happily downloading Intel HD Graphics. In the middle of working it goes sideways again.

So back to DevManager and I don't uninstall Intel HD Graphics, I simply elect to disable.

Fine and holding steady now.

I really feel bad for end users now days and understand why people get Macs.
Crap like that is why I disable the intel graphics in the BIOS. Granted I've got a fairly robust GTX 970, but I am missing the few benefits quicksync has to offer.

I do agree, but on one hand most EU's are going to do anything even remotely as complicated as what you're doing. I think most people's computer usage could easily be handled by a decent tablet (email, facebook, other non cpu/graphics intensive stuff).

I couldn't live without one, but I've been building my own for over 20 years.
 
jinjuku

jinjuku

Moderator
The contrast of the more technical stuff going fine but simply running a 2nd monitor....

This is all on Intel and their driver package.

On the upshot today: I go for my eye exam and they can't print out any forms. They tell me their guy that is pretty good with computers put in a new wireless router on Tuesday, he left for vacation on Wednesday, won't be back till the Friday after next.

1. No your computer guy isn't really all that good:

a: He left you with out a printer for the entire office to print from
b: He only setup one SSID and the public is allowed on it
c: They are technically a medical office and HIPAA applies

I put their printer on the new wireless, they say we'll knock $10 off your bill, I counter you'll pay me $65 and I'll make sure your not running afoul of HIPAA. Took me 3 minutes to confirm their router supports VLAN's. Another minute to log in, and 10 minutes to setup a Guest VLAN with WiFi that has no ingress into the office network.

The other thing I notice is that they are logged into their machines with Admin accounts.

Been one of those days.
 
rojo

rojo

Audioholic Samurai
I really feel bad for end users now days and understand why people get Macs.
People who get Macs to avoid having to devote the effort to learn why things behave the way they do, all regret their decision sooner or later. They'll eventually reach a point where the Keychain obstinately retains obsolete credentials, Safari refuses to upload files containing spaces in the filename, Microsoft Word extends a table too far and ruins meticulous formatting that was perfect in Word on a PC, a document saved in Pages can't be opened by others, and suddenly the Mac user is frozen like a deer in headlights. I'm not opposed to Macs, really. What I'm opposed to are people who won't RTFM or Google for the answer, and Macs overwhelmingly attract that type of person.

Not that Windows users are much better. If I ask a user which version of Windows his computer is running, maybe 1 in 5 can answer that question correctly. I had a conversation today that went pretty much exactly like this:

"Are you running Windows 7 or 10?"

"I use Google."

"OK, but which version of Windows are you running?"

"I've got my email up. Now where do you want me to click?"

"I just need to know which version of Windows you're running."

"I don't know. How can I tell?"


"Can you tell me whether your Start button is square or round?"


"What's the Start button?"

"It's the button in the lower left corner of your screen. The little button that's got the Windows flag on it? Do you see it?"

"You're talking about where all my icons are on the bar."

"Yes, that's right."

"There's a blue E, and a yellow folder, and..."

"Yes, to the left of those. Do you see a button with the Windows logo on it?"

"You want me to click that?"

"No, don't click it. Just tell me whether it's square or round."

"OK, I clicked it. Now where do you want me to go? All Programs?"

"No, just tell me what shape the button is, please."

"If I move the arrow over that button, a message pops up that says 'Start menu'. That message is square."

"Are you talking about the tool tip? Disregard that tool tip. Just tell me what shape the button is."

"Oh, that's round. You want me to click it?"

"OK, you're running Windows 7. Thanks."

Such ignorance may seem cute, but it's truly dangerous. I wish we could license people to use computers. Every time some random scammer sends "Dear , We are upgradding our mail servers to the new 2017, your acount will be delete. Pleas to be verify to continue login. hxxp://mailserverupgrade.free-web-host.it/givpasswordplz Thanks you, IT staff", there's always some moron who falls for it. Then once the scammer's foot is in the door, we get a flood of additional morons who fall victim to the same scam sent through the compromised account who say, "But it came from a <organization name> address? Why don't you guys block this stuff?" As if it's our fault your dumb ass can't computer.

And as a result, all the rest of us have to deal with password complexity policy requiring a mix of upper-case, lower-case, numerals, symbols, 32 character length, no consecutive repeated characters, hieroglyphs, extended Alt code characters, gang signs, two-factor authentication, captcha, 90-day expiration, and a 10-password history blacklist. Domain lockout policies prevent brute force attacks, so this level of complexity does nothing useful. It does encourage users to slap a Post-It note on their monitors for God and everyone to snap a photo of, though.

Geez, I could rant all night. I need a vacation.
 
Alex2507

Alex2507

Audioholic Slumlord
If I ask a user which version of Windows his computer is running, maybe 1 in 5 can answer that question correctly.
Well how about that? That puts me in the top 20% of the class. I am now officially too cool for school.

I got on my niece's laptop and noticed it was Vista. I asked her if she knew MS was ending support for Vista soon if they hadn't already done so. She didn't know what that meant. I said the same way they ended support for XP, the Vista operating system would no longer get security updates and would be vulnerable. She didn't know what an operating system was. She has 3 degrees and can't make any of the 3 laptops/tablets or whatevers print anything. Only her ex-b/f's iphone can print. I gave up. I mean, she simply wasn't interested in any of that. You can't push a string and you can't make a horse drink so ... why bother?

Lucky me, I have access to decent help through AH for my modest computing needs. Otherwise I'd be f^%&ed. :D But I still know you three guys are Martians. Our secret though. :)
 
ParadigmDawg

ParadigmDawg

Audioholic Overlord
I'm telling you what. I'm not sure how the non-computer literate get along.

I really feel bad for end users now days and understand why people get Macs.
It's simple in my case, I ask questions on here and if no one answers I just go but a new computer....
 
ParadigmDawg

ParadigmDawg

Audioholic Overlord
People who get Macs to avoid having to devote the effort to learn why things behave the way they do, all regret their decision sooner or later. They'll eventually reach a point where the Keychain obstinately retains obsolete credentials, Safari refuses to upload files containing spaces in the filename, Microsoft Word extends a table too far and ruins meticulous formatting that was perfect in Word on a PC, a document saved in Pages can't be opened by others, and suddenly the Mac user is frozen like a deer in headlights. I'm not opposed to Macs, really. What I'm opposed to are people who won't RTFM or Google for the answer, and Macs overwhelmingly attract that type of person.

Not that Windows users are much better. If I ask a user which version of Windows his computer is running, maybe 1 in 5 can answer that question correctly. I had a conversation today that went pretty much exactly like this:

"Are you running Windows 7 or 10?"

"I use Google."

"OK, but which version of Windows are you running?"

"I've got my email up. Now where do you want me to click?"

"I just need to know which version of Windows you're running."

"I don't know. How can I tell?"


"Can you tell me whether your Start button is square or round?"


"What's the Start button?"

"It's the button in the lower left corner of your screen. The little button that's got the Windows flag on it? Do you see it?"

"You're talking about where all my icons are on the bar."

"Yes, that's right."

"There's a blue E, and a yellow folder, and..."

"Yes, to the left of those. Do you see a button with the Windows logo on it?"

"You want me to click that?"

"No, don't click it. Just tell me whether it's square or round."

"OK, I clicked it. Now where do you want me to go? All Programs?"

"No, just tell me what shape the button is, please."

"If I move the arrow over that button, a message pops up that says 'Start menu'. That message is square."

"Are you talking about the tool tip? Disregard that tool tip. Just tell me what shape the button is."

"Oh, that's round. You want me to click it?"

"OK, you're running Windows 7. Thanks."

Such ignorance may seem cute, but it's truly dangerous. I wish we could license people to use computers. Every time some random scammer sends "Dear , We are upgradding our mail servers to the new 2017, your acount will be delete. Pleas to be verify to continue login. hxxp://mailserverupgrade.free-web-host.it/givpasswordplz Thanks you, IT staff", there's always some moron who falls for it. Then once the scammer's foot is in the door, we get a flood of additional morons who fall victim to the same scam sent through the compromised account who say, "But it came from a <organization name> address? Why don't you guys block this stuff?" As if it's our fault your dumb ass can't computer.

And as a result, all the rest of us have to deal with password complexity policy requiring a mix of upper-case, lower-case, numerals, symbols, 32 character length, no consecutive repeated characters, hieroglyphs, extended Alt code characters, gang signs, two-factor authentication, captcha, 90-day expiration, and a 10-password history blacklist. Domain lockout policies prevent brute force attacks, so this level of complexity does nothing useful. It does encourage users to slap a Post-It note on their monitors for God and everyone to snap a photo of, though.

Geez, I could rant all night. I need a vacation.
On the other hand, I bet you don't know your own VO2 Max which to me is much worse than not knowing what OS you are running. I mean, it's your own body...
 
Last edited:
jinjuku

jinjuku

Moderator
People who get Macs to avoid having to devote the effort to learn why things behave the way they do, all regret their decision sooner or later. They'll eventually reach a point where the Keychain obstinately retains obsolete credentials, Safari refuses to upload files containing spaces in the filename, Microsoft Word extends a table too far and ruins meticulous formatting that was perfect in Word on a PC, a document saved in Pages can't be opened by others, and suddenly the Mac user is frozen like a deer in headlights. I'm not opposed to Macs, really. What I'm opposed to are people who won't RTFM or Google for the answer, and Macs overwhelmingly attract that type of person.

Not that Windows users are much better. If I ask a user which version of Windows his computer is running, maybe 1 in 5 can answer that question correctly. I had a conversation today that went pretty much exactly like this:

"Are you running Windows 7 or 10?"

"I use Google."

"OK, but which version of Windows are you running?"

"I've got my email up. Now where do you want me to click?"

"I just need to know which version of Windows you're running."

"I don't know. How can I tell?"


"Can you tell me whether your Start button is square or round?"


"What's the Start button?"

"It's the button in the lower left corner of your screen. The little button that's got the Windows flag on it? Do you see it?"

"You're talking about where all my icons are on the bar."

"Yes, that's right."

"There's a blue E, and a yellow folder, and..."

"Yes, to the left of those. Do you see a button with the Windows logo on it?"

"You want me to click that?"

"No, don't click it. Just tell me whether it's square or round."

"OK, I clicked it. Now where do you want me to go? All Programs?"

"No, just tell me what shape the button is, please."

"If I move the arrow over that button, a message pops up that says 'Start menu'. That message is square."

"Are you talking about the tool tip? Disregard that tool tip. Just tell me what shape the button is."

"Oh, that's round. You want me to click it?"

"OK, you're running Windows 7. Thanks."

Such ignorance may seem cute, but it's truly dangerous. I wish we could license people to use computers. Every time some random scammer sends "Dear , We are upgradding our mail servers to the new 2017, your acount will be delete. Pleas to be verify to continue login. hxxp://mailserverupgrade.free-web-host.it/givpasswordplz Thanks you, IT staff", there's always some moron who falls for it. Then once the scammer's foot is in the door, we get a flood of additional morons who fall victim to the same scam sent through the compromised account who say, "But it came from a <organization name> address? Why don't you guys block this stuff?" As if it's our fault your dumb ass can't computer.

And as a result, all the rest of us have to deal with password complexity policy requiring a mix of upper-case, lower-case, numerals, symbols, 32 character length, no consecutive repeated characters, hieroglyphs, extended Alt code characters, gang signs, two-factor authentication, captcha, 90-day expiration, and a 10-password history blacklist. Domain lockout policies prevent brute force attacks, so this level of complexity does nothing useful. It does encourage users to slap a Post-It note on their monitors for God and everyone to snap a photo of, though.

Geez, I could rant all night. I need a vacation.
I just have them go to a website so I can take over their computer. I avoid, at all costs (both the reasonable and unreasonable) having the end user do anything.

Lately I've taken to making quick screen casts and emailing out a link to them from Amazon Drive about what the end user needs to do.

It's actually helped.
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
Lucky me, I have access to decent help through AH for my modest computing needs. Otherwise I'd be f^%&ed. :D But I still know you four guys are Martians. Our secret though. :)
FTFY
I'm telling you what. I'm not sure how the non-computer literate get along.

Been switching over to a desktop (modest Intel Celeron J3455 Quad Core with 8GB RAM and 1TB SSD) and virtualizing my old desktop.

The virtualization goes smooth:

I use Acronis TruImage to make a very compact backup. Created a dynamically expanding VHD, mount it in Disk Management and use Acronis to image from the TIB file to the VHD. That all goes smooth.

Create a new VM in Hyper-V (Windows 10 Pro) and use the VHD, boots up and runs great (after optimizing the memory footprint is 1089MB!).

So that's all the hard stuff.

I get a 34" 2560X1080P monitor and my old 21.5 1080P monitor. That's were the fun starts. Fricking 6 monitors in the display control panel using the integrated Intel HD Graphics (This $65 mainboard has VGA, HDMI, DVI) and thank god PCIe x3 because this becomes important later on.

I remove the numerous Generic Non-PNP monitors in DevManager. That seems to fix it. Reboot and Windows adds them all back. So now I launch the Display settings and can't see them. I have to do the old hover the mouse over the icon on the task bar and click move and then use the ARROW keys to get the window over to my display that I can actually see.

Delete them again and uninstalled the Intel HD Graphics program/driver set.

Shut down the machine. Install a 6 year old AMD Radeon PCIe card (thank god I keep parts around). Go into BIOS and set the main display adapter to PCIe, boot, and it's working fine for a few minutes. Unknown to me in the back ground M$ is happily downloading Intel HD Graphics. In the middle of working it goes sideways again.

So back to DevManager and I don't uninstall Intel HD Graphics, I simply elect to disable.

Fine and holding steady now.

I really feel bad for end users now days and understand why people get Macs.
I wonder how badly most of this post threw over heads of most AH members...
Probably if your mobo had DP port, you might have been ok. Oh and Intel drivers absolutely terrible.
 
panteragstk

panteragstk

Audioholic Warlord
People who get Macs to avoid having to devote the effort to learn why things behave the way they do, all regret their decision sooner or later. They'll eventually reach a point where the Keychain obstinately retains obsolete credentials, Safari refuses to upload files containing spaces in the filename, Microsoft Word extends a table too far and ruins meticulous formatting that was perfect in Word on a PC, a document saved in Pages can't be opened by others, and suddenly the Mac user is frozen like a deer in headlights. I'm not opposed to Macs, really. What I'm opposed to are people who won't RTFM or Google for the answer, and Macs overwhelmingly attract that type of person.

Not that Windows users are much better. If I ask a user which version of Windows his computer is running, maybe 1 in 5 can answer that question correctly. I had a conversation today that went pretty much exactly like this:

"Are you running Windows 7 or 10?"

"I use Google."

"OK, but which version of Windows are you running?"

"I've got my email up. Now where do you want me to click?"

"I just need to know which version of Windows you're running."

"I don't know. How can I tell?"


"Can you tell me whether your Start button is square or round?"


"What's the Start button?"

"It's the button in the lower left corner of your screen. The little button that's got the Windows flag on it? Do you see it?"

"You're talking about where all my icons are on the bar."

"Yes, that's right."

"There's a blue E, and a yellow folder, and..."

"Yes, to the left of those. Do you see a button with the Windows logo on it?"

"You want me to click that?"

"No, don't click it. Just tell me whether it's square or round."

"OK, I clicked it. Now where do you want me to go? All Programs?"

"No, just tell me what shape the button is, please."

"If I move the arrow over that button, a message pops up that says 'Start menu'. That message is square."

"Are you talking about the tool tip? Disregard that tool tip. Just tell me what shape the button is."

"Oh, that's round. You want me to click it?"

"OK, you're running Windows 7. Thanks."

Such ignorance may seem cute, but it's truly dangerous. I wish we could license people to use computers. Every time some random scammer sends "Dear , We are upgradding our mail servers to the new 2017, your acount will be delete. Pleas to be verify to continue login. hxxp://mailserverupgrade.free-web-host.it/givpasswordplz Thanks you, IT staff", there's always some moron who falls for it. Then once the scammer's foot is in the door, we get a flood of additional morons who fall victim to the same scam sent through the compromised account who say, "But it came from a <organization name> address? Why don't you guys block this stuff?" As if it's our fault your dumb ass can't computer.

And as a result, all the rest of us have to deal with password complexity policy requiring a mix of upper-case, lower-case, numerals, symbols, 32 character length, no consecutive repeated characters, hieroglyphs, extended Alt code characters, gang signs, two-factor authentication, captcha, 90-day expiration, and a 10-password history blacklist. Domain lockout policies prevent brute force attacks, so this level of complexity does nothing useful. It does encourage users to slap a Post-It note on their monitors for God and everyone to snap a photo of, though.

Geez, I could rant all night. I need a vacation.
This brings back bad memories. I'm so glad I don't have to support end users any longer.

I had one call in to get a password reset for a site that the hospital I worked at used for people to verify that they had gotten all the required shots to be able to work without a face mask.

Simple right? Resetting a password for a site used once a year. Nope. People didn't realize that the security questions they chose were important and that they should have remembered the answer. I had admin access so I could go look at their account and verify things other ways, but one guy seriously put "none" for all is answers. His response was "oh, I didn't know it was important".

Another lady didn't know what a "special character" was. I advised that I had reset her password using the hospital name with a dollar sign at the end. She didn't know what a dollar sign was. I said "look at the 4 key. See that thing on the same key? " Her "oh, you mean the money sigh?" WTF seriously? How are you a functioning adult? That was normal for the folks that were from other countries, but they have a good excuse. This lady was born and raised in Dallas.

The last one I'll complain about was the lady that asked if the number in her password had to be capital or not. My reply that my mouth said before my brain got involved was "that's not a thing". Glad they didn't record that call. My boss would not have been happy.

I made it a whole 8 months there. Haven't done user support since. It's just too frustrating dealing with people who seem to refuse to learn even the most basic things about computers. The things I mentioned above aren't even really computer related. Everything anyone does online has a password. How can this stuff possibly be new to them? It's like not knowing which pedal makes the car stop...
 
Alex2507

Alex2507

Audioholic Slumlord
I just have them go to a website so I can take over their computer. I avoid, at all costs (both the reasonable and unreasonable) having the end user do anything.

Lately I've taken to making quick screen casts and emailing out a link to them from Amazon Drive about what the end user needs to do.

It's actually helped.
I don't mind risking identity theft but running the risk of you finding out about my chicks w/ d!cks porn stash is not ever gonna happen.
 
jinjuku

jinjuku

Moderator
FTFY

I wonder how badly most of this post threw over heads of most AH members...
Probably if your mobo had DP port, you might have been ok. Oh and Intel drivers absolutely terrible.
It may but it's also the point: The more technical stuff went fine. It was something as mundane as trying to simply get two monitors going that was a problem.

I was sporting multiple monitors on my Power Mac 9600 in 98 for pete's sake. This stuff should JUST WORK!
 
slipperybidness

slipperybidness

Audioholic Warlord
I absolutely believe these horror stories for you guys trying to support the general idiot end users!

Foolproof? We just came out with an updated fool! :eek:

But, I can tell you this is a 2-way street! As a high-level end user, I get just a frustrated by professional IT support! And, of course, most of the mundane stuff is farmed out to overseas call centers now. What bothers me is when I need help and I'm told "do this, try that, etc", but without fail, I have already done all of that and more, otherwise I would not need the help!

Honestly, in the end, Google and online forums are what corrects most of my problems. That is one of the main reasons that I am a huge proponent of open-source and community supported software and platforms!
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
About 50% of my job is well honed Google search skills. Probably even more true for more junior IT admins
 
jinjuku

jinjuku

Moderator
The reason I find myself on Google is that the vendor documentation doesn't work. Ask me about Sonic Wall and their Anti-Spam services.

I'm done with them.
 
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