Question for all the more seasoned Consultants out there.
I have a new-ish client that I’ve done a small amount of work for already who was referred to me by one of my best clients.
For just a quick background: he had a problem with an internet connection share on his little home wireless network after he returned from a trip. Both computers there were running Windows 98SE and the laptop in particular was showing signs of degradation of Win98. I couldn’t get the ICS working at all,though I did get the network talking again.
I told him his options – wipe out the hard drive and restore Win98 or wipe out the hard drive and install WinXP or something else (or, as ultimately happened, upgrade to WinXP).
Well, he opted for upgrading to WinXP Home on both machines. The installation became a nightmare and wound up taking me several hours. Then the network connection wouldn’t work. I wound up going home last night and researching what to do. Turns out that the only known fix I came across for this was installing NetBEUI. That worked, but ICS won’t work with NetBEUI.
Anyway, I digress a bit. When I arrived this morning he said “Do we need to call an expert in?” to which I replied, calmly, “my certification is in TCP/IP networking.” (true). “and it appears this is a somewhat rare quirk.” (also appears to be true).
I feel guilty that his network is still not working to his expectations, but am frustrated by his misunderstanding of how these things sometimes work (or don’t as the case may be) and how long troubleshooting can take. I’ve certainly learned to couch my advice in VERY careful terms in the future, but what can I do now to help salvage this relationship or at least make a graceful exit?
Thanks!
Virginia
