The question

I don't think there's a pat answer to this. Whether you're talking about changing something on a computer, either intentionally or unintentionally, or leaving the milk out on the counter, some people just won't fess up to what they did. Have you ever known anyone who was involved in a traffic accident, one that was totally their fault, but there was always something or someone else to blame? For a person to take full and total responsibility for themselves, their actions, and their outcome is getting rare indeed.

But on the bright side, there are those users who will say, "I don't know what I did, but I must have done something. Can you fix it?" And these are the ones who will help you retrace their own steps.

However, what I usually say in situations such as the ones you asked about usually falls along these lines, depending on who it is and what the problem is:

It's not possible for something to change on its own. Someone or something has to change it, whether that be a person, a virus, another program, a downloaded email, or something. I'm just looking for those potential "somethings" to help me narrow it down.

Or if it gets to bee too much of a mysterious "head scratcher", I might say, If I can't trouble shoot and fix a problem within the first 30 minutes, It's my policy to just redo the whole thing from scratch - format the drive and reload the operating system and the programs because it's more time efficient. You did back up all your personal stuff, didn't you? (This might jog a person's memory real fast.)

Good luck.

For two years working behind the desk answering technical support question, troubleshooting, TRYING TO RESOLVE, and eventually escalating, I never really came up with that specific question to get a caller accept the truth about cause of his or her pc problem.

Max is right, there could many different reason why a user will call for support with a blank idea whats going on with their pc.

To do this, you really need to go over a series of questions to get to the bottom of all calls you receive. You're lucky if the pc simply hang-up and you just tell the guy to reboot. But that is just a drop in the sea kind a call, so try the old and tested "eliminate the obvious first questions" I said questions because there's alot. Then move to specific line of questioning. Try to gain user trust too, that why users will become more cooperative and responsive to your questions and suggestions of what to do. Try to make your caller feel, that this things happen and that they called to the right number! It's your job anyway. As for the question, technical problems are not answerable by yes and no it part of our complicated technical world! :)