So here's the deal... i used to have vista trial and had media center extender running just fine. My trial ran out so I went back to my XP drive for a couple weeks. My microsoft rep finally hooked me up with a copy of Vista. So I installed and everything was cool. It saw the 360 on the network and it would pop up showing it found an extender each time I turned the xbox on. But i could not for the life of me get the 360 to hook up with the PC, either with media center or just to stream pics, videos, and music.

So I figured I would call xbox as they must have seen this quite a few times. Get the guy on the line tell him whats going on and I have Vista as a OS. He goes thru a couple steps and nothing. Then he says... do you have XP service pack 2 installed. Silence from me and he says hello? I said no I have Vista it does not have a service pack out yet. He says no service pack 2 for XP has to be installed. I say you can't install that on Vista, and he says I know you have Vista, but you have to. At this point I really don't know what to say as what he said may be the most idiotic thing I have ever heard.

At this point I told him to get someone on the line who knew something about Vista. He gives me another number to call microsoft support and he says they will take care of me. I call them and they want 79.00 because I have an OEM version of XP.

I call xbox back and talk to someone who doesn't want me to install XP SP2. He has me try some settings on the router and then wants me to shut everything off and reboot. So not even thinking I turn xbox, pc, and router off. I lose my phone.. dohhh.. I have a Vonage phone router.. stupid me.

Nothing worked so I started searching forums. Found out you need to disable ICS (internet connection sharing). Disabled that in Vista and everything is just fine now. So if any of you go to Vista and have problems.. disable ICS!!

I know long story. But him wanting me to install XP SP2 on Vista was just so absurd, I had to share it.

I called Xbox tech support to complain that my arcade games I purchased no longer work offline with my 360 that replaced my failed one and the guy asked me if I still have the disk.

You got to love Outsourcing. lol

:D

just showing Microsoft doesn't care about their customers. Once they hand the money over there are no worries. my 360 is great when it works.

You got to love Outsourcing. lol

:D

Outsourcing is not bad (for the consumers) if the reps on the other end are trained properly. Cost cutting, when taken a tad too far will lead to problems like that in the OP.

That's all about par for the course....my recent experiences with XBox non-support simply lets me know that the people making decisions at MS about this stuff are complete morons.

I went round and round with them about exactly how they define a 12-month warranty as "expired" when the unit in question was only 9 months old (replacement REFURB they sent me whn my original unit bricked out after 7 months, then the replacement unit crapped out too after another 7 months). After getting the standard idiot responses; things that a stammering minimum wage near-illiterate could utter while phoenetically reading the call cards, I finally decided to just get the damn thing fixed and if the 3rd one I am getting from them breaks down then it is bye-bye 360 for me.

Complete shame too because I really do like the system (when it works) but I can't handle the moronic nature of their customer service reps. Latest example? I got a call on Sunday checking up on whether or not I had recieved my "coffin" yet. While that's all fine and well -to be paying people to follow up on service calls (even if it is usually a common knowledge given that there is no postal service in the US on Sunday) - it might make a little more sense to have sunk that cash into better customer service reps in the first place!

Instead of using Hadji from Pakistan, who calls himself "Phil" and speaks with suck an insane accent that non-Asians can barely recognize it as English when calling from the US, MS would be better served getting a few more native English speakers that do not worship cows or live in squalor or work for $1.50 a week. I don't give a one tenth of one **** how much $ these call centers "save" the companies that run them, I find them to be a complete waste of time and a real detriment to anything even remotely fitting my deifinition of customer support.

just showing Microsoft doesn't care about their customers. Once they hand the money over there are no worries. my 360 is great when it works.


You're a hater.

Had a similar problem with Dell when my monitor bit the dust. the (albeit very friendly) tech insisted I must press F2 at startup. Since my PC takes "del" to get into the bios I kept asking him if he indeed wanted me to go into the bios for some reason. All he could say was "F2" "have you pressed F2". After about 5 minutes I decided to just go into the Bios and told him it was F2 that did it. After asking if the monitor still had the problem, and my confirmation he insisted that I enable remote assistance for him to have a look at my PC.

I had to repeat about 100 times, "the problem is with the Dell screen...not my self built computer. You will not be connecting to my PC through remote assistance. I will check any thing you like, despite its' uselessness regarding this probem, but you will not be accessing the machine."

After about 2 hours of nonsense they agreed to replace the monitor (LCD with backlight issues). To my surprise I had a new screen overnighted and it arrived before 10am the next day.

Support was plain silly, but the response was exceptional.

Just showing Microsoft doesn't care about their customers. Once they hand the money over there are no worries. My PS3 is great & it works just fine.
LOL
Funny Story btw
;)

I've had to call xbox customer support several times in the past 10 days regarding my dead xbox. I called last saturday to have a coffin sent out, and they said that it will not arrive until at least April 25th.

Anyway, has anyone noticed that when you call into support now, they keep chit-chatting with you regarding what your favorite game is? The last three times I've called in, the guy asks me questions including, "so what is your favorite game?" "I personally love GHII." "What is your favorite song?" "Excited for Halo 3? I know I am..." "I know how you feel - I'm a gamer myself." "Isn't gow awesome? It's definitely the best game for xbox." etc etc etc.

At first, I thought it was just a gamer on the other line, excited about the new games. But definitely not. These guys are trained to ask these types of inane questions. I really don't know how to respond anymore. I really don't want to entertain them with answers, but I hate to be so rude that I just don't respond.

Above and beyond the issues with customer service mentioned above, one thing to bear in mind is that the level of technical expertise of most callers is relatively low. As such, technical support folks have no choice but to start with basic trouble-shooting, since a large percentage of issues probably *are* resolved by these methods.

This is certainly annoying to "expert users", such as most readers of these forums, but there's really no way around it. Nonetheless, I too find it aggravating when technical support won't take your word for something.

LOL
Funny Story btw
;)


lol thats my 360 AND ps3 working well. But the 360 has been down twice on me. I like the 360 games better but ps3 has the better hardware IMO. :p