{"id":1913,"date":"2011-05-21T06:45:23","date_gmt":"2011-05-21T10:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=1913"},"modified":"2011-05-21T06:45:23","modified_gmt":"2011-05-21T10:45:23","slug":"karens-best-buy-saga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/karens-best-buy-saga\/","title":{"rendered":"Karen’s Best Buy saga"},"content":{"rendered":"

Karen and the Best Buy saga<\/strong>
\nIn January I purchased an ASUS laptop. I installed \t\t\t\tSUPERAntiSpyware and MS Office 2007. Late March I started having \t\t\t\tproblems opening PDF files. When I tried to open the Adobe \t\t\t\tprogram I got a “fatal internal error” message. When I tried to \t\t\t\tuninstall and reinstall Adobe I got a “**APPDATA** file missing” \t\t\t\tmessage. Since I had six months free Geek Squad I contacted Geek \t\t\t\tSquad chat line. After running two software diagnostics I was \t\t\t\ttold it was a hardware problem. I took it to Best Buy\/Geek \t\t\t\tSquad. That person also ran some tests plus a virus detection \t\t\t\tprogram and determined my wireless wasn’t working and it needed \t\t\t\tto be sent out for repair. When I went to pick it up I asked the \t\t\t\tagent to please test it for me before I took it home. The \t\t\t\twireless was fixed, however, the other problems were not. He \t\t\t\tsuggested the problem was my SUPERAntiSpyware program (he had \t\t\t\tnever heard of it). He assured me they would immediately fix the \t\t\t\tmachine. Five days later I called and was told the wireless was \t\t\t\tfixed and they were now running diagnostics. I asked if the \t\t\t\t“fatal error” problem had been fixed. He tried opening Adobe and \t\t\t\tguess what? “Fatal Internal Error” message. He then told me that \t\t\t\tit was not a hardware problem, probably a virus and possibly \t\t\t\tcaused by my SUPERAntiSpyware program (which he had never heard \t\t\t\tof). He said they will have to reformat the hard drive. My \t\t\t\tquestion: have you heard of SUPERAntiSpyware causing this type \t\t\t\tof problem? Thanks, Karen<\/p>\n

Our answer<\/strong>
\nWe are sorry you had so many problems, Karen. There are two \t\t\t\tsolutions to your PDF problem that we can think of quickly:<\/p>\n

1. Apparently a file is missing in the Adobe uninstaller. As \t\t\t\talways, the quickest and easiest fix for this is to reinstall \t\t\t\tthe program – in this case Adobe’s PDF reader. What this does is \t\t\t\treinstall all the files including the missing ones. In the best \t\t\t\tcase, this would fix the problems you had opening PDF files; in \t\t\t\tthe worst case it would allow you to uninstall Adobe without an \t\t\t\terror message.<\/p>\n

2. You could download another free PDF reader and associate \t\t\t\tPDF files with it. That why when you clicked on a PDF file it \t\t\t\twould open in the program you downloaded instead of Adobe. Of \t\t\t\tcourse the first solution is the recommended solution, but this \t\t\t\twould be another way to solve your problem. There are a number \t\t\t\tof free PDF readers available, including \t\t\t\tEvince <\/a>and \t\t\t\tFoxit Reader<\/a>. \t\t\t\tThere are many more. Use care with Foxit Reader; from time to \t\t\t\ttime it’s been known to bundle unwanted software with it.<\/p>\n

We couldn’t have made up a better story to illustrate the \t\t\t\tutter incompetence of Geek Squad employees. Almost nothing they \t\t\t\ttold you has any basis in fact. First of all, an “APPDATA” is an \t\t\t\tapplication error – APP meaning application. It would never be a \t\t\t\thardware problem. Then the story about running a virus scan and \t\t\t\tfinding out you had a wireless problem is ludicrous. And sending \t\t\t\tit out for repair? Anyone with the slightest bit of experience \t\t\t\tcould have replaced your laptop’s wireless card in less than 15 \t\t\t\tminutes. But they “sent it out for repair”. We doubt there was a \t\t\t\twireless problem beyond the fact that whoever this was couldn’t \t\t\t\tget it to connect to whatever wireless network he was near.<\/p>\n

Then Geek Squad further shows their ignorance by blaming it \t\t\t\ton SUPERAntiSpyware – claiming it is a virus or allowed viruses on your \t\t\t\tcomputer. First of all, as the name SUPERAntiSpyware indicates, \t\t\t\tit’s not an antivirus; secondly, all he had to do to find out \t\t\t\tabout SUPERAntiSpyware is google it. It would have taken him all \t\t\t\tof 10 seconds to find out that it’s a very highly rated \t\t\t\tantispyware program.<\/p>\n

Cnet Reviews of SUPERAntiSpyware<\/a><\/p>\n

ghacks review of SUPERAntiSpyware<\/a><\/p>\n

While no one is going to stick their neck out and say \t\t\t\tSUPERAntiSpyware is the best antispyware program (opinions \t\t\t\tdiffer), everyone agrees it’s among the best. What’s the best? \t\t\t\tIt depends on who is doing the reviewing. It protects all of our \t\t\t\tcomputers – and has for almost 2 years.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

We’ve received many emails from folks who’ve used Geek Squad. \t\t\t\tAnd from what people have told us, it appears that Geek Squad’s standard fix for almost everything is to format \t\t\t\tand reinstall Windows. This, of course, will fix any software \t\t\t\tproblem. It’s something anyone with about an hour or so of time \t\t\t\tand a\u00a0Windows installation disk (or a computer \t\t\t\tmanufacturer’s recovery disk) could do at home. Of course when \t\t\t\tyou do this you lose all your programs and settings, \t\t\t\tplus all the files, documents and photos you had on your \t\t\t\tcomputer – unless you had them all backed up. And if you kept a \t\t\t\tgood image-based backup, you could simply use that to fix your \t\t\t\tcomputer – with all your programs and files intact. It wouldn’t \t\t\t\tsurprise us any if Best Buy used the ASUS recovery disk or \t\t\t\tpartition to restore your computer back to the way it was the \t\t\t\tday you bought it. You could have done this yourself in about an \t\t\t\thour.<\/span><\/p>\n

It looks like you suffered a lot of inconvenience and lost \t\t\t\tthe use of your new computer, unnecessarily, for quite a while. \t\t\t\tIt’s a really good thing you had the “free” Geek Squad for six \t\t\t\tmonths, and didn’t have to pay for it. Well actually you paid for it with all the time and \t\t\t\tinconvenience. It’s sad that people take their computers to Geek \t\t\t\tSquad and trust them to fix their computers; so many of their \t\t\t\ttechnicians are poorly trained and not very \t\t\t\tknowledgeable about computers.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Karen and the Best Buy saga In January I purchased an ASUS laptop. I installed SUPERAntiSpyware and MS Office 2007. Late March I started having problems opening PDF files. When I tried to open the Adobe program I got a “fatal internal error” message. When I tried to uninstall and reinstall Adobe I got a “**APPDATA** file missing”\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[54,27,1207,1208],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1913"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1914,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1913\/revisions\/1914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}