It is Christmas time again and I usually write something about online sales.  But not this year, nope I am trying not to talk about it this time around, so on with something more practical.

I got an email this week from Debbie in Broadway about her printer.  It was also about her new Windows Vista computer.

On “Black Friday” she got a deal on a computer.  While purchasing the new system she also found another deal on a printer.  The only drawback was that the printer wasn’t marked as Vista compatible.  When she got home and set up everything she found that the printer wouldn’t work with the Vista system…oops!  She emailed and asked me if I knew where she could get a driver that would make the printer function. 

First off let me tell you a little about “drivers”.  A device driver is an additional computer program that allows a hardware device (like Debbie’s printer) to communicate with the rest of the computer system.  In other words once the proper driver is installed for a device it will work.  Without the proper driver it is a large paperweight. 

One thing to keep in mind is that drivers are “hardware dependent” and “operating system specific”.  So you have to have the correct driver that works with the operating system.  In Debbie’s case that would be a printer driver for that specific printer made for Vista.  Vista compatible/ready hardware comes with the proper driver or it is already built into Vista.

Before Debbie called the printer company’s toll free number I suggested she try their online tech-support.  You can read of my experiences with toll free help in previous columns and let’s just say that she had the same bad experiences.  Larger companies will have online support where you “chat” with the technician by typing back-and-forth. 

She said it worked well with online support.  She chatted with the tech; found out that there is a new driver which could be downloaded for free.  She downloaded and installed it all successfully to the roar of the crowd…well OK, that last part was literary license.  She did tell me that the entire chat was finished (with great results) in about ten minutes.

So next time you need help with your not-ready-for Vista product contact them online.  It will be quicker and hopefully less painful than a phone call.

And by-the-way, Black Friday and Cyber Monday made more money than any other year in history…oops I did it anyway!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 at 9:07 pm and is filed under Columns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.