It's a standing joke here that Glen never spends more than half a 'work' day in the office. There is always a customer that telephones with an urgent problem or one that he promised to get to sooner if there was any cancellations (his diary is normally booked weeks, sometimes months ahead).

This week we thought the impossible was going to happen and, because of two last minute cancellations and the May bank holiday, he would actually spend an unheard of three days in the office! No - there is a school in Essex with a server down that he is visiting first thing tomorrow!

We don't know how he does it. Half a day in the office and someone out there will have an urgent problem that needs sorting asap! Guaranteed.

(Shame really as there has been so much old tatt chucked out of the office because he is here - old floppy disks, zip disks, zip drives, old printer cables! Think a good chuck out is well overdue!)

We recently upgraded 9 computers to Windows 8 and installed a new Microsoft 2008 server.  The customer wanted the latest computers and we were very hesitant as we have mixed views on Windows 8.  Our initial fears were confirmed when the customer phoned to say several of the computers kept hanging.  Now, however, everything seems to have settled down.  For two days they had no problems and they agreed they would telephone us if it hang again and three days have gone by since then.  So for a week everything has been stable.  We don't think this was due to any of the actions we took to resolve the problem - we think it is more likely that Microsoft issued an update that settled it all down.

The customer is very happy with the performance and speed of the computers and because we installed a Classic Start menu there have not been any comments about the new user interface.

Maybe we should not have been so hesitant?

I will let you know how this progresses.  A good Windows 8 computer is blisteringly quick, so it would be great if all our doubts and hesitations were proven unfounded.

Rebecca

3rd April 2013