[kezdeth]

So, today this guy calls me, and this is the second time he's called us for help on this, and we've already thrown our hands up and told him to call the manufacturer and/or Microsoft. What did he do? Read on:<p>The background: this man lives in the mountains of a very remote area, 70 miles from the nearest town and 150 miles from the nearest cable provider. Obviously, he's a dialup customer, and no chance of broadband anything unless he moves since even satellite is blocked by a large mountain. He owns a total of <b>one</b> computer, and has no plans to own a second.<p>So, for some unknown reason, yesterday he installed an ethernet card in his machine, which for some reason tied his TCP/IP stacks to itself. Since he had no stack bound to the Dialup Adapter, obviously he could do nothing after connecting, so he calls us. Our tech tried to re-bind one stack to Dialup, and failed. Next step was to remove and reinstall TCP/IP, and we should end up with two stacks, one bound to the card and the other bound to Dialup. <b>Hah!</b> They were there, and both irrevocably bound to the card. A second level rep advised the first rep to have the guy call the manufacturer of the card, and the user did.<p>The manufacturer sought in vain to get the card to behave, but acheived nothing. They, in turn, told the user to call Microsoft.<p>Microsoft did everything they could, including a complete reinstall of Windows, and <b>still</b> the card and it's driver bound all TCP/IP stacks to itself! Microsoft's final conclusion was that the card was defective and should be removed; end of day one.<p>Day two, and he calls us again; happy soul that I am, I inherit the call. The user tells me the story, and I run over his case notes, as well as reviewing with him everything else that was done. I stopped right there and advised him to remove the card since he had no use for it and it was only preventing him from accessing the internet in the first place. I figured that, once the thing was out I could reinstall TCP/IP and the problem would be solved. Again, <b>Hah!</b><p>My user proceeded to go ballistic! He refused to remove the card, even though he admitted that it was of no possible use to him and was also most likely defective. He gave no reason for this, just flat refused to consider it. In the end, I could only present him with a choice: keep the card installed and have no internet access, or remove the card and issue resolved. Guess what he chose? He bloody well <i>kept</i> the card installed and canceled his account! (I know, in a way it's sad, but you have to sit back and laugh at human stubborness at times!)