Microsoft Tech Support Part 2 (Contact Happy)

This is a follow-up to this post.

Wow, who’da thunk it: I’ve gotten more correspondence after my problem was resolved than when it was actually a problem.

I just finished another one of those please-rate-your-service survey calls. I’ve gotten emails asking me how I liked the service, and I could’ve had a manager call me if requested. Not that I did so.

To better explain what happened, let’s timeline it:

– I run the “Connect to Internet” Wizard on Small Business Server in order to get the local firewall disabled (and yes, that is a silly as it sounds). At the end of this process I install a SSL Certificate on the web server.

– I realize that Macintosh users can’t reach the Exchange Public Folder. Eek!

– I try my own fixes. I realize these fixes may be hurting me more than helping.

– I call Microsoft (1–800–MICROSOFT) and go through the myriad of menus in order to reach someone who can help me. Eventually, I do.

– I explain the problem is as many non-geek terms as possible. When the rep asks for the full blown geek description, I lay it on em.

– Next I speak with Raj who isn’t ‘great’ at English (one of the survey questions: “How would you rate the ability for the tech support rep to communicate and correspond?” translation: “That guy speak good English?”). I try to explain the situation. He sounds unsure and that is not what I want to hear right now. He has no idea exactly what’s going on, and his first shot in the dark after performing five minutes of what I can only assume is the same Googling I went through (except on their more robust internal knowledgebase), he thinks my Exchange DB is corrupt. This is wrong.

– He tells me he’ll need to transfer me to the Entourage department. This makes no sense to me, but he assures they will know Exchange internals and Entourage internals.

– When he gets off the phone, I try to browse Public Folders using the Exchange System Manager. I get a strange error. A Google later and I’m turning off SSL (secure web access) on the web server directories. As I begin to put the pieces together of the errors the Entourage clients are getting, I realize this is the solution. It takes a visit to each Macintosh, but I can handle that.

– Pleased I found the solution, I then see I had missed a call from a Microsoft rep. An email from Narendra telling me as much and I mail back the following:

Hello, I have temporarily fixed the problem by doing the following:

On all virtual directories listed under "Default Web Site" in IIS, I have had to disable SSL. This let the Entourage clients connect to the public folders. I had to do this for all of the Exchange directories in order to get things up and running again.

And, again, this seems to relate to the Certificate installation. Can I undo this? Can I clear these out? Can I disable them? I don't want this issue to last forever on this server.

So feel free to change the issue to "Removing SSL Certificates from Exchange Server on Small Business Server"

When I went into IIS Manager -> SERVERNAME -> Web Sites -> Default Website -> Exchange (for example)

I would then go to Right Click -> Properties -> Directory Security Tab -> Hit the "Edit" button under "Secure Communications" and UNCHECK "Require secure channel (SSL)", everything worked again.

What I wanted to know was why it broke everything. Did SSL just get turned on or was it always enabled? Why couldn’t I simply uninstall the certificate I installed? Is there no procedure for this?

I get this email back:

I should be saying that this is a permanent solution.

I would suggest to let it be the way it is as this ensure that everything is working fine with Entourage.

Please let me know the way you want to proceed with this case.

Insert Evan rolling his eyes here. I thought my solution was simply temporary, that the ‘correct’ fix would be coming but apparently not so.

– I spoke with Narendra on the phone where he told me I implemented the correct fix. I told him I wanted to uninstall the certificates ‘the correct way’ (if there even is a correct way) and I wanted to restore the system to where it had been before I had messed it up. Quite simply, these sort of perform-and-forget hacks to get things working again usually come back to bite you in the ass.

– Eventually I get the idea that this is as far as they’re going to help me. I thank her and tell her to close the incident.

– Sharath Shylendra then contacts me for a follow-up. I don’t bother with a response. I mean, firstly if I complain about their ethnicity then I’m a bigot, and if I complain about the lack of service I begin the cycle all over again. Is it wrong to want help from an American?

– This morning I get a call and give her my zero-to-nine scores (nine?) in a variety of questions regarding the call.

One of the most interesting questions came at the end:

“How would you rate your satistfaction with Microsoft as a company? It’s products, services, and public image? Extremely satisfied, somewhat satisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, extremely disatisfied.”

I wanted to tell her how I think blogs are revolutionizing the company. How Robert Scoble has done more for the company than Steve Ballmer ever could in terms of humanizing and giving a caring face to the corporate machine. That Mini-Microsoft is nothing short of a folk hero. That MS blogs keep me happy and enthralled and interested. That Vista is probably a train wreck, but look at all of those good intentions, one post at a time.

“I’m satisfied,” I said. While the human side of MS is incredible, the side I was counting on was not.

“Extremely satisfied or somewhat?”

Silence hung in the air.

“Somewhat,” I said.

Somewhat.

I'd chime in with a
"Haven't you people ever heard of closing the goddamn door?!"
No, it's much better to face these kinds of things
with a sense of poise and rationality.