Tales from Techsupport

So we found out yesterday that, due to our landlord decommissioning our building, we will be moved to one of their other properties.

This is annoying for a few reasons, not the least of which is that I now have the second shortest commute in the office, and my commute will, depending on the new location that is selected, be tripled (at least).

But there's also this little conversation between me and my "senior tech" counterpart, who was, up until he moved to bumfuck PA (and hence started working from home 3-4 days a week), the primary network contact here.

Me: So I haven't gotten any new information about the move, other than it could be at any of three or four locations in (Town1 and Town2). I kind of wish we had some kind of input on which to select, based on network infrastructure support.
Him: You know, I really can't give a rat's ass about the move. I'm just not interested.
Me: Is there any particular reason why?
Him: I don't work there often enough to care
Me: But the health of the infrastructure directly affects you, and if it's hard to rebuild or causes us problems in the new place, it's going to be even worse than the problems we have now
Him: But I won't have to deal with it. And I won't have to move it, they contract out for that.
Me: Be that as it may, we still have to ensure everything's working. How often have contractors fucked shit up for us?
Him: It won't matter anyway.

buh wtf

Then there's the whole "this will take place within 4 months", the next 4 months of which are two of our busiest seasons during the year...

he deserves no right to be called a senor tech. Hell you could apprentice a geek out of high school who would give more shits about the network than that guy does from the sounds of that conversation. Glad hes not a surgeon, "Its not my heart so I don't give a fuck."

Sales Manager: I need a projector for a conference
Me: I don't have any projectors
SM: Yuh huh, (Other Sales Manager) gave it to you this week
Me: No, she didn't
SM: Yes, she did
Me: No, she didn't. The only one I have access to is an old Optoma which you refused to take on your last conference. It's still in the box.
SM: I bought that for the company in Fresno last year
Me: So why didn't you want it
SM: I don't remember
Me: Well, that's the only one I have.
SM: Well that's not good enough
Me: Well, I don't have any others.

3 hours later

SM: The other manager gave it to one of the Admin Assistants
Me: So... I still don't have it
SM: Well you need to get over there and get it and test it out, because apparently the other manager left it in her car trunk all summer long
Me: *facepalm*

Me: Hello Administrative Assistant, I need the projector that Other Sales Manager gave you
AA: No you don't
Me: Yes I do
AA: How do you know I have it?
Me: SM told me you do
AA: Damn him. Well why do you need it?
Me: SM told me where it was missing for the last 4 months, so I need to test it out
AA: Damn him. I still don't understand why you need it.

*head desk* *Head desk*

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Salamane

How does a power outage ever cost more than a few hours of work? People suddenly forget the basics of source control systems?

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Some folks just love to argue with me because winning the argument is more important than being right. And if I recommend X, they'll do not-X. Although I like Alikat's explanation.

Well Wednesday must have been movie night at the AA's house.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tangurena

Some folks just love to argue with me because winning the argument is more important than being right. And if I recommend X, they'll do not-X. Although I like Alikat's explanation.

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And this is how a Deepwater Horizon happens, People who know their jobs tell people who are in charge "This shit is broken we need to fix it" People in charge who always want to win arguments "Well it has not broken fully yet so keep the systems online." and then when it does break they bitch at the people who know what they where doing for not preventing it.

In IT the skilled IT people are almost always the losers, Management does not like preventive work because downtime to them is lost money in their eyes, Then when the shit hits the CPU fans they again bitch out IT for not fixing it faster. Of course had the work been allowed it would have been a smooth failure because the UPS systems would work and allow a proper close of the system instead of a hard shutdown and lost data that now requires restoration from tape.

Caller: I need to install your most recent programs.
Me: Okay, let's go out to the website. Note that for your computer (win7) you need to save the installers to a folder, right-click and Run As Administrator.
Caller: Okay.
...
Me: Now that they've finished downloading, let's open them by right-clicking and Run As Administrator.
Caller: Okay
Caller: They're gibberish
Me: What do you mean gibberish?
Caller: I mean the words are all gibberish
Me: (thinking she has a bad installer) We can download it again
Caller: No I don't want to make you wait again, let me try again
Caller: Nope, still gibberish
Me: Can we do a remote session?
Caller: NO, I want to try once more
Caller: Nope, still gibberish. *mumbles* Let me close Word and try Acrobat...
Me: What about Word and Acrobat?
Caller: Oh, I opened it in Word, and it came up as gibberish...

Me: ...

Me: Ma'am, the file you downloaded isn't a document. It's a program that installs our application. You need to open the folder you saved it to, find the file you downloaded, click the right-mouse-button on that file, and choose "Run As Administrator."
Caller: But they're tax forms
Me: Actually they are programs that display special tax forms that calculate and print what you need.
Caller: But they're tax forms.

Me: ...
Me: Could we please do a remote session so that I can get you up and running?

Caller: Fine. (hear mumbling in the background of her talking to herself or someone else saying "this damn fool doesn't think I can do it")
Me: I just want to make sure everything goes where it needs to go, instead of losing client data.
Caller: Fine.

So I remote into her computer and find out that, not only does she have single-click shortcuts enabled (who DOES that anymore? ffs, I haven't seen that since 1998) but she's got over a dozen shortcuts to various program installers on her desktop, including those I support.

Me: I can delete these shortcuts that don't go to our program, if you like.
Caller: But how will I know where the program is? I need the buttons to run my forms!
Me: When I'm finished installing, you'll have all of your... buttons.
Caller: I just don't understand why you can't let me use your forms in Word.

OMG and this is the dumb bitch who is gonna be doing their company's taxes using your stuff.

Testing Manager: Hi, we're all using this new remote connect application that you can launch the connection directly from an IM window
Me: Okay
TM: Mine stopped working after the first use
Me: I've never heard of it, never received any emails about it, never saw it, and don't know what you're talking about
TM: So you can't fix it for me?

So I remote into a workstation to do some program troubleshooting for a third party piece of software.

Holy crap is this machine slow.

Oh look, only 306mb free on the C:\ drive.

Download SequioaView (A program that displays files visually where the size of the block is related to the size of the file as a whole.)

Run it on C:\ (so this image is the whole c:\ drive)

Laugh Uproariously.

http://www.mages-tower.com/images/my_dumps.png

Almost 3/4 of the (20 gig. grr) hard drive taken up with .hdmp files. 14.6gb/20, comprised mostly of 12.x MB files.

Found an electrician today who didn't understand Positive vs Negative DC voltage.

He installed a 24V DC transformer to power an amplified speaker. The speaker amp had a lead for -24V & grnd. He said "Where's the positive? I think you'll need the positive...."

I have to admit I had to Google negative DC power, As my experience with DC was working on a 1995 pickup truck where I just had the power from the battery to the Amp and then ground which I just bolted to the frame of the truck itself.

Quote:

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I have to admit I had to Google negative DC power, As my experience with DC was working on a 1995 pickup truck where I just had the power from the battery to the Amp and then ground which I just bolted to the frame of the truck itself.

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Are you an electrician though?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Melcar

Are you an electrician though?

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Nope but I can install fixtures, speed controls for my ceiling fan, breaker panels are straight forward too.

What type of electrician was he? Going to guess he was expecting it to be like most DC feeds where there is a POS and NEG lead. I am going to have to do more research now to find out what a negative voltage lead is, As I have always figured you can only go down to zero volts.

Quote:

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What type of electrician was he?

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At least a Journeyman - if not master...

Quote:

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I am going to have to do more research now to find out what a negative voltage lead is, As I have always figured you can only go down to zero volts.

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Nope... 0 is just the reference, the important is basically difference of potential & direction of current flow.

Basically, with DC if you just reverse your leads you'll get Neg voltage -- take for example a battery - got a positive pole & a negative pole - take a multimeter, put the red lead on the positive, black lead on the Negative, you get a +1.5v


Now reverse it, black lead on Pos, Red lead on Neg, Read the -1.5v

ahh wow I just did that using a 12v wall wart, and sure enough I did get negative . So on that Amp if say the power supply had a red GND and a black +24v you would just hook the PSU's Negative to the -24 on the amp and the positive to its GND

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Melcar

Found an electrician today who didn't understand Positive vs Negative DC voltage.

He installed a 24V DC transformer to power an amplified speaker. The speaker amp had a lead for -24V & grnd. He said "Where's the positive? I think you'll need the positive...."

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I think speakers and amplifiers always will be negative, or you'll get feedback. My brothers the electrical engineer, I suppose I could run it past him.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Melcar

Are you an electrician though?

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To be fair to this guy, electricians generally aren't masters of all things electrical. There are huge differences between commercial and residential, much less AC and DC.

Quote:

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I think speakers and amplifiers always will be negative, or you'll get feedback.

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It's so the voice coil energizes properly.

Voice coil is an electromagnet inside the large static magnet - if the polarity is wrong the voice coil pulls in the wrong direction. Speaker will still work, but yeah, increased distortion.

so a voice coil is just like a DC motor then, wire it for negative and it "spins" the other direction. Yes I know speakers have nothing that spins but I know DC motors have a permanent magnet and then the armature is an electromagnet. flip the feeds and it goes in reverse.

Going to guess on a speaker you want the power to push the cone rather than pull the cone?

Quote:

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so a voice coil is just like a DC motor then, wire it for negative and it "spins" the other direction.

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Pretty good analogy, it's essentially a linear DC motor.

Quote:

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Going to guess on a speaker you want the power to push the cone rather than pull the cone?

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I'm not a speaker engineer either - so your guess here is as good as mine; 50-50.
I'd assume you are correct but would have to research that myself... I just hook the leads the way the diagram tells me to. :)

Customer: I'm missing data that was entered between January 2012 and today.
Me: Do you have a backup?
Customer: No, but we printed it out, can't you just scan it back into the program?
Me: No, you'll need to re-enter it
Customer: But we already entered it once
Me: Okay, I can examine your dataset then
Customer: Fine (sends the dataset)
Me: Okay it looks like everything you're missing was deleted before 6/4/2012
Customer: Who would have done that?
Me: Someone doing entries at your company...
Customer: Can't you just copy-and-paste it back into where it needs to go?
Me: No, because you've been doing entries for the last four months, and the program record tracking has already been superceded by what you've entered.
Customer: Well we didn't need the info then, but we need it back now
Me: Then re-enter it
Customer: We don't want to, we want you to copy-and-paste it back where it needs to go
Me: With the entries you've made, this has become impossible. It would require a development escalation which could take 3 or more business days, by which time you could probably have re-entered the 6 whole transactions you are missing.
Customer: I really don't see why you can't copy-and-paste it back into where it needs to go.
Me: Well you see, when transactions are entered, they are given a special number that is dated. And since they were deleted before June, the transactional date glue that the program uses for these records is expired. So even though I could copy them out, the glue won't stick them into where it needs to go.
Customer: Well why didn't you just say that?

Quote:

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the glue won't stick them into where it needs to go.

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:rofl:

Don't forget the sunspots...


Sidenote - I actually had a Charter tech try and tell me that the other day...

I changed my service, dropped everything except Internet.


So, I get home last Wed. have no internet. Reset my modem, reset my firewall all that good shit. Call Charter, go through the motions with them, get to the point where they dispatch the tech out... and then he goes on to the other things I could try... "system restore" blah blah this, blah blah that... Oh, & it could be the solar weather - may fix itself...

Right OK... I'll keep that in mind.

Yeah, problem was the wire was disconnected at the pole.

Yesterday: Company wide email malfunctions
Today: Company wide VOIP phone malfunctions

Me calling help desk: Hi, my office is having intermittent internet problems, preventing email access and phone functionality. We are a call center, is there an outage?
HD: No, there's no problems since yesterday's email
Me: Well the same thing happened this morning until the phone problem just now
HD: How are you talking to me?
Me: I have a cell phone...
HD: Well we have no record of any problems
Me: I am submitting a ticket, so you can record my problems
HD: Well we haven't heard of any problems

In the meantime, I get an email from my manager in the brief moment that Outlook connects that says "We got confirmation there is a company wide phone problem"

It feels like Friday the thirteenth with a full moon.

Sunspots will not take a modem offline, They will however result in funny TV issues. But honestly even that has gotten better, Dunno if its better software filtering the noise or just that there are more birds up there now so they point the dish at the one they think will be harmed the least transmission wise.

Putting a new PC in place for one of the managers who is out of office today.

I'm under the desk disconnecting cables and smell something majorly funky.

Thinking it's food, I bring a flashlight down.

Only to find a pile of toenail clippings on and around and IN the surge protector.

now that is rather nasty, I bet if the same manager caught a cubeslave doing that they would get fired.

Coworker: I was working on a sample dataset that's very hard to replace
Me: (uhoh) Okay
Coworker: I tried recreating it as a test, and the program said "file already exists, do you want to replace?"
Me: (double uhoh) Okay
Coworker: So I said yes. Now I can't find any of the test data the manager spent 3 months inputting. Is that a bad thing?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mileron

Coworker: I was working on a sample dataset that's very hard to replace
Me: (uhoh) Okay
Coworker: I tried recreating it as a test, and the program said "file already exists, do you want to replace?"
Me: (double uhoh) Okay
Coworker: So I said yes. Now I can't find any of the test data the manager spent 3 months inputting. Is that a bad thing?

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:jawdrop:

From one of our other network Techs this morning:


her: What would cause a duplicate IP address on the network? -- This was her IP.

Me: That's in range given out for DHCP.

Her: Well, that was the address her computer had when I gave her the new computer.

me: That means you didn't notice she was a DHCP client, so you statically assigned a dynamically assignable address. So, the server doesn't know it's used - and will pass it out a second time.

her: Oh. but that was the address she had when I switch the computer...

Me: Just switch the computer back on DHCP it'll be fine.

I do not even have a degree and could have figured that problem out. First rule if a duplicate IP is mentioned in an error is check to see if DHCP is on.

The following is a paraphrased transcript of an email exchange between me and one of the Sales agents in my office during the height of Hurricane Sandy.

Mon 11:03am:
SA: Can you please give me a call? I'm not able to set up a remote connection from my apartment, and the global Help Desk cannot help me.
Me: Everyone is working from home. The office may be experiencing a power outage. If it is not, but it had recently, it's possible your computer is off. If that is the case, you won't be able to connect remotely to your computer. If the computer is on, you need to have the correct computer name/address to remotely connect to the computer.

SA, 11:31am: You don't give me much hope this will get done. What is the address? I know the office is at (street address), but my dad's computer is currently at (his apartment street address)
Me: No, those aren't applicable. You need the computer location on the network. The name of the computer you're sitting at doesn't matter. The house you're in doesn't matter.
SA: Well the Help Desk is also helping me set up VPN. Can you do that?
Me: What do you mean set up VPN?
SA: I just called the Help Desk to set up VPN, can you do that?
Me: No, that's solely a Help Desk thing.
SA: Here's the link I'm using to sign in, it keeps telling me my user name and password is invalid
Me: Well that's because you're using a link for a different business unit, and not for ours. They need to give you a valid connection URL

SA 11:59am: Well what can we do to resolve this?
Me: You need to talk to the Help Desk
SA: So I should follow up with the Global Help Desk to get this resolved? Can't you give me a painless option to walk me through setting it up?

By now I've started CC'ing my lead tech/counterpart, and he's sending me direct IMs like "omg is he for real".

LT 1:41pm: The link you(SA) provided is not a valid link to remotely connect, as Mileron said. You need to contact the Help Desk.

SA 4:28pm: The link didn't work? Can one of you help me get remote access or must I call the Global Help Desk about it? I really need to get this up and running.

At this point, I snapped. Here is my verbatim email to him:

Quote:

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SA, I don't know how many different ways I can tell you this.
THE GLOBAL HELP DESK MUST HELP YOU WITH IT.
That's it. I cannot do anything.

If you can't go to (inserted the VPN URL that I use), select North America for Region, and (Business Unit), and (Authentication Type) for Security, then login with your network information, WE ARE UNABLE TO HELP YOU.

Otherwise, this is out of our hands, I'm sorry.

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SA, 10/30 7:00AM: The Help Desk helped me get set up on the VPN. Now I need to know what my phone credentials are (that he uses to log into the phone every single day.) Can one of you help me out with that?





... If he comes to my desk this morning, I'm just going to ignore him.

This is going to be an ugly time for customer facing tech support. Going to guess many people will not care that trees are down and that telecom has to wait for a green light from the power company. in NYC a few datacenters went dead.

UGH...

Most of mine lately seem to be complaining about my coworkers:

So, My vacation begins at 4:30PM today 2 weeks. (deer season, unplug time, no phone, no internet, fresh air, trees, and hopefully some deer.)

Anyways, other network tech this morning:

"Before you leave for your vacation, why can't I remote connect anymore to Computer at remote location".

well, how should I know.

"Can't ping it, can't RDP, can't do remote assist etc... Can't ping anything out there"

hmm, I can't ping it either, but when I ping the whole network these are the 20 address that respond. So there's no block on the whole network, which means if it's a firewall it's the local firewall, not the network one. Check for local firewall, check the AV, if that's not managed properly it defaults to block all inbound etc etc etc...


-- Two hours later "know what the problem was?"

How would I know what the problem was?

"teehee - the computer was turned off".

That would do it.

Manager: FYI, come 2013 one of our core products will no longer support Excel 2003.
Me: Will we be informing our customers?
Manager: Why?

the customers should be informed yes, but on the other hand he may have said that because it will be 2013 and he might be figuring "Who would still use 10yr old software?" (of course the company likely still uses WinXP and IE6.... )

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Melcar

-- Two hours later "know what the problem was?"

How would I know what the problem was?

"teehee - the computer was turned off".

That would do it.

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I don't know about you guys, but I never turn off my desktop machines unless I'm performing maintenance on them. Except for the Studio computer, which was purpose-built, my desktop units have 24/7 JOBS to do. If I turn them off then they aren't useful.

sure it uses power but I leave mine on constantly because it seems really turning a computer on and off is actually worse for it.

I did shut mine down for awhile on monday when the power was getting a bit flickery.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae

I don't know about you guys, but I never turn off my desktop machines unless I'm performing maintenance on them. Except for the Studio computer, which was purpose-built, my desktop units have 24/7 JOBS to do. If I turn them off then they aren't useful.

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I need to be able to remote desktop to my work machine at a moment's notice.
That, and it's extremely nice to be able to pick right up where I left the night before.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae

I don't know about you guys, but I never turn off my desktop machines unless I'm performing maintenance on them. Except for the Studio computer, which was purpose-built, my desktop units have 24/7 JOBS to do. If I turn them off then they aren't useful.

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I don't think running SETI@HOME qualifies as something that needs to be done 24/7. :P

Half of our calls so far this morning:

Caller: Hi, we just got back into our office after being out of it for 5+ days due to Sandy
Me: *insert appropriate sympathetic comments*
Caller: Yeah we were wondering, we're trying to get into our programs and getting *insert random "network not found" errors*
Me: Well that means there's a problem with your network
Caller: Oh so if my server is down, I can't use my programs which run from and store data on my network server?
Me: Um, no, sorry

Two people so far have asked us if we can contribute tech people to fixing their problems!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mileron

Caller: Oh so if my server is down, I can't use my programs which run from and store data on my network server?

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Of course you can. Just talk to your local support person. They will wave their magic data wand and it will all work.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eremius

Of course you can. Just talk to your local support person. They will wave their magic data wand and it will all work.

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Last time I waved my magic data wand I had to have an awkward discussion with the local police and now I can't live within 5 miles of a school.

"The Cloud" is swirling around in a funnel shape!!!

[QUOTE=Mileron;1762385
Caller: Oh so if my server is down, I can't use my programs which run from and store data on my network server?

[/QUOTE]



It really is like magic to the mundanes.

10:12 last night I get a call from out-of-state Net Ops.

NT: Hi, we have been unable to connect to your site for over 20 minutes. Has there been a power outage?
Me: Well, considering there's a new storm dumping an inch of snow on us, I'd say you're probably on the right track.
NT: Well, could you go out to the site and verify power?
Me: No
NT: Why not?
Me: There's a storm, roads are terrible, oh and our site only has business hours from 8am to 7pm Eastern.
NT: So you aren't going to go check?

Sounds like the guy was having trouble printing out those new cover sheets for the TPS reports, yeah. OK, I'm going to have to ask you if you could go check the site, yeah...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mileron

10:12 last night I get a call from out-of-state Net Ops.

NT: Hi, we have been unable to connect to your site for over 20 minutes. Has there been a power outage?
Me: Well, considering there's a new storm dumping an inch of snow on us, I'd say you're probably on the right track.
NT: Well, could you go out to the site and verify power?
Me: No
NT: Why not?
Me: There's a storm, roads are terrible, oh and our site only has business hours from 8am to 7pm Eastern.
NT: So you aren't going to go check?

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Of course they figure you should drive even when state officials are saying to stay home. Because to them their access to a server matters more than life.

I have heard people complain their cable guy did not show up in the middle of a blizzard.

I bet if you told this guy the building was under several feet of water he would ask you to go verify it was actually flooded.

Sandy related one, the guy who sits next to me at work got a guy complaining about his tv reception when he was in an evacuation zone in NJ. Mind you, our group has nothing to do with tv at all, so we laughed about it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Schezar

Sandy related one, the guy who sits next to me at work got a guy complaining about his tv reception when he was in an evacuation zone in NJ. Mind you, our group has nothing to do with tv at all, so we laughed about it.

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Why no sir I cannot send you a tech. Did you not hear that Gov. Christie told you to get your ass out of the barrier islands?

User calls in.

Windows is saying that it is "Not Genuine".

I dig up the license key for that site from documentation and apply it.

Done Deal.

Another user from the same site calls in. Windows is "Not Genuine".

Odd.

Apply license key. All is good.

Another user calls in. Guess what? NOT GENUINE.

Hrm.

Pull report of all 140 machines on site complete with license keys being used.

Oh look. All but 12 of them are using the same license key.

Paste key into google on a whim.

EIGHT THOUSAND RESULTS WITH AN EXACT KEY MATCH.

Whoever deployed this site used a KNOWN PIRATED WINDOWS KMS LICENSE.

/facepalm

Sure enough, those 12 computers that aren't having the problem? Those are the only PC's with valid licenses.

The other machines are running a VL version of Windows 7 when they should be running an OEM version of Windows 7.

THESE PC'S CAME FROM THE MANUFACTURER WITH A BIOS-LOCKED VALID OEM LICENSE KEY AND SOMEONE FUCKING INSTALLED A VL VERSION WITH A PIRATED KEY ON ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY EIGHT WORKSTATIONS.

Everyone involved with this client's rollout has since quit.

Wow. Just... wow.

Over the last year, I've been pushing hard to get a new file/print server to replace our aging Compaq Proliant ML350, which has been running non-stop since late 2003.

We finally got a new server back in April. Due to politics and development roadblocks, we have been pretty much prevented from doing anything other than setting up extremely basic folders.

So with Hurricane Sandy, a series of power outages highlighted our need to migrate to this new server (since the old one refused several times to boot up.) I spoke with the VP of the office and manager of development, and my own counterpart, to schedule a "we need to do X Y Z before the office move" meeting in the very near future.

Yesterday, I sent an email to everyone in the office (and a few external users who would be affected) that in 10 days we would be moving all user-specific, non-application data to the new server as Phase 1 of the migration.

This email simply stated:

Quote:

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In coming weeks, we will be migrating user data from the current Home folder location to a new server.
This will occur on Monday, 11/26, at 8am.
At this time, your current existing data on your Home folder will be marked as Read Only, and you will be forced to save any new data to the NEW Home folder.

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As I'm walking to the break room this morning (after an emergency reboot of the afflicted server that took almost half an hour) I overhear one of the women in another group saying "Mileron sent this email, it's too long, what's he saying?"

Then another woman in that same group asked me to map the new (temporary) mapped drive, and when it mapped she instantly saw dozens of folders with usernames all created inside that new Home drive.
She then gets up, walks over to her manager and says, "Wow, have you seen this? Tech support has actually been busy for once"

too long? TOO LONG?

I have seen longer things posted into guild chat in back in the EQ days during a boss fight by the tank without any bounce in agro... and some dumbass in her cube cant read three lines while drinking her starbucks?

No, some dumbass in her cube can't be bothered to try to understand three lines while drinking her starbucks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mileron

"Wow, have you seen this? Tech support has actually been busy for once"

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>.<

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mileron

She then gets up, walks over to her manager and says, "Wow, have you seen this? Tech support has actually been busy for once"

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Carpetmonkeys generally do nothing BUT busywork, no wonder she seemed impressed by what she mistakenly thought in her ignorance was an example of busywork. I bet she was almost as impressed as the time the lady in the next cube color coded the Accounts Payable files!

I mean, OBVIOUSLY you guys don't do anything all day long, because the network and connected systems are almost always functioning perfectly. :D

Because of Sandy, we ended up having problems with external calls being made into our non-Call Center lines, problems with internal users calling any external number.

They fixed that, but once they did, we've had a problem dialing any 800 number since 11/1. You get an error, then if you listen to it repeat 2-3 times, it usually connects you to that number.

I spent 3 days on the phone back and forth with Verizon. The guy tells me "dude, I don't even see those calls on my network, are you sure it's a Verizon circuit?"

Um well considering it's a verizon T1, yes

Anyway, today the original problem re-occurred. Now you can't dial any external number from non-Call Center phones, and you still can't call 800 numbers from Call Center phones, and people outside can't get into our office except through our 800 numbers, which naturally floods the Call Center.

I call the Global Help Desk, and also email the original contact from the start of the 800 number issue, and just now got an email from the India branch of the helpless desk.

"Could you current status of this please?"

So I reiterate the problem, breaking it down as above.

Then I get an email from the NYC folks, asking for another breakdown.

Oh look, here's a third... What's so hard to understand out of "My phones are FUCKED" ?

Sanitized to protect the terminally stupid

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stupid Person

HR Person,
Do you know anything about this?
Is it junk mail? I got one in my personal e-mail box and in 2 of my customer service e-mail boxes. Following the link brought up a blank web page.
Thanks.

Idiot

---

Yes, please open an email you are not sure about to see if it is something you should be opening... :banghead:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eremius

Sanitized to protect the terminally stupid


Yes, please open an email you are not sure about to see if it is something you should be opening... :banghead:

---

If there's anything even REMOTELY odd about a mail, I disable the preview pane in Outlook, and delete it. I'm guessing that's the safest way.
Or is the mail parsed regardless of disabling the preview pane ?

Outlook doesn't execute code without opening the email if you are not running the preview pane, so good call there.

I have to use Outlook at work (stupid exchange server) but I use Thunderbird everywhere else. It doesn't execute code even in the preview pane.

When I set up systems in my office, I automatically disable the preview pane.

Ironically, my two dumbest users always figure out how to turn it back on, and oh look, get viruses the most often.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mileron

When I set up systems in my office, I automatically disable the preview pane.

Ironically, my two dumbest users always figure out how to turn it back on, and oh look, get viruses the most often.

---

It's quite amazing how they always figure out how to do JUST the thing that wrecks the system.
Would be so much easier if the energy was spent on something else...

I bet those users have the preview pane on at home too and are likely the person who calls Comcast claiming the modem gave their computer a virus. Yes the typical user is so dumb they think that the cable modem is where a virus comes from so they also automatically think its up to the cable company to help them clean up their PC.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mileron

When I set up systems in my office, I automatically disable the preview pane.

Ironically, my two dumbest users always figure out how to turn it back on, and oh look, get viruses the most often.

---

Why not just use something like MXLogic or Postini so the virus-infected spam never hits the inbox?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Merrick ap'Milandra

Why not just use something like MXLogic or Postini so the virus-infected spam never hits the inbox?

---

I don't know what Corporate Netops uses, but it's usually pretty good about blocking that sort of stuff. It's the users, not the system. :)

I've been off since 11/16.

I get back into the office today, catch up on my email (which was surprisingly light), and then it starts.

I get an email from my dumbest coworker.

Keep in mind, she's been here almost as long as I have - 7 years - and the process for this HAS NEVER CHANGED

Coworker: My program is saying expired. I need to reinstall it. What is the code?
Me: Here is the serial number. Make sure you SAVE the file from the website before installing it.
Coworker: I don't understand what you mean by Save the file from the website before installing it.
Me: When you go to our website to download the software, and click Download, make sure you hit SAVE. Do NOT use Run, as it will not work. Once it downloads to your computer, then install it.
Coworker: Silly question - - - - - install how????
Me: Find the ProgramSetup file in your Downloads folder and double-click it

I haven't gotten a response back yet - that was over an hour ago - so either her computer melted down or she figured it out. I'm 99.99_% sure it's not the latter.

Phone call from our engineering manager:
Him: "I can't log in to our support system, I keep getting an error. Can you see what my password is?"
Me: "I can't view your password but I can reset it for you if you would like."
Him: "Ok, let's do that!"
*reset password and give it to him*
Him: "I still can't get in"
*remote access to his machine*
*watch user click on .html file which he apparently saved to his desktop instead of creating a shortcut*

HR specialist this morning: "Can you give me access to HR director's email?"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Melcar

HR specialist this morning: "Can you give me access to HR director's email?"

---

"Can you give me a 20k/yr pay increase?"

One of our products uses Excel with a custom function library. There are a specific set of steps to troubleshoot certain calculation problems.

Coworker: I've been trying to troubleshoot this function calculation problem I'm working on, but I don't remember the steps.
Me: What's going on?
Coworker: It's giving THE calculation error, you know. That one. I just don't remember how to fix it.
Me: *I go to her desk and see that she's not even using that product, let alone the functions related to it. She has just a SUM function with bad arguments. I tell her this.* Your function references SUM(H24H6:H22) and that's not a valid range of cells.
Coworker: No, that's not true! I'm using functions and I'm getting that error!
Me: You're not using (product) functions
Coworker: No
Me: You're using Excel's default functions
Coworker: Yes
Me: You have bad arguments in your function
Coworker: No!

Due to a power outage, which outlasted the UPS units in my server room, our Friday full backup didn't occur.

I email my Backup contact. "Can I force the backup job to run, and how do I do it?"

BackupGuy: Why would you want to do that?
Me: Power outage prevented it from occurring.
BG: Don't you have UPS?
Me: Yes, but the outage outlasted the runtime.
BG: You need new UPS.
Me: Yes, I know, but fiscal tech doesn't refresh til January. So how do I run the job?
BG: Oh, you can't. It runs on a 24 hour cycle, and the only way to run an off-schedule job, is to create a job.
Me: So I can't just click on the job and hit "Run"
BG: No, the program prevents that. They don't expect the power to be lost before a job runs.
Me: So that's both a program deficiency, as well as a company technology deficiency.
BG: How do you mean?
Me: The program has no method by which you can arbitrarily run a backup.
BG: Right.
Me: Seems like a pretty big feature hole.
BG: How do you mean?
Me: Let's say I get a system in the office that I'll only have for 2 hours. I know it'll take 1 hour to backup. But the backup schedule won't run for 24 hours once the job is created. I have no way to create an ad-hoc backup job to run immediately.
BG: Okay...
Me: So that seems like a pretty big functionality deficiency.
BG: But why? It runs every 24 hours.

...

.........

If this guy where to go back in time and meet Otis would ask him "Why does an elevator need an emergency brake? it has a cable."

Support lines open at 8:00 Eastern
Sales lines open at 9:00 Eastern
It has been this way for all 8 years I've been here, and from what I understand, for 10+ years before that

8:01, Customer: Hi, I need to talk to Sales
Me: Unfortunately, no one in Sales is in the building, their lines don't open til 9AM. I can have someone give you a call back when they're in the office.
Customer: No, I need to talk to Sales.
Me: I can have a Sales Rep call you back in an hour.
Customer: You mean you can't help me with a Sales question?
Me: Unfortunately I cannot, as Systems Support. I can have someone from Sales call you after 9AM, or you can call back after that.
Customer: But I really just want to talk to Sales.
Me: They're not available. You will need to call back.
Customer: But I just have a Sales question. You mean there's no one there who can help me?
Me: Not til 9am.
Customer: Are you sure you're not in Sales?

You can't make this stuff up.

I'm sitting at my desk desperately trying to stave off somnolence and hear a repeated banging and bashing and slamming.

So I follow the sound to the printer at the end of the row, where one of my trouble users is kicking and slamming the printer, muttering "f-ing thing won't print" etc.

Me: Dude. Calm down. Beating it up won't help.
Coworker: But it won't print, I need this report to be submitted today (neither manager is in office, btw) but this f-ing thing won't print!
Me: (without looking at it) Does the display say PC Load Letter?
Coworker: Yeah. But what the fuck does that mean?
Me: (doing my absolute damnedest to not laugh, and to keep a straight face) What does the next line say?
Coworker: Tray 4
Me: Uh huh...
Coworker: Where's tray 4?
Me: It's the big door at the bottom.
Coworker: I didn't put paper there.
Me: That's where the printer wants it. Give it what it wants.
Coworker: (mumbles as I go back to my desk) Are you sure this is a printer, and not my girlfriend?

I hate it when girls ask me to put paper in tray 4.

So, one of our techs goes out to a client site today.

This tech is new to this site because they decided they didn't want the old tech out there anymore. The old tech managed to not check drive space on their domain controller once so for about 30 minutes, users who were not logged in were unable to log in. (Some moron was storing SQL Transaction logs on the C drive of the DC. WTF?)

So the "new to this site" tech gets out there for a once-a-month visit with a laundry list of stuff to do, including check on the backups. (Which as it turned out, were not working due to a lack of disk space on the SAN. Someone forgot to configure alerting. At all. For disk space. For backups. For anything. Absolutely no SNMP alerting anywhere. I nearly shat brax when I found out about that. Figures that the tech who originally configured them before the previous tech they didn't want out there anymore is no longer with the company...)

Tech messages me because we chat on occasion and because I was doing some other remote maintenance on their Exchange server, which the tech needed to work on.

I let the tech know when I'm at a place where I can pause and the tech sends out the obligatory "Rebooting Exchange at {Client Site}, Ignore offline alerts" e-mail.

I message the tech:

Me: "Umm...did anyone let you know before you went out that there's a Virtual Machine running Document Management software on that Exchange Server?" (Don't ask me who the fuck thought using a mail server to host a VM of a severely database-intensive application that's got 2 Terabytes of records in the database was a good idea but if you find them, let me know. I've been looking to revive crucifixion as an art form.)

Tech: "Umm..NO! WTF! That's kind of important! HELLOOOO DATA CORRUPTION!"

Me: "It's probably fine. I caught a level 1 tech doing it earlier this week too. I'm lobbying management to get a note put in the ticketing system that pops up every time someone opens or starts a ticket for {Client Name} so people will stop doing that instead of restarting the Exchange services."

Tech: "Oh, because THAT'LL work. People *always* read notes..."

Me: "What do they have you doing out there anyway?"

Tech: "Replacing the Battery Backup Write Cache on the RAID Controller."

Me: "Please tell me it's not another RAID 5 with 3 drives..."

Tech: "No, 8 drives."

Me: "Well, that's a little better, but I still would have preferred 5+0 or something."

Tech: "You and me both"

Tech: "SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT FUCK SHIT OMG FUCK SHIT"

Me: "??"

Tech: "It's bluescreening."

Me: "What'd you do, plug the BBWC in upside down and backwards"

Tech: "LOL. No, that'd be a neat trick, though."

Turns out the RAID controller lost *all* of it's configuration and it can't just be reloaded. No idea how or WHY it lost it, but it's GONE.

And like I previously mentioned, for some unknown period of time, the backups were failing due to a lack of disk space.

Some unlucky tech(s) will be spending the weekend and possibly the Holidays rebuilding an array, then building and configuring an Exchange server.

Okay I do not really know about setting up domain controllers, exchange servers, etc. But I would think it does not take a CS degree to know alerts are a good thing, Especially at a remote site.

But it seems to me someone storing database logs and running VMs on one to both of the site's absolutely mission critical servers is a really dumb idea.

I wonder if those SQL logs can just be deleted. After all they do not sound like they belong on the DC.

Damn dude. That's painful.



Here's todays:

Customer tech: I'm trying to run your program from a hidden mapped drive, but I can't find any data.
Me: The program requires explicit access to the mapped drive. We neither test nor support hidden mapped drives.
Tech: So how do I get the program to see the data?
Me: You don't, the program doesn't support hidden or mapped drives.
Tech: But I just want to be able to get to my data.
Me: Unhide the drive mapping.
Tech: Due to a new security policy we're hiding all non-essential mapped drives.
Me: This program is located on, say, drive letter X, correct?
Tech: Yes
Me: This is an essential program, correct?
Tech: Yes
Me: Then why is this program on a non-essential mapped drive status?
Tech: We just want to get to the data, can't you make the program find the hidden mapped drive?
Me: The users cannot see the drive, correct?
Tech: No, they cannot
Me: That is gpol or permissions based, correct?
Tech: Correct
Me: The program runs with user permissions. If the users cannot see the drive mapping, the program will not be able to either. This will not work.
Tech: But I just want to get the program to see my hidden mapped drive!

...

Is it bad that I do almost wish the world had ended today?

Quote:

---

Is it bad that I do almost wish the world had ended today?

---

Not after that conversation.

wow how can that person be a tech? seems pretty simple to me unhide the drive or move the program to a drive that everybody who needs it has the permissions to always see.

I completely forgot about this until I posted in Jonas' windows 8 thread.

So one of our clients has a fully virtualized environment with both on-site SAN backups and offsite cloud backups.

Veeam/VMWare/vSphere/vcenter/whatever that beta tool is that allows granular exchange mailbox restores from Veeam is called.... with a side order of Citrix for the dumb terminals, 10 or 12 NIC cards on each ESXi box (one in, one out - for each function, fully VLAN'd network to keep the virtual machine backups from interfering with or being interfered with by regular LAN traffic, not a bad setup for a small-to-medium business. It has plenty of room to scale and it's nice and easy to work with except for the occasional Veeam annoyance.)...except for...well, you'll see...

I get a call about an app that won't work inside of citrix on a thin client. No biggie there, probably just something about the user having their permissions locked down nice and tight, as I always prefer to do within citrix setups.

I hop onto the citrix farm and start peeking around.

Huh. It's not a published app. What's it called again?

{NameOfApp} We use it to monitor the security doors.

A quick search reveals nothing on the farm.

So, I pull up the Wyse Device Manager and shadow the guy's session.

*blink*

There's a big huge connection button labelled RDP to Terminal Server.
And another one for the Citrix session he usually uses.

"RDP?" ...I think to myself... "I thought they moved away from terminal services when we installed their citrix farm and virtualized everything?".

So, we sign him into the RDP session.

800x600 screen resolution...and that tell-tale light blue background.

It's a...windows 2000 server?

Sure enough, there's the application, right on the desktop. Crappy looking icon though. Whatever. I shrug and figure "enterprise software" and run the app so I can figure out what, exactly, is failing to launch on the citrix side. I briefly wonder why it's not installed on the citrix servers if it's such a necessary application for building security...



...and watch in horror as I am presented with a 16 bit application...



...that is now testing the COM ports for connectivity...

Yep, this application came straight out of the windows 3.1.1/95/98/NT era and hadn't been upgraded since.

Now that I have the error, I get off of the phone with the user so I can "fix it" (he's impatient and doesn't want to be on the phone anyway) and walk around the department in a brief daze, having not seen a 16 bit application since I tried to make Dungeons & Dragons: Fantasy Empires work on a win2k install back in late 2000, TWELVE YEARS AGO and well before I knew about DOSbox. (Totally unplayable on a 1ghz p3. No CPU speed correction, but I digress)

So a few minutes later, I stumble on one of the coworkers involved in the deployment of said virtualized environment.

"Oh yeah, {NameOfApp}? Yeah, that was a pain. The servers in the citrix farm are all 2008 R2 64 bit instances. I ended up having to limp an old 2k box to life because the vendor said: 'Do not under any circumstances upgrade to our .NET version. It doesn't work. At all.'. I had to find something that'd replicate COM ports over an Ethernet connection. It took me the better part of a week to reconfigure all of the Wyse Terminals to allow them into both TS and Citrix, get the COM port app up and running, and then train them on the differences. I'll show you where the COM port software is, it probably just quit working, then you can explain, again, that they can only access {NameOfApp} from their old terminal services connection. Only 2 people need access, they just both need post-it notes or something."

I never thought I'd see a 16-bit-ONLY app in the wild in today's day and age with how our setups normally work, but even the VENDOR thinks it's the only workable version of their application.

I knew the vb->.NET porting hurt a lot of software developers with long-established code trees, but I figured that was mostly over with half a decade ago...

Uff Da.

Full-on production environment, 16 bit app necessary for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.

Oh, and I should add that part of the reason my coworker took so much time to switch them over is that we ripped out NEARLY EVERYTHING they had when we put in the virtualized environment.

...because they were running their entire LAN on public addresses.

192.168.*?
172.16.*-172.32.*?
10.*?

NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR US, WE'RE GOING TO USE..uhhh... 173! (or 72 or something, they either upped it by one or dropped the 100, I forget) YEAH! NOBODY WILL EVER GUESS THAT! (To be fair, I don't think 173 used to be public addressing space, but it's been at least a few years since that opened up. One would think that "we just randomly can't hit these websites" would prompt some level 1 pinging or perhaps a few inside/outside tracert commands)

He had to go dig up old switches and figure out what was where to even FIND the machine that was running the app. I don't remember for sure if he found it or just built one from parts but in the last 7 months I've seen far too many places using publicly addressed space for their LAN IP scheme.

what type of security needed a 16bit app for SOX compliance? you mentioned building security but I know there must be 32bit and maybe even 64bit applications that can talk to door locks. Actually kinda surprises me that SOX would even care how the building is secured as long as it has fixed access points that can control access.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker

what type of security needed a 16bit app for SOX compliance? you mentioned building security but I know there must be 32bit and maybe even 64bit applications that can talk to door locks. Actually kinda surprises me that SOX would even care how the building is secured as long as it has fixed access points that can control access.

---

If they need building ingress and egress tracked with badges and they need to have logs going back X far of who entered where and when, then they pretty much have to keep track of it.

I know there are 32 bit apps that do this because I've used them before but they're wedded to this particular app.

ahh so its like the IE6 problem on Intranets, They have an ancient app and are stuck with it.

I am guessing that to upgrade to software from this century they would have to upgrade the physical layer too(RFID units and the badges themselves.)

Same guy from the arbitrary backup post

Me: I need a replacement disk for my server's data raid array - it's a 72GB 10K U320 drive.
Him: Okay, Let me see what I have

I receive a box but due to the pre-holiday rush am unable to open it let alone install it. Once I finally DO get around to opening it, I find that it's a 72GB U320 drive but 15K instead.

Me: Hi, I got the drive, thanks, but unfortunately it's a 15K drive. I need a 10K drive.
Him: You can use that
Me: Um, no, I can't. RAID requires identical drives. Capacity, connection, rotation speed.
Him: You can use that.
Me: No, I can't.
Him: Dude, yes you can. Just plug it in, the array will rebuild your data.
Me: And then it'll crash.
Him: Just use it.

Speaking of drives...

We had a NetApp located out of state for DR purposes. We're a small IT/hosting company, so we don't have full time (hell, or even part time) staff down there. So when a drive fails, we hire a contractor to perform the physical swap.

NetApp ships the drive. The drive is delivered. We call the contractor, give him the location and contact info, and have him take possession of the drive and perform the swap.

The datacenter then tells the contractor that they have misplaced the drive. They'll search for it, just give them a few hours.

A day later, we call them and speak to a receptionist. She'll check into it for us. An hour later, we get an e-mail stating they have found the drive. We call the contractor, and while speaking with him, receive a second e-mail stating that Oops, they were wrong, and the drive is still misplaced.

So we talk to NetApp. They offer to ship a second drive to the datacenter. Agreed, and done. It should be there in a few hours. During this period, the datacenter found the original drive, and put a big note on it explaining what it was, who it was for, and to not lose it again.

They ask us what they want us to do with it, since drive #2 is on its way. We arrange for the contractor to pick it up the next day since he's unavailable now and instruct datacenter to deny delivery of drive #2 so it goes back to NetApp. No problem.

Receptionist never gets the word. Drive #2 is delivered and signed for before contractor arrives. Fine, no problem, just get the return label and ship it back to them. Receptionist does so.

Tech flunkie sees the note saying "ship back NetApp drive" and ships drive #1 alongside drive #2. Net result: zero drives at facility when contractor arrives.

And that's where we're at now. NetApp is shipping drive #3. This time, UPS is holding the drive at their shipping facility so contractor can cut out the middle men.

Quote:

---

And that's where we're at now. NetApp is shipping drive #3. This time, UPS is holding the drive at their shipping facility so contractor can cut out the middle men.

---

Ick... Next time - Call the contractor first, arrange shipment straight to Contractor.

We've had warranty repairs that went like that: Company IBM, HP whoever, "OK, we'll send parts & tech..."

Tech arrives. "Where's the parts?"

Not here yet.

Customer: I need to e-file a return
Me: They stopped accepting e-filing of all forms for that tax form on December 1, 2012
Customer: I need to e-file a return
Me: The IRS stopped accepting those returns at the beginning of December
Customer: I need to e-file a return
Me: You can't
Customer: Well why not?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mileron

Customer: I need to e-file a return
Me: They stopped accepting e-filing of all forms for that tax form on December 1, 2012
Customer: I need to e-file a return
Me: The IRS stopped accepting those returns at the beginning of December
Customer: I need to e-file a return
Me: You can't
Customer: Well why not?

---

Sounds like the kind of person that would ask a bridge operator why they cannot close the drawbridge while there is a bigass container ship clearly going by.

Also they are a year late if they are trying to file a return. It is almost time to think about this year's tax returns.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker

Also they are a year late if they are trying to file a return. It is almost time to think about this year's tax returns.

---

Depending on the form, some are accepted for a longer period than 1040 income tax returns.

Here's today's:

Netops: We sent you a replacement (read: refurb) voice gateway and we want you to set it up
Me: We are moving office in 60 days, and we don't want to put it in play, so we are holding it in reserve for mid-move usage.
Netops: We want you to set it up
Me: No
Site Move Contact: They don't have to set it up, in fact it works out in our favor, this way we don't have to apportion/requisition new gear for their new site in advance; we can just use this one for testing
Netops: Fine, but we need you to run IOS commands for config info etc before it can be used for testing.
Me: It has to wait til (today) as I have no idea where all of that stuff is, since the last time we used it was five years ago

Counterpart: It's simple, all you have to do is Hyperterm into it
Me: I've never used Hyperterm, don't know any IOS commands, and hey, you put the only laptop with a DB9 port somewhere I can't find it.
Cp: Oh. Yeah. I'll be in (today.)

Today.
Cp: Here's how you set up Hyperterm.
Cp: (runs a bunch of IOS commands, which we try to copy and paste the results into Notepad.)
Me: Something doesn't look right.
Cp: What do you mean?
Me: It's truncated and scrambled.
Cp: Huh?
Me: (separating the HT window from Notepad) Look, shit's missing and scrambled in the logged output

Code:

---

        Part Numberde
   

If you requi


 478  2E87C5B0ance please co

Processor

---

or

Code:

---

-------------- Top 100 allo                         
 476  2E87C5A0  2E6CC484  00  0 0TP Ms
 19 

0x60FAB4A8    8891304---------- Mempool st


 485  2E87C5E8  2E6CFF04  0    1 483  2E87C5layed first 2048 Allocator PCs only

---

Me: So that's not normal to me
Cp: Eh, that's what they asked for, that's what they'll get
Me: Wouldn't this mean there's a major problem with the unit?
Cp: No

Me: wtf?

It was missing info in the Hyperterm window? Or notepad after you pasted it?

yeesh, use putty at the very least. Hyperterminal is such a pita.

Info was missing in Hyperterm.

So we try Putty. Same thing.

Ended up being a bad console cable, which was brand new from Cisco. At least we had an extra.

Quote:

---

Me: Wouldn't this mean there's a major problem with the unit?
Cp: No

Me: wtf?

---

So your tech was right then. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Melcar

So your tech was right then. :)

---

Eh, the last two we got, he swore there was no problem with, but in one, the power supply was bad and the other had bad memory (both of which I called.)

So it's okay to be partly wrong once in a while, but still, he should have clued me in a little, train of thought kind of thing. Maybe "Oh I've seen this before with a bad cable." or something.

After all, it could have gone the other way - it could have been a good cable and bad memory/IOS load/whatever :)

Customer: I'm having trouble installing your software.
Me: Okay, what is happening?
Customer: Well we got new Windows 7 workstations. And I'm able to use both the OS and the program with no problem. But when I go to your website, hit "Download", then choose "Save," I pick the folder I want - on my network drive - and hit Save. It downloads quickly - under a minute for a ten MB file - but then a window comes up that indicates "Copying Program_Setup.EXE from C:\Users\Temp to X:\Downloads... with a 9+ minute estimated time.
Me: Okaaaayyy...
Customer: This just started happening Tuesday.
Me: What happened Tuesday?
Customer: I was out of the office. Maybe it missed me and got jealous.
Me: Anthropomorphizing computers aside, are you aware of any system updates?
Customer: No. However our server is ailing, and with less than 2GB free on the data drive (which has a max capacity of 60GB), we're expecting a replacement in the next 60 days.

So I remotely connect into her computer and do the downloads she needs, then try to apply them. Even with Full Control access to the destination folder, she's getting disk space warnings.
I delve into my program's structure, delete a few older installers, some unneeded temp files, that sort of thing, (freeing up about 250MB)and go about downloading all of the update installers to her local C: drive.

So I try the installer again - same issue.

I try to "backdoor" it, and instead install to her C: drive, and go about copying the executables and other files that the update included.

At this point, I discover that copying a 7.72MB file from C: to X: will take over 3 minutes. A 13MB file took over 11. Windows 7's "more details" window displays a 39KB/sec transfer rate.

Me: Well, everything's in place, however you're having a terrible problem with your server. Information is transferring at under 40KB/second, where it should be transferring at over 30 times that (probably more.) You may want to ask your tech guy to either troubleshoot the issue, or expedite the replacement, because this sort of issue is never a good thing...
Customer: Here's my tech
Tech: What's the problem now?
Me: Your gig-ethernet capable server is transferring files at 39KB/second
Tech: That doesn't sound too bad, it's gig-e after all
Me: Maybe you didn't hear me right. I said 39 KILOBYTES per second.
Tech: Yeah, that's riii... wait, what?

39kbit/sec? I would consider that unacceptable on my cable modem connection that is only 12mbit.