Fucking Microsoft Technical Support - scam artists.

james t kirk

Well-known member
Aug 17, 2001
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So I use MS Office - Word, Excel, Outlook, sometimes Powerpoint.

I have Office 2010.

It does everything I want or need, so I see NO NEED to upgrade.

Today, I had a very fucked up problem with Outlook where essentially, it would not open up, I could see my contacts, but not back them up and email was frozen solid.

clicking on file got the following message, ""Upgrade in Progress. Your mailbox is currently being optimized as part of upgrade to Outlook 2010. This one time process may take over 15 minutes and performance may be affected while the optimization is in progress."

There's an "Upgrade Now" button but it fails to produce any visible result. Next to the button, another warning in red: "You must upgrade to the latest version of Outlook Hotmail Connector to continue using this e-mail account."


But it was not upgrading shit. It just sat there. I tried googling around looking for this problem and found several people had the same problem, but so much contradictory information out there, it drove me nuts.

So I figured I would just go to Microsoft directly and they should know exactly what was up and how to fix it.

Cost = $44.00 Canadian. (This was with first tech lady named Apple (should have known that was going to be trouble.)) She tried to upsell me to Office 365, which I do not want since 2010 does everything (and a million things I'm not even aware of) I need and more. Then she tries to sell me various service packages (and I pick the "one of" variety (the cheapest of the 3) At one point she says to me that my MS Office is "corrupted" and will need to be wiped and reinstalled and she wants my product key number. Luckily for me, that was at home. End Chat 1

Tonight, try to back up my contacts. I can see them, but I cannot export the file. FUUUUCCCCCKKKKK ME.

Back onto Microsoft's site and chat with another woman Jessica. Jessica tries relentlessly to upsell me to Outlook 2016. I'm just not interested. (Again, 2010 does everything I need, so why bother.) She tells me to restart my machine, and I'm perplexed because that will mean that I will lose the chat session. She sends me a link in the chat window and tells me to copy it, but I can not highlite it, nor can I copy it, so that doesn't make sense. She tells me that my machine needs to "update". WTF, how is that going to happen when she had not taken control of my machine. But, WTF, I will try it. And of course, the chat session is lost and so is Jessica.

Now, back on chat, this time with Rose Ann T. She also takes control of my machine and tries fucking around with it and we basically go through all the BS I've already gone through with the other 2. And once again, this one tries to upsell me to MS office 2016. Again and again and again. I ask her POINT BLANK if upgrading will save my contacts and she just keeps dancing around the question, repeatedly trying to sell me the newer version of MS office. I again explain why it's not worth it to me and she tells me the problem is that it is old and MS no longer updates it. (I could care less, as long as it works.)

I ask her why I should upgrade and her exact words were, "with the upgrade, less chances you will encounter challenges"

Fuck right off.

When it became clear that I want her to fix my problem and NOT upgrade, the twat hangs up on me (and I was being polite, believe me).

Well I give up.

So I go to paypal and fill out a complaint saying that the service I contracted for was not fulfilled (Slim to none, but what the hell.)

But now I'm fucked for email and contacts.

So back to google I go and I find this.

https://social.technet.microsoft.co...zed-due-to-upgrade-and?forum=onlineservicesoc

Followed the instructions and fuck me, it worked like a charm. Outlook is back to normal.

YAY HOO-RAY.

Immediately backed up my contacts.

It kills me that these women at Microsoft were only interested in selling me the upgrade. Thank Christ I dug in rather than go for it, otherwise, all of my contacts would have been lost. None of them. Not one, had any clue of what they were doing and were only interested in selling me what I do not want.

Fuckers.
 
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I feel your pain. I look after all the computers in our business (it's a small business Im no IT guy) but their office suite is not that great. I still use Office XP for word and excel because I hate their new stuff, and actually excel XP is more capable for what I need it for. Outlook is a shit email client too so I abandoned it. Look into Thunderbird.
 
…

It kills me that … Microsoft w[as] only interested in selling…. … only interested in selling me what I do not want.

Fuckers.
That's how businesses work. Wouldn't matter if you'd been dealing with Apple; corporations only exist to sell.
 
Microsoft and many other companies are indeed like that.

In your solution, did you just do the "repair" or did you also manipulate the .pst file location.

BTW, you can backup Outlook files without using Outlook itself (in many cases) (i.e. locating and copying the .pst or .ost file). There are a variety of ways to do this depending on your Outlook version and Windows version and whether or not you are using Exchange with your mailbox. You may have to use File Explorer to show hidden files, folders and drive and/or show hidden system files. Make sure you are an Administrator privileges in your account.

I can't provide you with a website link because there are many variable unique to your Windows version and how Outlook is set-up.

https://support.office.com/en-us/ar...-and-ost-222eaf92-a995-45d9-bde2-f331f60e2790
 
James, I swear if I knew it was you, I would not have tried to upsell you. .... JK

I really have not had a problem since I went Mac and scrapped all MS products.

Not trying to preach for Apple but I just don't have these problems anymore.
 
Microsoft has been pretty shady with its updates lately. Really since they started forcing Windows 10 onto computers.

They've started pushing these BS updates that break old software, then they recommend that you upgrade to newer version that don't have these issues. Well the old software only has issues because they broke it!
 
Yea. I heard that windows 10 is spyware or something. I'm still using win7. Not changing it. The next OS I "upgrade" will be other mac or linux.
 
I turn off autoupgrade...and usually ignore those upgrade questions and if it gets persistent I just use my MS office offline.
 
Microsoft has been pretty shady with its updates lately. Really since they started forcing Windows 10 onto computers.

They've started pushing these BS updates that break old software, then they recommend that you upgrade to newer version that don't have these issues. Well the old software only has issues because they broke it!

Exactly. (I recall Apple got nailed deliberately making their older version Iphones run slower, so Apple is no panacea of goodness either.)

I did not alter my MS office 2010 in any way shape or form. Outlook just seized up, and yes, I HATE Windows 10.

Unfortunately, my laptop (in question) is newish and it was only available with Windows 10. I would not recommend to anyone running Windows 7 to change to Windows 10.

As soon as the 3'rd chat girl last night realized that I was not going to upgrade, she just hung up on me.
 
Microsoft and many other companies are indeed like that.

In your solution, did you just do the "repair" or did you also manipulate the .pst file location.

BTW, you can backup Outlook files without using Outlook itself (in many cases) (i.e. locating and copying the .pst or .ost file). There are a variety of ways to do this depending on your Outlook version and Windows version and whether or not you are using Exchange with your mailbox. You may have to use File Explorer to show hidden files, folders and drive and/or show hidden system files. Make sure you are an Administrator privileges in your account.

I can't provide you with a website link because there are many variable unique to your Windows version and how Outlook is set-up.

https://support.office.com/en-us/ar...-and-ost-222eaf92-a995-45d9-bde2-f331f60e2790

I had already backed up my old .pst file a while ago. Bell is now using an IMAP server (similar to google I guess) and it negates having to move emails out of your inbox, etc. When I switched to my new computer, with all the emails from the time Bell switched from a POP server to an IMAP server (And I could be using these terms wrong), all you need to do is add your email account info and voila, all your emails are there. No need to play with .pst files. Not so (or seems not so) for contacts.

My problem is that I had moved my contacts over to my new machine and spent a huge amount of time cleaning them up (deleting dead people (seriously), guys who changed jobs, Company name changes, etc. etc. etc.) I had everything JUST perfect as of about a week ago and had not backed up all my work.

All I did was run repair as per the link above, then rebooted the machine, and voila, it worked. (None of the 3 MS tech girls even thought of that. In fact, they did just about nothing other than try to convince me to buy MS office 2016. So it was a joke going to MS for help to tell you the truth.
 
doing the following could have fixed your issue without having to upgrade

execute Outlook 2010 repair via the Control Panel > Programs and Features and Reboot. Also don't forget to set .pst location to proper settings

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My own particular beef is the Apple "Genius Bar". I dropped by a couple of years ago with my aging IPhone 4. It had stopped working after we got drenched in a heavy thunderstorm. The attractive and smiley young lady - who seemed to have no tech expertise whatsoever - suggested that polishing the screen might make it start again. I looked quizzically at her. She nevertheless polished the phone for a few seconds. It surprisingly still didn't turn on.

I'm afraid it's too old to work, she informed me. I told her it had worked fine the day before. She told me that there was a "special sale" on IPhone 8's - just a little over a grand, if I acted right away.

The IPhone 4 dried out the next day and worked happily and flawlessly until replaced with a slightly less ancient junker (from one of my nieces) a few months later. I never went back to the Apple Genius Bar. Imagine that.
 
Microsoft and many other companies are indeed like that.

In your solution, did you just do the "repair" or did you also manipulate the .pst file location.

BTW, you can backup Outlook files without using Outlook itself (in many cases) (i.e. locating and copying the .pst or .ost file). There are a variety of ways to do this depending on your Outlook version and Windows version and whether or not you are using Exchange with your mailbox. You may have to use File Explorer to show hidden files, folders and drive and/or show hidden system files. Make sure you are an Administrator privileges in your account.

I can't provide you with a website link because there are many variable unique to your Windows version and how Outlook is set-up.

https://support.office.com/en-us/ar...-and-ost-222eaf92-a995-45d9-bde2-f331f60e2790

Thank you. Very useful that.
 
Hi James, sorry to have read your frustrating experience with Microsoft, that was really bad! You really got the run-a-round with them. Google can sometimes be a life saver when it comes to solving a problem!
Reminds me of the days trying to work with Bell, it was disgusting working with their so called customer service.


images


Some days it's just not worth getting up!
It's like going off to war trying to get any kind of help from some of these employees of large companies!

itsforyou3.jpg
 
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Try Apache open office.

It works with MS office files most of the time. It's free.

Open Office is generally fine for most basic word processing, spreadsheet and presentation needs. While Open Office can open Microsoft Office files (doc, xls, and ppt) it does not have the same features some documents lose formatting or come out garbled. Open Office also does not have an email program with it like Outlook. The other problem with Open Office is Excel macros don't work at all. That could be a problem if you're using Excel add-ins for data analysis, etc.

Unless there's a specific need for Outlook a scheduling add-in for work, etc, stick with an email provider like Gmail. Proton Mail is another option if you're paranoid about your security. Either option is fine since you access it all on your phone or a web-browser so there's no software to upgrade or maintain.
 
 
Tech support named Apple, are they irony impaired