tech support

Microsoft Needs Help

First of all, please Digg this. Microsoft needs to hear our voice.

Read on. I promise I’ll get your attention.

I’m a nobody. Microsoft has probably never heard of me in any capacity. I’m not popular in the online community. I’m not an executive and I have no business experience. My opinion counts for very little and my voice is rarely heard.

I’m a user. But I’m more than that. I’m a user advocate, or at least I try to be.

I’m a geek. Or, at least, that’s what my family and friends call me. I’m the person my peers turn to when they need help with technology.

I educate. Not only do I help solve their problems, but I also educate them how to better go about using their product in the future.

I AM a user. Regardless of how much I know about technology (and I know a lot), I’m frustrated with all of it.

Microsoft isn’t all about Windows. Microsoft isn’t all about competing with other companies. Microsoft should be about me. This bold statement requires one to ask why I am so important. The answer is not all that simple given Microsoft’s current ideals surrounding their software products. Businesses and people want Microsoft products. OEM vendors pay countless sums of money in order to license Windows and other Microsoft software products to provide to customers. Microsoft owns the market and this isn’t going to change anytime soon. Why am I so important in Microsoft’s world?

I’m important because I start my computer every day and use Microsoft’s products. I’m important because my entire life in the year 2008 relies on software that Microsoft has engineered and produced with millions of working man-hours, whether it be Windows, Office, Media Center, Sync, the Zune, Windows Mobile, or Live Services. My entertainment revolves around Microsoft products. My communication revolves around Microsoft products. To restate: My life revolves around Microsoft products.

Have I gotten your attention? Probably not. Microsoft, after all, has an overwhelming reputation that they make horrible products. Bill Gates has a reputation of being a money-hording and self-righteous person. When people think about Microsoft, they think about power, control, and quite possibly, hopelessness. Let me be the first to say that I utterly loathe such statements as these for their downright ignorance to the truth.

I see it every day. I deal with it every day. “Microsoft is horrible.” “Microsoft can’t produce a good product.” “I can’t stand this new ‘Vista’”. I sit here using Windows Vista Ultimate x64 on 4 custom-built computers surrounding me, never had one single issue with Windows Vista since the public Beta, wouldn’t dare touch any other operating system, and yet I am somehow frustrated to my very core with Windows Vista.

It’s not about what’s wrong with Vista. It’s about what’s not right with Vista. It’s about overpromising and under delivering. It’s about why my voice and the voice of countless others has been all but silenced in the ears of Microsoft’s decision-makers. I’m not frustrated with the product. I’m frustrated with the ideology that Microsoft has adopted over the last decade.

What happened to Microsoft’s original idea of technology in the hands of the average person?

The average person has been removed from the map in Microsoft’s mind. The end user has been allowed to be trampled on by not only the products that Microsoft releases, but also the ways in which they are released to the customer. Microsoft has allowed OEMs to not only frustrate, agitate, and torment end users with technology, but also cause the horrible reputation that Microsoft has in the software community at this very point. Microsoft has lost all quality control outside of the development labs and the end user, the very people that matter the most to the success of Microsoft, are suffering because of it.

The frustrating thing from my perspective is that the end user typically is too ignorant to know what to do about it. They don’t know what hardware to buy or which software to run. They don’t know how important updates are. They don’t know the difference between Allow and Cancel in UAC. They come to us, people like me, the geeks, the user advocates, pleading for a solution. We try our absolute best to not only provide this solution but educate them in the meantime.

And we, the community of user advocates, have been begging Microsoft to listen to us for over a decade. We, the community of user advocates, are the most user-facing people Microsoft has to tell them what people want in Microsoft’s products. We, the community of user advocates, have been utterly ignored for over a decade. And yet, we, the community of user advocates, have not stopped our relentless plea for Microsoft to hear our voices as customers, as loyal customers, who want nothing other than a quality product for us to advocate to our peers; for us to evangelize to everyone around us; for us to be able to say “This product is AWESOME.”

That’s us. Who is Microsoft and what can they do?

Microsoft is a company with potential like no other software company in the world. Microsoft is a company which houses some of the most brilliant minds in technology. Microsoft is a company which contributes more to technology as a whole through things which stem out of Microsoft Research. Microsoft is a pioneer in the gaming industry. Microsoft is one of the greatest success stories this world has ever seen.

There are areas of Microsoft, including those I have just mentioned, which have done so much for the end user. Microsoft Research listens to what users want to see in products. Where are these amazing technologies in primetime Microsoft products? The Xbox Live community is virtually flawless. Why isn’t this development strategy used when developing other Microsoft software? I saw dozens of tips submitted to Microsoft about how the Zune 1.0 could be improved: all of them made it into Zune 2.0 and it’s a fantastic product, better than anything else out there. What happened to Windows?

Microsoft needs to stop thinking about how their operating system software and office productivity software will benefit corporate environments. Microsoft needs to dedicate entire teams to finding out what the community has to say about their products and how they can be improved in the way that users want, not the way that Microsoft executives want. Not only do these teams need to be created, but these teams need to have direct influence as to where, how, and when these ideas make it into core Microsoft products.

Microsoft has long had conferences where they get feedback from users. Why haven’t any of these major ideas made it into Microsoft products? What happened to the lines of communication? Which Microsoft executive decided our ideas weren’t good enough for the product?

Microsoft has to stop thinking about its business partners and start thinking about itself for once. While Microsoft benefits financially by partnering with, say, Hewlett-Packard, HP is one of the prime examples of an OEM which is utterly trashing Microsoft’s reputation by bundling software which is not only completely pointless, but ultimately hurts the user’s experience with the Windows operating system. HP has turned a Microsoft product into an HP branded product, complete with trial software from companies which no one has ever heard of or services which will never be used just so HP can make money.

Microsoft needs to threaten OEMs concerning such behavior which tarnish their reputation. Microsoft needs place strict limits as to which hardware and which software is allowed to be installed on these machines which are sold to consumers in order for Microsoft to provide OEMs with the licenses in the first place. And Microsoft needs to put their money where their mouth is and actually follow through with pulling OEMs licensing for those who do not completely and fully comply. This would and does require a virtual reconstruction of Microsoft’s business ideals.

OEMs are controlling Microsoft at this point and it’s hurting us. Advertisers and software which have little use for the consumer are controlling OEMs and they’re hurting us even more. It’s Microsoft’s duty to step in on behalf of the end user and provide them with the experience they deserve. Not only is it the end user’s experience that’s on the line, it’s clearly Microsoft’s reputation and future support from the community.

Have I gotten your attention? I most certainly hope so.

I’d like to think that all of my dedication (and not only mine but the tens of thousands of people in the community), will have paid off in the end by Microsoft undergoing major changes in order to better involve the community as a core part of the company, as advisors and consultants, to improve the quality of Microsoft’s products, Microsoft’s reputation, Microsoft’s stance within the technology and software world, and Microsoft’s future as a great company who actually listens to their users.

You can’t know how long we wait for the day that people can actually say they respect Microsoft. And believe me, we won’t be giving up anytime soon should our efforts at this point in time be ignored just like the rest. The reason we never give up is because we care about the end user; ultimately we are just end users ourselves who happen to know about the technology behind product.

We want quality. We want a voice. We want to be embraced by a company who could give us such amazing products. We want Microsoft to succeed.

Please help us.

On behalf of the entire Windows and technology user community,

Adam Reyher

Tips for Keeping Vista Running Smoothly

As we all know, people are having issues with Windows Vista. While personally I know that these issues truly aren’t the fault of Windows itself, the world seems to want to think of it that way. Here are some tips to keeping Vista running smoothly:

• Don’t buy your computer cheap. Now, I know this doesn’t help people who already own a computer with Vista, but for anyone looking to get a new machine in the near future, my advice is to not go cheap. Ultimately, you’ll be getting bad or unstable hardware which will cause you a plethora of problems with Vista in the future. If you’re buying a desktop, I’d recommend spending at least $700 for the tower itself, not including the monitor and peripherals. This way you know you’re most likely getting higher quality hardware.
• Keep your computer clean. Don’t be installing tons of software you’re only going to use once. I personally go through my Remove Programs list once a week and uninstall anything I don’t need again. Don’t let programs launch when Windows starts up. Only open programs when you need them. If you don’t know how to turn off a program from starting up when Windows starts, there’s a great way to stop it from happening.
  1) Hit Windows + R and type “msconfig”. Hit Enter. If Windows asks you to allow, hit Allow or Continue.
  2) Go to the Startup tab and uncheck any programs you don’t need running when Windows starts up. This includes things like Adobe, MSN, AOL, Quicktime, Java, or iTunes. Be sure not to disable any Microsoft items or Antivirus/Antispyware!
• Have a computer with a dual core or quad core processor? Use it! For some strange reason, Windows will not use multiple cores when booting up the computer. Once you’re in Windows it will use them, but not during the boot process. This significantly slows things down. Here’s how you can turn on the other cores:
  1) Hit Windows + R and type “msconfig”. Hit Entier. If Windows asks you to allow, hit Allow or Continue.
  2) Go to the Boot tab and click Advanced Options. Check the “Number of Processors” box and from the drop down, select 2 or 4 or however many processors your computer has. Note that if you only have 2 cores, only 2 will be listed. If you have 4, only 4 will be listed and so forth, so chose the maximum number in this list.
• Use a good Antivirus and Antispyware program. By “good,” I mean a few things. Firstly, the detection rate needs to be high. Secondly, is it a “lightweight” program. What I mean by this is how much resources does it use on your computer? The number 1 cause of slowness on computers is not the hardware but the Antivirus program that is running in the background. Absolute no-go programs are Norton, McAfee, or AOL protection. These programs will bring your computer to an absolute crawl regardless of how powerful it is. The #1 program that I recommend is Kaspersky Internet Security (kaspersky.com). Kaspersky is a full internet protection suite protecting you against both viruses and spyware. It is extremely lightweight and runs in the background without you even knowing it’s there. Another recommendation would be Trend Micro Internet Security (trendmicro.com). I personally don’t like this as much as Kaspersky, but it is a very decent solution.
• Keep your desktop clean. Surprisingly, the number of icons you have on your desktop can affect the performance of your computer. While this isn’t as much of an issue with higher-end machines with good graphics cards, you’ll notice performance hits on lower end machines since the computer needs to re-render all of these icons every time you go back to your desktop. Folders are a Godsend. Use them.
• Useless programs, while sometimes fun, can actually hurt your computer. This includes stuff like Weather programs which keep you updated (use the Sidebar in Vista!), programs that change your mouse cursor, or toolbars for your browser. More often than not, these programs also contain high amounts of viruses and spyware. Stay away from them.
• Leave your computer on all the time. In the pre-Windows XP days, leaving your computer on 24/7 was a sin. The reason for this was that the hardware in your computer wasn’t meant to be kept running for that long. These days, the same exact hardware that’s going into enterprise-level servers is pretty much what you’ve got sitting in your computer. It can more than withstand staying on all the time. The advantage to this is huge: Windows Vista will automatically perform maintenance on the computer while its not in use, such as defragmenting the hard drive. Also, constantly shutting down/booting up your computer will effect performance of things like Superfetch as it has to not only load Windows, but commonly used applications when booting up.

So there you go. That’s my list of tips for running Windows Vista smoothly. I hope they can be of help to you.

Just When You Think You Have it Perfect

It all started with this, my awesome keyboard. Three weeks ago, the Logitech bluetooth receiver decided to go bad on me, leaving me with no keyboard other than a 8 year old Microsoft PS/2 model which I’m surprised still has more than half of the keys working.

Just prior to this time, my motherboard’s PCIe-x16 slots went out as well. Luckily, ASUS has a relatively no-questions-asked Warrenty Exchange policy and I shipped it out for an exchange. It just so happens that I had a brand new Intel motherboard sitting around which I was planning on using for a secondary machine which would, in turn, become my server. I installed my Intel board, and with a quick reactivation of Windows, I was on my way. Then, the keyboard receiver gave out.

Unfortunately, the Intel motherboard doesn’t have any PS/2 ports, which left me without a keyboard for around 24 hours. I quickly picked up a $10 wired USB keyboard from my local Best Buy. I then proceeded to call Logitech and, once again, ship out the bad receiver for a no-questions-asked warranty exchange of the receiver.

Two days ago, the receiver arrived in the mail and I was quite ready to get rid of that horrible wired keyboard and go back to the diNovo Edge. My ASUS motherboard also arrived. Upon plugging in the receiver to my computer, Windows seemed unable to locate any drivers for the device. This was rather strange considering it shouldn’t need any drivers and the fact that Logitech doesn’t even provide any.

After a lot of diagnosing and registry tweaking, I determined that somehow, somewhere, the malfunctioning USB receiver corrupted some driver somewhere on my Windows installation and I for the life of me couldn’t figure out how to reverse that damage.

I also recently decided to upgrade from a total of 380GB of HDD storage to 2×500GB drives for a total of 1TB. Given the current events, I thought it best just to pull my old hard drives out, switch back to my ASUS motherboard, throw in two brand new drives, and reinstall Windows completely. I begin this process at around 11PM. Formatting my new 500GB HDD took around two hours first.

Three hours later (that’s 2AM), I’m back in Windows Vista x64 and everything seems to be working perfectly, including my diNovo Edge keyboard.

Oh boy was I wrong.

An hour into installing all of my commonly-used applications (now 3AM), and right in the middle of formatting the secondary 500GB hard drive, my computer suddenly shuts itself off without warning. There was no crash. It was as if someone pulled the power cord out of the wall.

I think to myself, that was odd, and reboot the computer. Once again, I come back into Windows and all seems to be running fine for about 5 minutes when it happens again.

At this point, I start thinking that my BIOS settings are messed up or I didn’t install the CPU’s heatsink on the motherboard properly so my CPU was significantly overheating and shutting the unit off. Upon going into BIOS and looking at the hardware monitor, I discover that, indeed, the CPU is running farely warm. About 50 degrees Celsius too warm for idling. I instantly think this is the cause of my issues, so I remove the heatsink, reset the processor, and reattach the heatsink. (now around 4AM)

Now, the problem I faced at this point was two-fold. 1) The thermal compond was a bit old and needed to be replaced and 2) the brackets which latch the heatsink to the motherboard were worn and the heatsink wouldn’t set tight enoguh on the motherboard. I decided that, considering it’s 4AM, it would be best I go to bed and continue this journey in the morning.

Bright and early (that means 10AM for me), I wake up and take a drive out to run a few errands, including picking up a new heatsink and fan. I decided that while I’m out, I might as well buy some external hard drive enclosures in order for me to easily transfer the data off of my old HDDs to my new ones. I also picked up a brand new computer case which would help with cooling significantly.

After driving a total of 75 miles all over the city of Tampa just to find stores that have what I need in stock, I arrive back home around 3PM and begin assembling my computer from scratch as I now need to switch cases.

Around 4PM, I finish this process, plug my computer back in, and, to my surprise, it actually boots the first time. The CPU is running extremely cool as are all the other components thanks to the new case. Windows sees that there was a problem shutting off previously (no kidding) and proceeds to run chkdsk on the primary partition. However, about 10 minutes into running chkdsk, it suddenly locks up and does absolutely nothing. I rebooted the computer, and again, experienced the same thing.

At this point I’m just about to lose all self control. I say to myself, “Screw it” and reformat and reinstall Windows once again. Two hours later (around 6:30PM), Windows is installed and I proceed to install drivers. To my despair, halfway through this process, I lose all power to the unit just like before.

I was at a full and complete loss for what to do next. I thought I’d tried everything … until I noticed one key issue.

The fan on my power supply wasn’t spinning.

As it turns out, the issue with the power loss was because the power supply (not the CPU) was overheating and shutting down automatically. This was ridiculously odd considering I have only owned that PSU for around a month.

I rebox it, and head back to the Best Buy where I purchased it and get an exchange.

To make a long story short (it’s too late I think), just over 24 hours later, my computer is back up and running perfectly smooth.

Let’s hope it stays that way for a VERY long time…

Answering Zune Questions

My last post regarding the Zune 2.2 release gained quite a bit of attention! I’ve gotten several questions through the Ask Me section about various Zune-related issues.

I’ve selected two of the primary questions. I’ll try to address these as best as I can.

Here goes…

The first one comes from Gordon:

So… I have music that I want to arrange into an album, but the new Zune interface seems to stubbornly not let me manually manage my files individually. Even though the “album” name is the same, as long as the artist of the files are different, it separates that collection as separate albums. Am I missing something? I really would hate to have to reorganize what I already have on my zune unit.

–Gordon

That’s, unfortunately, from what I’m aware, an issue with most music libraries. Primarily, songs in the library are organized by Artist > Album > Song, so if the album name is the same, but the artist is different, it will separate them. However, in several of my cases, this hasn’t been a problem. For most of my “Various Artists” tracks, the primary Artist is “Various Artists” while the “Contributing Artist” is different. This way, an individual song will split up when viewing songs by a particular artist, but when viewing albums, all of them are together. You might try a setup similar to this and see if it works.

From Larry:

I am having trouble trying to reinstall the firmware on my zune 30. I have the zune to the point where it says to connect to pc but that is as far as it goes because the zune software program says the firmware is up to date. So what next?

Have you tried restoring the software on the Zune? Note that this will delete all contents of the Zune, so be sure everything is in your library first. On the Zune 30, the first step is to hold the back <- button and the UP button on the pad at the same time. Then, press and hold the back <- button, the leftOK button the same time. The device should then begin restoring and will take a few minutes. After this is finished, the device will ask to be connected to your PC at which point will update the Zune firmware and sync if applicable. Hope this helps!

- Adam

It’s the Microsoft Zune 2.2

Today saw the release of the second generation of the Zune MP3 players as well as a new firmware patch for existing Zune customers. While the physical device of the new Zunes may be a bit different, what makes this release interesting is that the new firmware updated existing Zunes to have exactly the same functionality as the new units off of the shelf.

Today also saw the release of the new Zune marketplace software for the computer, replacing the old Windows Media Player 11 shell which integrated with MTV’s URGE (who has since switched partnerships to Rhapsody).

First thing this morning I got on my computer, uninstalled the current Zune software in preparation for the upgrade. When I went to the Zune website, to first delight (with may more to follow), the Zune software now supports the x64 Windows platform … natively. Good job, Microsoft. You’re pushing things forward. But what about the software itself?

I executed the x64 installer. Already the UI was looking clean and efficient. The installer checked for updates, installed the necessary Zune drivers, and then installed the software quite seamlessly. Once again, I was impressed. The installer then proceeded to launch the actual Zune software which asked me to enter my existing Zune Social account (Windows Live ID) or create a new one. I entered my existing information, and now it was off to configure the Zune device. I docked it up, and just that fast I was installing the Zune 2.2 firmware to the device. A few seconds later, my device was fully connected, updated, and presenting me with the wonderful new menu system.

But here’s the real thing. Once I got into my library (which was already pre-recognized), the interface was like nothing else I’d seen before. The default font? It’s called “Zegoe” and it’s a version of the Segoe and Calibri typefaces. I don’t need anything else to fall in love with it. The UI is completely seamless. Selecting artists, albums, and songs provide beautiful transitions that makes me feel like I’m inside of a Flash or Silverlight application.

The marketplace loads literally 10 times faster than it did in the old software. The organization of the new albums and genres is fantastic. The search feature is literally instant and allows you to find exactly what you want immediately. There’s no sharp edges, there’s no slow loads. There’s no fast transitions without fade effects. The whole UI experience is better than any Windows application that I’ve ever used. I wish I was exaggerating but I’m not. It’s that good.

The only issue I have with the software is this: It’s memory intensive. On first launch, the Zune software uses approximately 85MB. That’s without touching anything or any music playing. That’s a lot for an application. However, the upside to this is, as I have said, there is absolutely zero lag time. Now, granted, I have a decent machine which can handle just about anything you throw at it, but even the old software lagged significantly on this machine, both on the x86 platform and the x64 platform. Not the new software.

Podcast support is another big addition to the software. RSS feed subscription is integrated as well. The best part about this is that you don’t need any Zune-specific feed like you do with iTunes (which needs special iTunes tags, etc). If someone has a podcast feed going through, say, FeedBurner, it’ll work with the Zune. It’s really that simple and I wouldn’t be surprised if more and more bloggers and podcast creators start supporting the new Zune over the iPod.

The device, while boasting only a few major upgrades, is quite a nice firmware update as well. The biggest feature is wireless syncing. The old devices (which I have) had built in WiFi, but up until now you couldn’t use this for anything other than connecting with other Zunes. However, this new firmware update allows you to sync your music library to your device … wirelessly. Just setup your wireless router’s information in the Zune software, pass it to the device, and you’re off. Updates come automatically and there’s no need for cords ever again unless you need to charge the unit. I was conviced that this would have been very “techy” to set up, but to my surprise, it was extremely easy and straigtforward.

In conclusion, I have practically nothing but kudos to give to Microsoft’s Zune team for this update. It’s great.

Corrupted Hard Drive

The culprit? From what I can see, it was most likely Disk Cleanup. That’s right, an application which is supposed to make your computer run faster just broke mine.

Though, at the same time, I’m not sure whether or not this issue is stemming from Disk Cleanup. It could possibly be a section of bad hard drive sectors.

I’m still diagnosing the failure so I’ll put another update on when I figure it out.

The “Ask Me” Questions

As many of you know, I have an avenue on my site which allows you to submit questions to me, pertaining to technology, and have them answered. I have gotten quite a few, and answered almost all of them.

But some of the ones I get are either downright annoying and stupid, or outright hilarious. Heck, most of them relate to phpBB questions (which I don’t answer under any circumstances).

So here’s just a few of the questions I’ve received, starting with the most recent:

Titled “geography”

Where is india located?

Titled “haha”

ur funny and I haha’d

What the…???

Titled “phpBB”

OMG HELP ME IM BEING HACKED HE GOT MY PASSWRD

Hey, you, with the stuck caps lock button: I’m in ur base stealing ur IQ.

This guy thought I could help him with his physics questions:

Titled “physics”

Hey can you help me with my physics?

A baseball (m=0.15kg) is thrown with a speed of 30 meters per second at angle of 32 degrees above the horizontal. Neglect air resistance.

1) What is its momentum at the maximum height?
2) What is its momentum just before it strikes the ground?

wuts the answer?? Please its due tomorrow

What do I look like? A physics major? Well, I kind of am as a Computer/Electrical Engineering major, but regardless, I actually laughed at that one.

What is it about technology questions that people don’t understand? Hey, I’m all for the intellectual question that doesn’t relate to technology every now and then, and I’d be glad to deviate from technology, but why can’t they be real about it?

We’ll never know…

Tier 2 support rep, please!

Staying on topic with my previous two posts about my upgrade to Windows Vista, I’m still very happy I made the upgrade and absolutely loving Vista. However, with that said, I have one persisting problem.

Randomly throughout the day while I’m browsing the internet I suddenly cannot connect anymore. Sounds like a typical connection problem, right? Think again. What’s even more strange about this issue is that only my browser connectivity cuts out. I always have mIRC open with an active connection to various networks. I always have Trillian open with several chat windows open. I have Thunderbird open which is regularly downloading any new email. Every single application outside of my browsers is able to connect perfectly fine. Yet as soon as I try to do something in a browser (whether it’s Firefox, Opera, or IE7), I have absolutely no connectivity.

But wait, it gets stranger. I can’t even connect to my router. Even worse, I can’t even connect to localhost. Yet I can do pings and tracerts in the command line to absolutely anywhere I like with no problem whatsoever.

Clearing all cache has no effect. Disabling/enabling the network card has no effect. Releasing and renewing my IP does nothing. Flushing the DNS cache does nothing. Manually editing my HOSTS file to point to a specific IP is pointless. Updating to the latest drivers doesn’t work. Heck, I can log off my user account and log back in and nothing budges.

And to top it all off on the weirdness scale, there is absolutely nothing in the Event Viewer to indicate anything strange or any error occurred at any point anywhere close to the time I lost connectivity. No failed drivers, no security restrictions, no memory allocation errors. Nothing.

I don’t consider myself to an MCSE or anything, but I’ll be honest and say I know a heck of a lot and I know how to fix most any issue that comes up. But this one has me completely and utterly stumped.

So I decided to buckle down and call Microsoft. So after going through 30 minutes of verifying that my version of Vista Ultimate had actually been activated, I’m put on with a tech support rep who had a hard time firstly understanding what the problem was, and secondly understanding that I probably knew a infinite amount more than her about Windows. But I decided to play along for the time being.

But after she asked me to uninstall the Google Toolbar from IE7 and use a proxy server, I put my foot down and said clearly that Internet Explorer is not the problem! I mean, come on? The first thing I said to this rep when I got on the phone was it wasn’t local to Internet Explorer. It happens with any browser and anytime I try to access something via the HTTP protocol. Apparently that flies over her head.

I also indicated very clearly the only way I had found to temporarily resolve the problem was to reboot the computer. Yet she instructs me to reboot into Safe Mode after I put my foot down and corrected her about the toolbar/proxy. At that point, I gave up and asked to be moved to a Tier 2 rep. After a bit of trouble with that, I at least get on with someone who knows what they’re talking about.

I can at least talk to this guy in technical jargon and he trusts me when I say I’ve tried things that haven’t worked.
So he gave me a slightly modified driver to try … which unfortunately required me to reboot.

I honestly don’t think it’ll work. So basically, at this point I’m just waiting for the issue to pop its head up again.

Lesson learned: ask for a Tier 2 rep right off the bat.