I just got off the phone. It was an interesting call. It was a technician from Microsoft calling to tell me that my computer had been sending a lot of fault data to Microsoft and that he was going to remote in to fix the problem.
First he had me locate the Windows key on my keyboard. Then he had me press that plus R to open the Run dialog. Then he asked me to type in cmd. I did, then reported back that I now had a black window on my screen. He told me to type assoc. I did just that. He then asked if I could see a long line near the bottom with the string CLSID in it. He told me this stood for Customer Licence Server ID. He said this was the number being reported back to Microsoft.
How could I possibly doubt him after that?
Then he had me run msinfo32 and expand Software Environment then click on Windows Error Reporting. I expressed (mock) alarm at all of the entries noting fault bucket.... He said these were the errors being reported.
Then he said he would take remote control to fix the errors. He asked me to enter www.supremofree.com into the Run dialog. At that point I asked him "how f##king stupid do you think I am?" He replied that he didn't think I was stupid at all. I told him that I was smart enough to know that CLSID did not stand for Customer Licence Server and smart enough to know that Microsoft NEVER calls people to help them. Then I told him to bite me before I hung up.
It was a slow day so I figured I could just waste his time for a while and see where he led me. All things considered, though, at least he offered to help. That's more than Microsoft ever did.
Next time I'm just going to blast my air horn into the phone.
