January 21st, 2014

When the Web page says that a tool is not supported, it means that if you find a problem and contact technical support, they're just going to point you back to the Web page

I file this under the category of People refuse to read what is right in front of them. There used to be a number of utilities available for download which all go by the name PowerToys. And they all contain text like this:

Note: We take great care to ensure that PowerToys work as they should, but they are not part of XYZ and are not supported by Microsoft. For this reason, Microsoft Technical Support is unable to answer questions about PowerToys.

This sentence isn’t exactly in the fine print either. It’s right there at the top of the page.

This nevertheless does not stop a customer from contacting their support representative, who then turns around and sends email to the product team that goes something like this:

I am working on a customer case, 602214129.

The customer reports that the XYZ PowerToy does not work under conditions A, B, and C. My questions are

  1. Is a fix available for this?
  2. What are the support limitations around this tool?

The tool was downloaded from ⟨http://www.microsoft.com/…⟩

Somebody then has to point the customer liaison to the text right at the top of the Web page they linked to that quite clearly spells out the support limitations of the tool: It comes with no support. Apparently both the customer and the customer liaison failed to notice it.

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Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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