An End User rings Customer Support to report that his computer is
faulty.
Customer Support: “What is the problem?”
End User: “There is smoke coming out of the power supply.”
Customer Support: “You will need a new power supply.”
End User: “No I don’t! I just need to change the startup files!”
Customer Support: “The power supply is faulty. You’ll need to replace
it.”
End User: “No way! Someone told me that I just needed to change the
startup and it will fix the problem! All I need is for you to tell me
the command.”
10 minutes later, the End User is still adamant that they are right. The
Customer Support Engineer is frustrated. . . .
Customer Support: “Sorry, Sir. We don’t normally tell our customers
this, but there is an undocumented DOS command that will fix the
problem.”
End User: “I knew it!”
Customer Support: “Just add the line LOAD NOSMOKE.COM at the end of the
CONFIG.SYS. Let me know how it goes.”
10 minutes later.
End User: “It didn’t work. The power supply is still smoking.”
Customer Support: “Well, what version of DOS are you using?”
End User: “MS-DOS 6.22.”
Customer Support: “That’s your problem there. That version of DOS didn’t
come with NOSMOKE. Contact Microsoft and ask them for a patch that will
give you the file. Let me know how it goes.”
1 hour later.
End User: “I need a new power supply.”
Customer Support: “How did you come to that conclusion?”
End User: “Well, I rang Microsoft and told him all about what you said,
and the support person started asking questions about the make of power
supply.”
Customer Support: “Then what did he say?”
End User: “He told me that my power supply isn’t compatible with
NOSMOKE.”
