REAL MICROSOFT HELP? Does it exists? What to do when MVP's stop responding.

Well Daniel,

Ik praat ook Nederlands. Ben in Suriname gebooren, alwell ik in virteg jaar geen Nederlands heb geschreeven. So I'll switch to English.

Your vote is important to me, and a large part of Microsoft customers. You see, if I need help from Microsoft, you are, by far, my best option.

As a community we need to bring this to Microsoft's attention.

Microsoft should be my best option. They get paid.

Please read my response to Albert. He is the guy who has been helping me with my issue. And he is mad at me.

Hartelek bedankt,

Timmetje

AGAIN, I AM FLABERGASTED!

Because of the specifics, I know you wrote this for me.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Albert.

One thing I strongly object to however. You don't know anything about me! YES I crawl under peoples trailers for three nights in a row, in freezing weather (after working all day at my paying job) with poop all around me, for free, and repipe their froozen plumbing, just to help people. I have offered my database to every plumber, remodeler, or company I've worked, for for free.

I love what you represent. Who you are. PLEASE READ ALL MY CORRESPONDANCE WITH YOU. NOTHING BUT LOVE FOR YOU. DONE THIS FOR 15 YEARS! THANK YOU AGAIN FOR THE TIME YOU TAKE OUT OF YOUR LIFE TO HELP ME FOR FREE. CAN'T SAY IT ENOUGH AND I QUOTE THE END OF MY LAST REPLY TO YOU, "Thank you again for your input. I really am at a loss without your help."

THE KEY IS THIS: I AM AT A LOSS WITHOUT YOUR HELP!

THE PLUMBING MANUFACTURER I RECOMMEND IS MOEN. JUST GOOGLED IT. FOURTH ENTRY.WWW.MOEN.COM. TOP RIGHT HAND CORNER: CONSUMER SUPPORT. CONTACT US: 1-800-BUY-MOEN.

ABSOLUTELY YES! THEY DON'T GIVE A DARN WHO SCREWED THE CARTRIDGE UP, HOW OLD IT IS OR ANYTHING ELSE. A NEW ONE IS IN THE MAIL THAT DAY! FREE!

I love you dude, for your anger, it is born from hours of your life gifted to people like me. I know where your heart is. It is in the same place as mine.

I don't feel that love from Microsoft. And I pay them. I am as sure as any human can be. I did nothing to that form. Just installed the database on my new laptop. I could be wrong, have been before. Maybe it's my new laptop. None of that matters, because one thing is sure:

DO NOT ASK MICROSOFT!

And that, my friend, is wrong.

I sincerely hope you continue to help me.......

Tim

On the other hand who is going to pay here?

I guess this really comes down to buying a hammer and nails from the local hardware store, or perhaps I buy a pipe wrench or new ceramic cartridge for my sink?

Can I now expect the cartridge manufacture or the hardware store where I bought the cartridge for my sink to come over to my house and replace that faucet that is still leaking?

The problem here is you not buying a car, but you are purchasing a set of a tools that let you build "whatever" and that is a big difference here. If you want to pick up the phone and bring in as skilled software developer to build this stuff for you, then they'll have to take the responsibility of fix this, and not you.

I doubt that the pipe wrench manufacture or the cartridge manufacture is going to come over to my house to fix that leaking faucet. And I wonder, is it because of me not installing that ceramic cartridge properly is the problem? Or should I now ask that the pipe wrench manufacture come over to my house to fix that leak? I mean, I did use that pipe wrench to tighten that cartridge, so it must be the pipe wrench folks that will pay for this, right?

Somehow your position not very strong when I point out the above, and perhaps even a larger dose of hypocrisy is after your long day of work are you going to take time away from your family and go around and give away your plumbing skills for free as the people here are doing?

You're using a set of tools to build something. I guess I would love it if the pipe wrench manufacture or the cartridge manufacture of my leaking faucet were responsible for the leak. Do you think the pipe wrench manufacture or the cartridge folks are going to send someone out to my place and spend the money to fix the problem for free? Maybe you using the wrong cartridge or you not installing it correctly?

Or how about you come over to my place for free and you do the work to fix this issue like the volunteers here are giving to you?

You want to pay to bring in a software developer, or bring in a plumber to fix something, it's a choice people make. And then those you are paying are the ones that take the responsibility for those problems.

I'm sure you seen some horrifying do it yourself plumbing jobs, and in some cases you probably realize it wasn't worth it for them to do that work themselves.  And perhaps which even worse is work done by supposedly people calling them skilled plumbers, when they have no business doing that kind of work.  I point this out, since you would not wanting to be holding up a mirror here when it comes to singling out software development as somehow working to a different set of rules and drum beat you apply to everything else in life, would you?

I don't know how much support you get from your wrench maker, or the company that makes a cartridge for those sinks, but I suspect how they operate is not a whole lot of differnt here.

Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP)

Edmonton, Alberta Canada

WOW TOM!

To the contrary, if I could reach you i'd give you a hug.(lol)

Did you really write this for me?

YOU ARE RIGHT ON SO MANY COUNTS!

The first thing you did right is make me "feel" like I matter to Microsoft.

However,

MY ANGER IS JUSTIFIED!

In an effort to control the cost of support (the ligitimate type, and you agree it exsists) Microsft has made it difficult to find an avenue for its consumers to directly contact MIcrosoft. This cost is passed on to the consumer, at the onset of a problem, before anyone can determine if the consumer is "over his head", just "stupid" or "unreasonable", or if Microsoft missed something. It is a business model that works for Microsoft. AT MY EXPENSE!

I DO MY HOMEWORK!

If you read my thread (thank you Scottgem for doing so) you will quickly find that I know how to post to forums. I love access, I love the community, I appreciate the community.

ACCESS.

My favorite way to explain to my friends why a plumber has, for 15 years, worked on his own databas is this,"It's the closest thing to ****. For a dumb plumber to tell a computer what to do instead of being told what to do." Since I created my first drop-down box back in the late nineties I've always been able to make my database do what I needed it to do. Except of course get it to communicate over the web! I have, with close-to-sexual-excitement, invested thousands of hours (when I stopped tracking it back about 8 yrs ago it was over 8600 hrs) in this database. It works! I've had real programmers look at it, with disbelief, for one because it works but also at the many crazy ways I've found to made it work.

MICROSOFT SUPPORT SUCKS!!!!

Where does a non-programmer go for help?

Where is the first place we go to for answers?

WE GOOGLE IT!

Microsoft always had the edge! In capital, infrastructure, brain power to be better than Google. Yet they are playing catch up.

So if Microsoft wants to compete they will change their business model.Not that Google is perfect lol. But my migration to Google Aps is slowlybeing lead by a business model that puts customer service at the helm.

Thank you again for your time Tom.

Did you really write this for me, or just copy/paste something you wrote ten years ago?

Tim

Tim,

I found your other thread and posted a possible solution. But I very much agree with Tom here. I think your expectations are unreasonable. Let me try a different analogy. Let me say you purchased a plumbing tool. Would you expect the manufacturer of that tool to provide you with support for how to use that tool?

Software support is a different animal. Software vendors provide manuals and Help screens to explain how to use the features. But they cannot be expected to provide free telephone support for everything. What you are asking for in that other thread is rather unusual. Most of my apps do not leave the Switchboard visible while using other windows. Instead I include a way to make the Switchboard active when a form is closed. But there are properties that allow you to control where a form is positioned as I mentioned in that thread.