Microsoft tech support...Thank you

[Dos_Box]

For those who didn't know, I've been suffering the horror of a failed mail server. Not because I hadn't been backing up, I had. In fact, Retrospect had restored the boxes on my newly rebuilt server in no time at all. The problem was that the public folders had dropped off the backup script around Christmas time yet the was still reporting as being completed. Anyway, I has a great deal of difficulty in getting the calenders stored within back to a recovery VM in a state to export as PSTs.
After one week of trial and lots of error I was at my wits end. I then decided to invoke my 2 free tech support calls my Tech Net+ subscription after setting these up (you have to do this in advance to get a support number to quote) I called them. After a 4 hour remote desktop support session (even through the CLEO firewalls) via an ActiveX plugin the wonderful lady at MS got them back up and running in an virtual environment and exported for me.
Thank you Microsoft, you are only partly evil now.

[simongrahamuk]

Nice one. Closed source does have some advantages then!

[localzuk]

I wouldn't say that simon, it is more that having proper support has some advantages! Kudos to MS for solving the problem.

[Dos_Box]

At £400 per incident, a Tech Net+ subscription pays for itself if you use even one free call.

[webman]

The cynic in me tells me they make their software this way just so they can make money on support...

[localzuk]

£400 per incident!! That's almost as bad as an out of warranty service engineer from Epson for £369, to look at a printer and tell you what needs fixing.

Dos_Box, do you fancy writing up how you solved your particular problem because this could save someone a lot of money in the future...

[Dos_Box]

I will get something down tomorrow. Trust me though, it is very in depth. I could have solved it myself if I'd not missed out on a 'tick box' procedure for a public folder emergency restore.

[mattx]

I'm glad you got your problem sorted - in a previous job we had a support contract with MS and I had to use them - this was with an old Domino mail mainframe service we had and I had the terrible 'project' of trying to get this to work with a development box that had outlook running. Getting them to talk to each other was not a problem, getting the mail into a readable format was the issue. After a few weeks of getting no go I finally raised a call with MS - what i found was rather surprising - they were rather good, even when the call was passed to someone else, everything went with it, I was constantly being updated via voice mail and E-mail and the problem was solved - it took a number of people but there was never any lack of communication between them and it was all written up, signed off, tested - bloody great.
That was the only time I have have to contact MS - now I have come close on a few occasions over the last few years or so, but knowing I have 2 free incidents with my tech net + package every year sort of puts me at ease.

IBM's top level support was also quite good I seem to remember - not quite as professional as MS - thing is that was over 5 / 6 years ago so things may have changed.

[GrumbleDook]

I think it would be worth mentioning at this point that there is a support centre dedicated to Educational contracts based at Nottingham Trent University.

If you want to one further than having a technet + membership then this is the place the contract is likely to end up.

I have to admit to having an issue a few years ago with Mac Volumes on W2K server ... and eventually MS admitted that they could not fix what I needed but they did put me in touch with a company that could do it for me (with a piece of software that MS would not get any money from either!)

[Ric_]

@Dos_Box: you should have screen recorded what they did... isn't hindsight great though?

[john]

I have used MS Support before and they were very good, much better than anything i get from other companies. Well actually as good as others, NetSupport's support is very good, was good last time they Net-Supported into me, and I was on my machine Net-Supporting into other machines on my network, it was great, shame my multi-monitors kept making the NetSupport end jump around due to my layout of them.