Hot take: that one call to a small office in Boise made me ditch the 'just reinstall' script

I was on a remote support call for a law firm in Boise about six months ago. Their main computer was crawling, and my first thought was the usual 'backup and nuke it'. But the partner insisted they couldn't be down for a day. So, I dug in. I found a single, ancient printer driver from 2012 buried in the registry, left over from a device they hadn't used in years, causing constant service hangs. Removing it fixed everything in twenty minutes. That was the moment I stopped treating every slow PC like a generic problem. Now I always check the event viewer and installed programs list first, even if it takes longer. How many of you still jump straight to a full reinstall without checking the logs?

3 comments

3 Comments

miles_burns29d ago

Used to be my first move too. That Boise story would have changed my mind. Now I always check the event logs first.

william_garcia29d ago

People learn best from horror stories.

kimy9229d ago

That Boise story still gives me chills.