nobody asked…

Just when I had almost completely lost faith in Technical Support for all things digital, along comes a tremendously heart-warming situation that gives me hope to hang on for a little while longer. It all started a couple of months ago when I installed a new Windows 2003 Server for one of my customers.

The server installation, along with a new gigabit network switch, went flawlessly. The new Dell server feeding the Netgear switch at gigabit speed was a drastic improvement over the old NT server and 10/100 hub. Everybody was happy. That is until the new anti-virus/firewall package was installed. Suddenly, their accounting application, the newest version of an old DOS dog, spiffied up with a GUI of sorts, started generating errors every time it was opened at a workstation. Clicking through the error got into the software and it ran fine. The error was a persistent nag that there was not a valid license for the product, even though there was and it was installed exactly the way it should have been.

The accounting software folks worked on it, but basically did not have a clue, and just blamed it on a series of things, finally settling on the new firewall, since they knew nothing about it. With firewalls rightfully to blame for so many things these days, I didn’t argue. They told me which two oddball ports they needed open on the server and workstations, and left me to sink or sink…

Very early on I opened a case with the antivirus/firewall vendor, Grisoft. I have been using their AVG products for several months very successfully since finally giving up on the big yellow box. If anyone is interested in why, leave a comment or send an email and I’ll tell you. The response I got from Grisoft Tech Support adds another major reason for using their products. With the biggies in the software industry, like Microsoft, Symantec, McAfee, Corel, Adobe, and others, Tech Support is either not available, not accessible, not approachable, too expensive for mere mortals, or so damned arrogant that they never admit to their bug ridden products even being capable of having a problem. It’s always the other guys…

After quickly exhausting the obvious solutions, Grisoft Tech Support sent me a little data collection diagnostic tool to run when making the changes they suggested. The output was a set of ZIP files that I emailed to them for study and designing their next set of recommendations. Through several iterations, they almost always responded within 4 business hours. Their email messages were clear and concise, using a brand of English that even I understand. Judging from the individuals’ names associated with the messages, they were NOT located in downtown India. And it took several iterations of implement, test, analyze, recommend, implement, test, …

Today, their latest set of recommendations solved the problem! I do not pretend to understand why, since I had given up my usual questioning attitude about 4 iterations ago, becoming an onsite drone carrying out a set of instructions. Further, I don’t care why it worked, but only that it did. Today, my customer is happy. They are running error free. And most importantly, their server and workstations are once again protected by a fully functional firewall.

A very hearty thank you and hat tip to the Grisoft/AVG Tech Support team. You guys are the best. Thanks for hanging in there with us and wrestling this devil to the ground. Others could learn many lessons from you. I know I have: As long as you are in the business and have a viable product, you have earned my respect and loyalty. What a novel concept … make and sell and good product, and then support it!