Fuck Microsoft's "Customer Service". Yeah I said it. Remember my issue with "upgrading" to Vista Ultimate? The plot thickens. I'm $175 (license), $182 (external 500GB HD), and 72 hours of time I will NEVER get back into this upgrade so far. The other day I get the "Activate Windows Now" icon. Oh cool, I'll click on it and activate. I paid for it, should be easy right? Extremely wrong actually.
"Unable to activate Vista. License key in use."
"WTF? I must, MUST have pressed cancel or clicked something else. I'll try again."
"Unable to activate Vista. License key in use."
"long_chain_of_vulgar_words_here"
First thing I do is get on the phone. Call the Anytime Upgrade Store (I have to give a shout-out to my boy Danny. He was more helpful than EVERY person I talked to in Activation, Customer/Tech Support, Vista Tech Support, Digital Locker, etc...). So everyone gives me the run-around. "You have to call so-and-so." Call "so-and-so".
[Repeat x3]
"Oh yeah, not our deal, call Department Name Here."
"I just talked to them, they told me to call you."
"Yeah but we can't help you, call them back."
Now I'm getting pissed. Furious. The 12th person I talked to got the brunt of it. After telling me that they wouldn't help me activate / install my PURCHASED license key I realized I'm done with it.
As far as customer service goes, Microsoft is a shitty company. Anyone who has been in the ring with the robotic tech-support people can attest to this. No way in hell was I going to pay $295 (or whatever it was) by the hour to get my issue resolved. I swear (and one helpful tech confirmed this) the people that are outsourced to do these support calls read from a list (sort of like the KB). As soon as you stray from a canned problem description they pipe in, "I'm sorry to interrupt Mr. / Mrs. First Name Here but this issue does not fall under Department Name Here. You actually need to refer to Another Department Name Here." Try it some time. Here's a riddle for you (actually it's a two-for): How in the fuck does not being able to download my license from my Digital Locker NOT fall under the responsibility of the Digital Locker department? How in the fuck does not being able to activate my Windows Vista Ultimate OS NOT fall under the responsibility of the fucking ACTIVATION FUCKING DEPARTMENT???
Did I mention the no-refund policy for upgrade licenses? Only on a Microsoft tech call will your question of "How can I activate my Vista Ultimate OS with the Ultimate license key I purchased" be answered with, "Uninstall Ultimate and activate Home Premium." At this point I went into sort of a tail-spin.
It'll cost me $395 to buy another license to make this problem go away. Believe it or not folks, I thought about it. I almost called Danny direct with the Visa. $395 is a small price to pay to not deal with shittiots all day. I'm going to try ANOTHER clean install this weekend. I wonder why people seek out pirated software? Anyone want to hook me up with an FTP to a 0-day? I'd be much obliged.
It's unfortunate that I'm a Microsoft geekboy. I make a living developing applications with Microsoft technologies. I can't afford not to use Microsoft products but at the same time I feel they are a shitty company when it comes to customer service.
UPDATE
I have solved this problem. It only took about 17 hours and 7 more clean installations. Awesome!
Will - 2
Vista - 0
Also when I get my free RTM version of Visual Studio 2008 at InstallFest tonight it will be:
Will - 2
Microsoft - 1
This sort of thing is kind of redeeming.
Tags:
Business
Started reading a very interesting article this morning on the importance of coding standards. This article is particulary interesting to me because of the nature of the work that I do on a day-to-day basis: custom software development. Now while working in custom software development I have heard many conflicting thoughts and practices when it comes to standards. In a perfect world, I would agree with the camp that likes to have every developer stick to a certain set of standards and practices. Reality is that deadlines sometimes put a damper on doing things the right way.
How do you cope with this? I hate to start a project using standardized practices and then told to make shortcuts to meet a tight deadline. I know that custom software development is a little more fast-paced than an in-house development job, but I would assume that managers would put a priority on consistency. When the project is done and delivered I don`t care if the person that takes over my job thinks they could write better code. It is more important for me leave them with code that is easy to follow and make adjustments to. Consistency is key.
Some of my "favorite" malpractices:
| Technology |
Malpractice |
My Practice |
| SQL Server (table name) |
tbl_Mstr_Stdnt_Schdl |
MasterStudentSchedule |
| SQL Server (field) |
Univ_Crs_ID |
UniversityCourseId |
| .NET (variable) |
str_Stdnt_ID |
studentId |
| .NET (handler name) |
Button28_Click |
SubmitSchedule_Click |
I know that there are those of you that would go about things in different ways. Like the article above states, "Show me code written by ten developers and I'll show you ten different coding styles." I think one thing we can all agree on is that the malpractices above are in no way excusable.
Some of you might notice that I use Id instead of ID. I have seen that the field seems to be split on this. I like to think of Id being a common enough convention that one not need to capitalize both letters, much like System.IO.
What are your thoughts?
Tags:
Business,
Development,
Programming