Tech support at its worst

As you may know, I'm working through a Microsoft e-learning course at the moment. Having had a few problems with the service I've been trying to extract some common sense from their support services. Having failed to get anything vaguely helpful I thought I'd ask them about who they were, and I think the following response really sums up the level of idiocy I have encountered thus far.

When asked a simple direct question about who I was communicating with, the response is either hilarious or depressing, I'm not sure which. It would seem that before they can tell me where they are based, they need to know what operating system I run, what version of flash I have, what my login is etc etc. Talk about customer disservice. The finishing touch for me is the addition of upbeat advertising added to a response to an evidently already irritated customer.

Here are the last two messages for your entertainment (identifiers stripped out):

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: MCP Ref: C ###### \ site broken. (########)
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:03:12 +0000
From: Tim
To: emeamcp@msdirectservices.com


I have a couple of questions for you:

What company are you directly employed by?
Where are you based?

Thanks

Tim

The highly considered response:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: MCP Ref: C ##### \ site broken. (#######################)
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:59:21 +0100 (CET)
From: emeamcp@msdirectservices.com
To: Tim


Hello Tim,

Thank you for contacting Learning Manager Support.

In order for us to process this request, we need the following
information from you:

- Step by step screen shots of the entire process including the error
message

- Your log in Live ID and the Unique ID associated to it.

To obtain your Unique ID, please follow the steps provided:

1) Visit http://account.live.com

2) Sign in using your passport account.

3) After singing in you will see a page with more options. Please click
on 'Registered information'

4) At the bottom of this page you will see your Unique ID. It will look
like this: '000XXXXXXXXXXXXX'

- Detailed description of what the problem/issue is that you are
experiencing.

- What is the Operating System that you are using?

- What is the Internet Browser and version that you are using?

- What version of Flash and Shockwave are you using?

- Screenshot of the following webpage: https://learning.microsoft.com/Commerce/PurchaseHistory.aspx


While some of the above information may not seem applicable to your
issue, it is important that we must receive them in order to best
resolve your issue.

Please also note that we unfortunately are not allowed to provide you
any information about our location.

Looking forward to receiving your reply.

Kind Regards

Natalia Wojtaszek

Microsoft Regional Service Center
E-Mail: emeamcp@msdirectservices.com
Tel.: 0800-9170758 or 0800 0960137
Fax: ++49 5 24 11 79 60 77

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It's worth noting that this is totally consistent with the level of service I have experienced with Microsoft e-learning. As far as I can fathom, the e-learning system has been set up on a pile of servers and then been left to rot whilst paying customers are fobbed off by a nameless and faceless 3rd party. It may be profitable in the short term, but this kind of behaviour may well be the cracks in the foundations of Microsoft's empire. I for one am certainly plotting a course for fairer pastures.

Taking a Microsoft Learning course - my experience so far

I am currently studying for a Microsoft ASP.NET qualification
MCTS: .NET Framework 2.0 Web Applications.
I have paid for and begun one of the Microsoft Learning training courses:
Collection 5160: Core Development with the Microsoft® .NET Framework 2.0 Foundation.

Here are my first impressions. I have posted most of this content on the private boards of the course provider.

I've been pretty pleased with the course so far. The coverage of the material seems good, and I have already learnt quite a few extra things even though I have been using ASP.NET in earnest for a couple of years commercially. The mix of presentation of content works well for me, with the video presentations, factual content, puzzles, quizzes and final lab sessions combining well to reinforce the new material.

The ability to use a virtual machine at the end of each module, loaded with Visual Studio 2005 is essential for those without a copy, handy for those of us who are no longer trapped in Bill's world and a neat trick even if you do have an msdn subscription.

Most of my feedback is minor annoyances. In my experience any form of education is often imperfect, and this would appear to be on the good side of such things, though it remains to be seen if it gets me through the exams!

My comments:
- Firefox support could be improved (except for activex stuff of course). I couldn't get into the course at all in firefox. (I don't atually run windows at all at home, so had to fire up a vm just to get in, even though most of the content is no more than html, css & flash).
- Page width and font size seem to be linked, so if I increases the text size I have to scroll side to side, which is a PITA, as i run a super hi res screen so default text is tiny. Particularly noticeable on the lab exercise pages.
- Providing a zip of the starter and solution files would be much better for those of us who have visual studio installed locally.
- As someone else said, why do you have to log in to the lab machines? It's trivial to get windows to automatically log a user in.
- I had a connection drop on me (while reading up), it would have been good to be able to reconnect to same session.
- It would be good to see the remaining lab time in the same window as the rdp activex control.
- The keyboard in the VM is set to US, which is a PITA as I have a UK keyboard, so " comes out as @.
- It's not clear if the forum emails you if someone replies. I'm not likely to monitor it, but the answers I get will affect my decision to buy the rest of the courses I'm planning on doing.
- The forums seem to be lacking in input from course staff in helping struggling (paying) students, and in providing technical support.