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PC Repair Business???

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MonMotha:
The Geek Squad is terrible.  Most of the "technicians" know little more than how to run their stupid software that just messes up things even worse, in most cases.  Oh, and they love selling overpriced cables.

Really, though, compare "computer repair" rates to things like major appliance repair, plumber, electrician, etc. rates.  You'll find they're not out of line in the slightest.  In fact, in many cases they're perhaps somewhat cheaper.  It's just not worth looking at something for less than $50 or so, even if it only takes 15-30m.  The "context switch" time, billing, etc. will easily add another 30-60m onto that task, so you're looking at paying $50 for about an hour and a half of work.  That's only ~$33/hr to cover everything: facilities, insurance, supplies, all labor, accounting, etc.  Not much profit to be made there, which is why I don't bother with residential/individual stuff.

Now, businesses are willing to pay realistic rates.  To a business, if their computers are down for an hour, they lose well more than $60-100 that a "consultant" will charge to fix it, so it's a good decision to find somebody who knows wtf they're doing even if they charge a bit more.

Samstag:

--- Quote from: SavannahLion on January 04, 2012, 12:37:12 am ---I wasn't aware Technet subscriptions let you go that far back in the Windows versions though. Didn't MS announce they dropped support for older OSes even for business customers?

--- End quote ---

When they drop support they stop releasing updates and probably stop offering phone support.  But the availability sticks around a lot longer, at least on Technet.  DOS was on there too but I think it might have just been version 6.22.

Technet can be pretty useful to a MAMEer because in addition to having all those old versions that run well on ancient hardware, you get 5 license keys per OS version.  I think I paid about $170 for a year subscription when it was on sale.

Corbo:
Last time I looked on Technet (a year ago ish) you could still get Windows 3.11, which made for amusement in a virtual machine.

Even with technet, I'm not sure you can get hold of OEM disks that work with the keys printed on some systems.

If you build up a good collection of Dell, HP, other common manufacturers and boxed retail versions of Windows ISO's then you can usually manage.

If not, then honesty is the best policy.  Sorry, I can't repair your computer, or, I recommend you upgrade your PC/Windows license.  Under promise and over deliver :)

MonMotha:
Windows 7 has drastically improved the whole OEM licensing thing.  The worst I've ever had to do was install with no key then install the appropriate OEM cert (which is a freely available/distributable file, as far as I know, since it contains no actual license) to be able to use either the SLP key (which you're not really supposed to do) or the key printed on the sticker that comes with the PC.  This in theory is true for Vista, too, but screw Vista :)  It seems to be that the days of having to keep around a different OEM installer disc for each OEM, and sometimes several versions for each at that, like was needed for WinXP are done.

Of course, my preference is to just use Linux.  No need for any pesky per-system licenses then, unless you want the RHEL support.

Howard_Casto:

--- Quote from: MonMotha on January 04, 2012, 03:22:15 pm ---Of course, my preference is to just use Linux.  No need for any pesky per-system licenses then, unless you want the RHEL support.

--- End quote ---

Or pesky applications, or a pesky user interface that people can actually understand, or pesky customers. 

Yeah man install Linux on the average users computer and let me know how that works out for you.  I suppose it would be good job security... they'd be calling you constantly as they wouldn't be able to figure out how to do anything.  ;)

I'm not picking on linux.... linux is great... most tablets run on a highly modified linux kernel, but desktop flavors of linux are NOT for the end user.  Heck I know what I'm doing and I still wouldn't install linux on anything.  Why would I intentionally limit the amount of software I can install and the functionality of my computer?

Before you start spouting the merits of linux, let me just give some examples as it pertains to this hobby:

Mame:  outputs won't work... so no mame hooker.  Hlsl probably won't work either due to lack of dx shaders and DirectX. 
PC Games:  will only run using an emulated layer of windows.... so what's the point?
Front Ends:  there aren't any..... there are plenty in windows, a good amount on the mac and even a couple in dos, but the linux fes haven't been updated in years.
Modern Emulators:  they are mostly windows only at this point due to extensive reliance on directx.

If you intend to use a computer for any application other than surfing the web and checking email (and you'll even run into issues with that ocassionally, but I digress) you'll run into similar limitations.

Sorry to get off topic, I just get a chuckle out of the fact that there are STILL linux nerds in the era of windows 7 and the modern, unix-based, Mac OS. 

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