Help-Line Hell

By JOSHUA QUITTNER

I could tell at once that something was terribly wrong with our home PC. My wife, who is usually so brilliant and unflappable, was suddenly flapped. "Mr. Computer, he doesn't look so good," she sobbed. She took a seat in the corner, hugging herself and rocking. The poor woman depends on the machine for her work and tends to take its periodic meltdowns hard. The children skittered nearby, cheerfully harassing Otto Quittner, our new puppy, ignoring the crisis in their midst. They knew Daddy would fix the PC.

Oh, how I longed for my trusty Macintosh! Macs are easier than PCs in every way, and fixing a software glitch on one is especially simple. (Turn off all the extensions, then turn them back on one by one until you find the offender.) But resolving a PC conflict means entering a time-wasting morass of Washington-sex-scandal dimensions. Still, I had no choice. After fiddling around importantly for a bit, I did what I always end up doing in PC-land: I called the 24-hour, toll-free so-called help line. This turned out to be a mistake.

Our Micron PC offered free support a year ago when I bought it. But like most other PC makers, Micron now charges $24.95 for help with software after 30 days (hardware help is still free). I understand why this has to be. Margins in the PC business are thinner than Bill Gates' smile. Why should any PC maker have to fix the zillions of problems that can arise when consumers install their own software? A few enlightened manufacturers, such as Dell, offer free lifetime support for any software shipped on their machines. As PCs become interchangeable--one box much the same as any other--consumers should choose a vendor on the basis of customer support.

That said, I called Micron and waited 45 minutes for the privilege of paying for help. I finally hung up in exasperation. Next night, same thing. The third night, I got someone right away. It was the help-line maitre d'. The wait, he said, "might be as long as an hour." It was two. "Is this some kind of record?" I exploded when at last a support guy answered. "Nope," he said with a chuckle. Two hours later, after taking me on a hellish tour of "msconfig"--an apparently pointless Windows 98 diagnostic tool--he admitted he couldn't fix the machine. He said I'd need to reinstall Windows 98. When I told him I didn't have my Win98 boot disc (a floppy disc that helps kick-start your machine by circumventing the hard drive), he said I'd need to reinstall Windows 95, the operating system the machine shipped with, then upgrade to Windows 98. He took my $25 for this absurdly bad advice.

Instead, I should have called CompUSA, which supports virtually all computers and software. At 1-900-CALL-COMP, you get $2.49-a-minute help (first minute free) from real pros. I immediately reached someone there who quickly diagnosed my problem as a corrupted registry and told me how to fix it. Kip Crosby, co-author of the indispensable Windows 98 Bible, later said the registry, a humongous file that helps initialize programs, is often where problems arise. "When it's corrupt, it's almost impossible to repair," he said, noting that hardly anyone in the support world will muck around with it--better to reinstall Windows. Which was what the CompUSA support guy taught me how to do, showing me an easy way to make a Win98 boot disc. Ten minutes and $25 later, I was well on my way to fixing my machine. Someone still needs to fix Micron's software support, though.

Our website at timedigital.com has more pointers to computer help. E-mail Quittner at jquit@well.com He may even answer.