Helping Windows Users

I work in the IT sector. My job involves support and consultancy for SAP. As such people often ask me computer-related tech-support questions in my private life. I also get...

I work in the IT sector. My job involves support and consultancy for SAP. As such people often ask me computer-related tech-support questions in my private life. I also get asked questions by colleagues at work about their home computers. Naturally as part of my job I also get asked tech questions by people at work which relate to their work computers. Even though I don’t actually work in desktop support, people recognise when someone in the office is tech-savvy and they ask the geek questions.

I don’t mind this, it’s of course great to have ones talents recognised. I don’t actually work in tech-support as part of my job, so really it’s an aside to what I am getting paid to do. Helping to fix problems with colleagues desktops means they can potentially get on with their work and do their job better as a result, I figure a few minutes here and there to sort desktop problems isn’t overall a bad thing so long as it doesn’t adversely affect my ability to complete other tasks.

Some time ago however I made a decision to do my best not to support people with Windows based computers. I want to focus my attention on Linux users. Helping them to get Linux working on their setups and making sure the stuff they need works. In the corporate environments that I work, Windows is of course prevalent on the desktop. So I can’t avoid it at work at the moment unless I refuse to assist people with their work queries, which I think would be rude, and counterproductive. There is no way I can get the customer where I am working right now to change all their desktops to Linux, they rely too heavily on proprietary windows-only solutions at the moment.

However when people ask about their own personal computer things are different. I consider myself quite a helpful guy, and to refuse to help people because they are running Windows when you know you can fix their problem may sound rude, but it’s my policy decision and I’m sticking to it. There are now only three people with Windows machines that I will still help. My mother and father in law (always good to keep them sweet – means invites for Sunday lunch and babysitting come thick and fast), my Father (who has some very specific Windows-based software he uses) and my Sister (who has 3 daughters who play the latest games). However support for these people is few and far between, I rarely get questions from any of them and it’s usually system rebuilds or new PC installs I get involved in.

Computer support is no different from hairdressing, car maintenance or indeed any aspect of life where an expert is required. Someone will ask an expert to fix something for them. The next time it breaks they will likely go back to that person either because they are known to be reliable or tech-savvy, or because they blame the expert for all subsequent issues because “you were the last person to touch it” – a phrase most geeks, hairdressers and mechanics will have heard.

An example. Yesterday a female colleague in the office came over to our area and spoke to someone in my team. I heard him reply “Ask popey” and point the woman in question in my direction. She wanted a copy of XP because her Dell computer had broken and she had been told by the Dell technical support people that they don’t give out installation media any more, and that she will find images of the XP recovery CD on her computer. Given her computer was broken at this time she could not re-create the media so was asking around if any of us techies had a copy that she could borrow. Her boyfriend (with whom she shares her home computer) had tried calling Dell and was told they could not help him.

I explained that I could not help her with a copy of XP for two reasons. First it’s not really legal for me to give her a copy of XP, but also the personal copies of XP I have came with the PCs I have bought recently and will likely only work in those PCs. I further explained that she should call Dell and demand the installation media as her computer is not functioning so she cannot boot in order to burn the recovery CDs.

She jokingly said “so you could help me, you could get an XP CD for me, but you won’t, is that it?”. I replied with “Well, pretty much, yes, technically I could get you an XP CD, but I am not going to.”. I also explained briefly that I don’t actually use Windows at home so that’s one reason I don’t have Windows XP CDs kicking around. She then asked what I use if I don’t use Windows, and why don’t I use Windows.

The first question is of course easy to answer. I hand her an Ubuntu CD and say “This is what I use”. The second question is hard. I don’t want to get into a lengthy debate about the relative merits of operating systems, the political reasons for choosing Free and Open Source software, my personal history of computer use, my dislike of Microsoft business practices or my technical requirements for an operating system. Instead I just say the following:-

“Windows doesn’t do what I want it to do.” – alluding to some of the above reasons in one concise phrase.

and

“I don’t like the fact that I cannot give you a copy of the software.” – Showing that whilst I would like to help, I can’t because the licence for Windows prevents me from doing that.

I further explained that there are a whole boatload of other reasons that I won’t bore her with, suffice to say I don’t use Windows, and likely never will in my home environment. She quizzed me further on my reasons and seemed genuinely interested in why someone might think Windows can’t do everything one might need.

I handed her an Ubuntu CD from the stack on my desk and indicated that I use it on a daily basis and it works for me, that it may not work for her, may not be right for her, but it is an option. When asked what I could do with that software I replied “pretty much whatever you do with Windows right now.”. When asked “Can I surf the net, get email, download stuff, talk to friends on MSN?”, the answer is of course “Yes!”.

She left with two Ubuntu CDs, one for her, one for a friend of hers who also has a computer problem. I’ll ask her later whether she booted it or not.

Now of course I could have offered to go to her house outside work hours and fix the computer – it’s likely with my skills that I could do that, and probably charge her a reasonable fee for doing it. I guess I am lucky then. Lucky that I am not so desparate for work that I would consider fixing Windows based computers. Unless of course by “fixing”, we mean “installing Linux”!

Update: She just came over to me to say her boyfriend installed Ubuntu last night. She will give the other CD to one of her friends and will give me feedback from both. She also read the blurb on the CD and was impressed by the humanitarian principles.