Some of my clients think that, because I’m a computer consultant, I have no trouble dealing with companies’ tech support because we’re the same type of people and speak the same language. Wrong! Far more often than not, the person you’re talking to when you phone tech support is not a “techie”, just someone working from a script, telling you whatever it says on their screen. They often listen to you only enough to determine what it is they need to read to you. This can make for some incredibly frustrating experiences. Here’s one:
A client needed the hard drive in an iMac replaced when the old one died. The repair shop did all they could do, which was to install the same Mac OS version it came with, which happened to be 10.4.x, Tiger. This was not an issue, since the computer had been backed up daily. When it went down, we moved her files to another, slightly older, Mac and life went on. Now it was just a matter of moving her stuff back, along with all the programs. No big deal, really. I do it all the time.
And everything was fine after that, except for one thing. Her copy of Adobe Illustrator CS2 wouldn’t get through the online activation it needs to do so it will run permanently instead of in a 30-day demo mode. No big deal, I’d seen this several times before. I just needed to call Adobe’s tech support, they’d go through the procedure manually. I’d read them the serial number, which they had on file, already registered to my client. I’d then read them the activation code, which they’d enter at their end, they’d read me back the registration code, which I’d enter at my end, and all would be good. I’d gone through this procedure before numerous times, with both Adobe and with Quark, who had the same activation procedure first, and it had been quick and painless.
Since I’m writing about this, you probably already realize that on this occasion it was anything but quick and painless. This time, the woman I was speaking to told me that the problem was that the Mac OS version on the iMac was too new for Illustrator CS2, that it would only work with 10.3.9 and earlier, not 10.4 and later. I politely explained that this could not possibly be the problem, as this iMac shipped with 10.4.something installed on it, that we’d previously had Illustrator CS2 running and activated on it, and every other Mac in the place had the same combination, all running fine. She repeated what she’d said. I responded by saying that I realized that what was on the screen in front of her may well say that’s the problem, but we know from experience that it cannot possibly really be the problem, so couldn’t we just go through the usual procedure and be done with it? She told me we could not. I don’t remember the details of what followed, but suffice it to say that nothing I said to her had any effect on the situation.
I eventually found the where the activation information is stored on the Mac’s hard drive, in an invisible file, and I was able to copy it from one computer to the iMac and, fortunately, that did the trick, so problem solved, No thanks to Adobe, though.
