For example, if you install an HP CD-Burner on a Compaq Computer, and it doesn’t work, do you call HP or Compaq? HP says to call Compaq. Compaq says to call HP. This is just a rhetorical question not based on real experience--you could substitute any name for Compaq or HP. (In all fairness, I should say that my HP CD burner works just fine on my Compaq after failing on my husband’s computer.)

I must have hit a nerve with  my readers, because I got several responses from readers who had run into just this kind of a dilemma. Here are their stories. I call on those super-talented individuals who read my columns and know a heck of a lot more than I do: What’s your take on these issues?

From: John Ingram, Jr.
Date: Friday, February 02, 2001 2:20 PM
Subject: Re: Your Article

In the fall of last year, my wife started work on her Ph.D. She does a lot of research on the Internet. In October, we decided to get a high speed Internet connection.

Because of the promotion that SWB was offering (a new Compaq computer for $20/month for 20 months) we went with them. This was in October. They finally got the connection several days before Christmas.

I have had three problems:

(First, I) could not install a software program. The reason for this was a dirty CD. Once I cleaned the read side off, the program installed. But this was after many hours with the tech dept of the software company and I finally solved the problem on my own.

(Second) I purchased an Intel video camera. At first it worked. Then the computer would not find the camera. I called Intel. After an hour on the phone, they said it was a Compaq problem, told me what it was and said to call Compaq.

I called Compaq, and here the fun begins. They said, “Yes this was a problem but not their problem,” and they wanted $19.95 to fix the problem. I told them where they could put their $19.95.

Another call to Intel, and they tried again. No luck. After I hung up and went to bed, I lay there thinking. I got up tried one more thing on my own, and guess what, it worked. But this is just another case of two companies pointing a finger at each other.

The last is with SWB. I am in Real Estate. I need to connect to the computer at the San Antonio Board of Realtors. They do not have an Internet site, but an IP address. I cannot connect via DSL line.

After spending one hour on the phone with the software vendor tech dept with no luck, I called SBC and spent an hour on the phone with them, even going up to Level 3. Still no luck.

This has been going on for over a month and I still connect to SABOR at home with my old dial up connection. Now I ask you, any ideas?

I promised John that I would publish this in the event someone else might have had a similar problem or could shed some light on his SABOR connection problem.

Until I received these e-mails from my readers, I was not aware that companies charged for customer support. Would you classify this policy as a way to prevent “Tech Support Abuse” or, paired with bad or missing documentation, a clever way to generate revenue?

Your comment about the HP CD writer in a Compaq really struck home.  I purchased an HP CD writer and installed it in an HP PC. I had one small question. HP would not honor the warranty on the CD writer, said it was a problem with the computer, and a phone call to that department was going to cost me an astronomical sum because my PC was just beyond its warranty period.  I fussed and fumed and the tech support person, out of the kindness of his heart, answered my question without a charge — but their policy was to not give free support because it was a PC problem. (I thought their products would work with each other!)

Hewlett Packard was one of those reliable pioneers of the computer revolution that must have changed their style because I have had difficulties with them too. I packed up and took back a scanner that claimed to be an OCR scanner (optical character recognition) because it turns out the software was not yet available for OCR on this scanner. Not only that, but I had to do a lot of research to find out the hard way. They kept sending me the same software disk that still lacked the OCR software, and wondering why I couldn’t get OCR to work.

Are the HP guys are a bunch of genius engineers that think the general public are a bunch of boobs? The saddest part of this is that HP once had a sterling reputation and the best documentation in the industry. The User and Training guides to the HP-3000 minicomputer are a model of what good documentation should be.

A while back I purchased Adobe PhotoDeluxe 4.0. I play around with some photo editing but I mainly bought it because it has a screen saver that allows you to put in your own scanned photos.

I scanned 47 family photos. Up to that time I had used about 2GB on my hard drive. One day the computer told me that I was out of memory. Looking into it I found that I had now used up 13 GB. I have a 13 GB hard drive!

After endless searching I discovered that the C: drive identified 5580 photos on my screen saver. That amount of photos didn't show on the screen but each individual photo in the screen saver was multiplied by hundreds.

Example: Photo, Mom and Dad 1985. This photo was listed as Mom and Dad 1985, 19851, 19852, 19853, etc. It was the same with all the others. When I deleted all the photos the hard drive was now back to about 1-something GB used.

I tried installing another 40 odd photos again. I watched closely to see what was happening and after about ten days I had some 250 photos, listed the same way. I’ve done it two or three times with the same results.

I've asked around of people I know who know something about computers and they look at me like I'm making it up.

No I haven't called Adobe tech support. They get $25.00 a question. I have taken all the photos out and no longer use that screen saver but I am still in the dark as to what happens. Might you have an answer?

“I always love a good mystery, Mr. Holmes.” I don't have a pat answer, but I have a couple of theories, although I'm not certain that they will translate into actions.

The file names such as Mom and Dad 19851 are the names that Windows Explorer uses when you copy the same file to the same directory. For example, if I highlighted Mom and Dad 1985 and selected Edit / Copy then Edit / Paste without changing directories, it would paste the file Mom and Dad 19851 into the directory that already had Mom and Dad 1985 in it. If I did the same copy operation again, it would create Mom and Dad 19852 and so on.

Also, if you edited the file Mom and Dad 1985 and saved it to the same directory, it is possible that Adobe Photo Deluxe by default saves to a new file name rather than over writing your original. This would be done to protect your initially scanned photo. But this would not account for the fact that you had hundreds of copies of the same Photo.

I have never heard of a screen saver multiplying copies of the files. I suspected maybe something might go wrong if you have what we in the software industry call an "inelegant exit" which means that either your computer froze up and you had to shut it off without backing out of your programs, or you shut the computer off accidentally (or even on purpose) without shutting down all your programs. But you would have to do this hundreds of times to get that many file copies.

Therefore, I would wager that it is a virus of some sort. The first thing I would do is get a good copy of Norton Antivirus and scan the system before I do anything else. Get on the website (Symantec) and get a super-current copy.