morons and computers

[Traianvs]

I often get annoyed by friends/or other that are absolute noobs with computers, when they want me to repair yet another one of their silly computer problems.

This one time, a friend of mine told me his sweet windows98 computer was completely ****ed, and asked me if there was anything I could do about it... So I went up there, and his computer was indeed ****ed
I asked if he had downloaded any suspicious files, installed or uninstalled programs etc and he said: Not really, except for this racing game that I deleted...
Immediately I asked: Was that racing game, by any chance, named "autoexec.bat" ? He replied: Hey, yeah how did you know that!!


I was wondering, has anyone encountered this kind of morons yet?

[SlowwHand]

Deletion of files must be the one of the bigger boo-boos made.

[Kuciwalker]

that's why microsoft made the Windows folder have to be unlocked

unfortunately, people are stupid enough to unlock it even with the WARNING

[Asher]

Originally posted by skywalker
that's why microsoft made the Windows folder have to be unlocked

If you delete critical system files in XP, it simply puts them back and undeletes them immediately.

[SlowwHand]

Nice feature. Idiot-proofing.

[Kuciwalker]

Wow. I didn't know that. My (already very high) opinion of XP just went up

[Traianvs]

To give you an idea of that friend... he registered msn, and I was added to his list. I talked to him a bit, and he went under the nick "bonzi".. After a while I asked where does your nickname come from, so he replied: well you know this thingy on my computer, some sort of a pink ape......................

bonzibuddy!

[Spiffor]

What does Bonzibuddy do actually ?

[Adagio]

Yeah, I've heard many great stories of these computer noobs, though haven't seen one that noob in real life, since those people I know, who doesn't know computers, they stay away from it

I've heard a story about someone who called tech support, because the computer didn't work. After short time with the tech support, the customer is asked if she has connected the cables correctly. She didn't know, so she was asked to check the back of the computer, to see how the cables was connected, to which she responded, that she couldn't see anything, because it was so dark. As she then was asked to turn on the lights, she said she couldn't, because there was a power shortage at the moment

... don't know if this story is true, but if it is, then that's the best noob story I've ever heard...

[Kuciwalker]

There's the classic "where's the any key?"

There's another (less well known) classic, "I broke the cupholder"

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Asher
If you delete critical system files in XP, it simply puts them back and undeletes them immediately.

I had a lady come in with her XP box. The problem was her computer had "downloaded an run by itself" an xxx dialer, and she attempted to delete it (after getting a $200 phonebill). As a side-effect, she also managed to totally scrag the drives boot sector, so XP wouldn't even load in safe mode.

XP may just be idiot-proof, but the universe will just build a better idiot.

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by skywalker
There's the classic "where's the any key?"

Has that actually happened? If so,

[Elden]

Originally posted by skywalker
There's the classic "where's the any key?"

There's another (less well known) classic, "I broke the cupholder"

I heard of someone who couldn't figure out how to use the "foot-pedal" they had the mouse on the floor and were using it as a pedal

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by reds4ever
Has that actually happened? If so,

Yes

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by ADG
I've heard a story about someone who called tech support, because the computer didn't work. After short time with the tech support, the customer is asked if she has connected the cables correctly. She didn't know, so she was asked to check the back of the computer, to see how the cables was connected, to which she responded, that she couldn't see anything, because it was so dark. As she then was asked to turn on the lights, she said she couldn't, because there was a power shortage at the moment

... don't know if this story is true, but if it is, then that's the best noob story I've ever heard...

That's supposed to be a real story of a Dell phone tech support. After finding out the blackout was the cause of the problem, the guy cursed at the customer who wasted a lot of his time, and got fired.