Had a client tell me "just reinstall Windows" fixed everything for 10 years

Got a call last week from a guy who swore reinstalling Windows fixed a ghost cursor issue he had for a decade. Took me 2 hours to find it was a bad USB header on his motherboard causing the problem. Anyone else have clients that jump to Windows reinstall before checking hardware first?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_kim7d ago

Had a customer once who swore blind that reinstalling Windows fixed his printer not working. Three times over six months he did it. Finally got him to bring the tower in, popped it open, and the USB plug from the front panel was literally hanging by a wire inside the case. He was so embarrassed but I told him hey, it worked for a decade so you probably just got lucky. Now every time someone mentions a fresh install I just assume there's a loose cable somewhere messing with their life.

riley437d ago

Respectfully gotta disagree here. A clean install can fix driver conflicts or registry gunk that physically unhooking a cable and plugging it back in won't touch. I've seen machines run like garbage for months, wiped them, and suddenly everything works smooth again. Not saying it's always the answer, but sometimes software problems are actually software problems.

faith_thomas7d ago

Three clean installs for a printer issue sounds more like a hardware habit than a real fix.