PC Repair...a learning experience

[BillyCarpenter]

A while back I started doing PC repair. Most of it is for small offices. On the surface, it sounds fairly simple, right? Not.

Here's an example. I have a copier customer that is an attorney. They have 3 PC's. They bought all new PC's (Dell) and wanted all programs and data moved over to the new PCs. The first problem I ran into was some of the programs were so old that you could no longer download that version and had to purchase the latest release. The program was Word Perfect.

The next issue I ran into was one of the PC's was used for Quickbooks only. They had a dot matrix printer they used to print checks. I didn't have any problem installing the driver and getting it to print. The issue was that the print was not aligned correctly on the check. This was frustrating. I tried changing setting on the printer with no success. Turns out that it was a setting in Quickbooks itself that needed to be changed.

The next issue was I set up AnyDesk to remote in from home. Fairly simple to set up. The problem was that when the PC would go into sleep mode that they couldn't connect. I had to turn on Wake from Lan in AnyDesk settings and turn on Wake from Lan in Bios.

The major problem was their internet connection was Slow and it created a nightmare when downloading programs. I would have to start the downloads and come back the next day before it was done.

Not to mention that the attorneys were old and trying to show them how to do things was difficult...to say the least.


This is only one example of the problems that I've encountered. So, not only do I have to know the hardware, I have to get familiar with every program that they might use. That' a lot of stuff.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: PC Repair...a learning experience

Here's a another problem I ran into at a Rent All store.

They had a very old handheld barcode scanner. They upgraded their PC and trying to get this thing to work was real bitch. After struggling for a day, I finally found the user manual online. Turns out there was a page in the manual with 2 printed barcodes. I printed out that page, took to the customer's store. Scanned both barcodes and it worked. Never seen that before.

[slimslob]

Re: PC Repair...a learning experience

A while back I started doing PC repair. Most of it is for small offices. On the surface, it sounds fairly simple, right? Not.

Here's an example. I have a copier customer that is an attorney. They have 3 PC's. They bought all new PC's (Dell) and wanted all programs and data moved over to the new PCs. The first problem I ran into was some of the programs were so old that you could no longer download that version and had to purchase the latest release. The program was Word Perfect.

Moving programs from an old computer to a new one can be done but not real easy in that you need to not only copy files but also registry settings. There are software that can help with that.

The next issue I ran into was one of the PC's was used for Quickbooks only. They had a dot matrix printer they used to print checks. I didn't have any problem installing the driver and getting it to print. The issue was that the print was not aligned correctly on the check. This was frustrating. I tried changing setting on the printer with no success. Turns out that it was a setting in Quickbooks itself that needed to be changed.

Common problem with accounting software

The next issue was I set up AnyDesk to remote in from home. Fairly simple to set up. The problem was that when the PC would go into sleep mode that they couldn't connect. I had to turn on Wake from Lan in AnyDesk settings and turn on Wake from Lan in Bios.

The major problem was their internet connection was Slow and it created a nightmare when downloading programs. I would have to start the downloads and come back the next day before it was done.

Not to mention that the attorneys were old and trying to show them how to do things was difficult...to say the least.


This is only one example of the problems that I've encountered. So, not only do I have to know the hardware, I have to get familiar with every program that they might use. That' a lot of stuff.

I had a very old mortgage broker. He had a Ricoh Aficio 270, the predecessor to the Aficio 1027. Ricoh discontinued the PCU and toner. I had to modify the machine to use 1027 PcU and toner.

Here's a another problem I ran into at a Rent All store.

They had a very old handheld barcode scanner. They upgraded their PC and trying to get this thing to work was real bitch. After struggling for a day, I finally found the user manual online. Turns out there was a page in the manual with 2 printed barcodes. I printed out that page, took to the customer's store. Scanned both barcodes and it worked. Never seen that before.

Seen it all the time with Point of Sales systems. Depending on the specific barcode(s) needed to be scanned, it can considering more programming codes.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: PC Repair...a learning experience

I say this all the time: It seems easy once you figure it out.


The problem I see with PC repair is there's no possible way to know everything. And if you're fairly inexperienced like myself, you're always working on a new problem that you've never seen before. Nothing takes the place of experience. One brick at a time.

Also, my understanding with moving a program from one PC to another is that the program was set up for that particular hardware and most likely won't work with different hardware. Thus it needs to be reinstalled for the new hardware. Maybe someone can elaborate?

[slimslob]

Re: PC Repair...a learning experience

For the customer with WordPerfect do yuo you know the version?

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: PC Repair...a learning experience

For the customer with WordPerfect do yuo you know the version?

Sorry, but I don't remember the version. It was no longer available for download.

I did talk to a friend that has over 20 years experience and he said that it's possible to move it. I think he mentioned something about moving dll. files. I could be not remembering correctly, though.

[slimslob]

Re: PC Repair...a learning experience

Sorry, but I don't remember the version. It was no longer available for download.

I did talk to a friend that has over 20 years experience and he said that it's possible to move it. I think he mentioned something about moving dll. files. I could be not remembering correctly, though.

If I had the version I bet I could find it. Hell wordPerfect 5.1 for DOS has multiple archive sites where it can still be downloaded.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: PC Repair...a learning experience

If I had the version I bet I could find it. Hell wordPerfect 5.1 for DOS has multiple archive sites where it can still be downloaded.

I'm not sure what you mean by archive sites, but I did see that it was available on a couple of other sites but they looked sketchy and at this point I've been there for a solid week getting all this stuff to work and I just told them it was time to upgrade to the latest version. Money wasn't a problem for them and I should have charged them more than I did. I didn't realize the problems that I would encounter.,

[slimslob]

Re: PC Repair...a learning experience

The company I worked for used to also have a medical transcription service. One of our customers was a the local Catholic Hospital System. In order to upload reports to their HIS required any interface that used wordPerfect 5.1 to create the document and then the interface added a demographics header to the file. I might even have a backup of all the disks used on one of my older computers.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: PC Repair...a learning experience

I thought I'd share this. I just got off the phone with my buddy that does PC repair. He's very good. Anyway, I picked his brain about moving a program from one PC to another. Here's what he said. It doesn't sound THAT complicated.

1. Go to the program location on the old PC and copy it to a USB.
2. Install on new PC.
3. Open the program on the new PC. It will come up with an error and say missing file and give the name of the file.
4. Go to the old PC and find the missing file. Copy and make note of it's exact location.
5. Install the file in the same location on new PC.

Note: There could be several missing files. It will only list 1 missing file at a time. You have to keep restarting the program before it will say the next missing file.

[PrintWhisperer]

Re: PC Repair...a learning experience

Ahh the infamous Word 'Not-so' Perfect. I almost said I cannot believe there is still a copy running out there, but then I remembered we are talking about LAWYERS here. Unless it's a big firm most are cheap and technologically agnostic (they acknowledge some people believe it exists, but they don't really believe in it themselves). So they get a self-fulfilling prophecy by getting cheap technology solutions that will eventually let them down.

I mean, they bought software for their business from COREL for crying out loud.

Considering it is lawyers after all, personally I would RUN FAST from cobbling anything together you will be responsible for later.

Fix the PC all day long but dead software needs to stay dead and cheap lawyers need to pay for professional business software, especially at the rates they charge.

[slimslob]

Re: PC Repair...a learning experience

Ahh the infamous Word 'Not-so' Perfect. I almost said I cannot believe there is still a copy running out there, but then I remembered we are talking about LAWYERS here. Unless it's a big firm most are cheap and technologically agnostic (they acknowledge some people believe it exists, but they don't really believe in it themselves). So they get a self-fulfilling prophecy by getting cheap technology solutions that will eventually let them down.

I mean, they bought software for their business from COREL for crying out loud.

Considering it is lawyers after all, personally I would RUN FAST from cobbling anything together you will be responsible for later.

Fix the PC all day long but dead software needs to stay dead and cheap lawyers need to pay for professional business software, especially at the rates they charge.

Most law offices, hospitals and medical offices that I know who use wordPerfect started using it long before Corel bought it. Are you aware that initially with MS Word under Windows in order to change printers you had to exit Word, change the Default Windows printer and then go back into Word, wordPerfect has always allowed you to select the printer within the document. If you were a church that needed to print the master copy of your 4 page center fold 11X17 (Metric A3) bulletin for your upcoming Sunday service with MS you had to purchase Publisher or the more expensive version of Office that included Publisher. WP could handle it with no problem.