On Call As Friday rolls around Reg readers can start to contemplate pressing the Shut Down button for the working week. And to amuse you as the moment at which you can make that magic click draws near, we always offer a fresh instalment of On Call – our reader-contributed column of tech support tasks that went in interesting directions.
This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Clark" who spent years running his own tech support outfit for small and medium businesses.
Not long after Windows 8 launched, one of Clark's clients called him in a state of considerable panic.
"I've been on the phone to Adobe tech support, and they've run out of support staff to escalate the problem to," the client complained, explaining that he was trying to do something rather simple: upgrade Acrobat.
Clark couldn't help but notice heavily ironic inflection at his client's mention of "support staff" – and fair enough too, because the chap claimed he'd spent a couple of hours each day for two weeks trying to have Adobe sort things out.
Could Clark therefore come over, ASAP, and re-install Windows in the hope a fresh start would make the problem go away?
Yes, Clark could.
"I headed straight over and, having noticed the customer had done his own upgrade to Windows 8, I hit the Restart option, waited for it to boot and then installed the new version of Acrobat."
Five minutes later, the PC and the new cut of Acrobat both worked.
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Clark was not shy about celebrating his triumph.
"How on Earth did you do that?" the client asked.
Clark told On Call he could not suppress "the smuggest of smug smiles" as he replied "I restarted it."
The client was incredulous. "I restarted dozens of times, you must have done something else."
At this point, dear reader, On Call urges you to visit this Microsoft support page titled "Fast startup causes hibernation or shutdown to fail in Windows 10 or Windows 8.1."
That page explains that Windows has a "Fast Startup" mode that – as the name suggests – makes Windows start up fast.
Fast Startup works by hibernating the Windows kernel session – not closing it.
"When you restart the computer, this typically means that you want a completely new Windows state, either because you have installed a driver or replaced Windows elements that cannot be replaced without a full restart," the page explains.
Now that you know (or have been reminded of) that, let's return to what Clark told his client.
"But you didn't restart it," Clark told his client. "You 'turned it off and on again'."
"And that was how the customer, and Adobe support, came to learn that Fast Startup was a royal pain."
Clark told On Call he henceforth disabled Fast Startup on every Windows 8 machine he ever touched.
He also had to do it after every OS upgrade because Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, turned it back on after many upgrades.
What's the fastest fix you've ever effected? Quick! Click here to send On Call an email about your tech support speed record so we can hasten its arrival in this column on a future Friday. ®