The Crazy HelpDesk
The Crazy Helpdesk
and their brave users
or how to fall in love with a computer
@n IT novel
by Tannessen and the people of MOU XII
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The Crazy HelpDesk
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The Crazy HelpDesk
for my users ;-)
‘Licence Agreement’
The writer of this manual has worked in many Helpdesks, has answered
calls from many thousands of users, had dozens of colleagues, has worked as
and with Email Administrators, Webmasters, Programmers, Teachers, Support
Staff. Hence any resemblance with existing persons is a pure and well meant
coincidence, as only kind things can be said about them.
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The Crazy HelpDesk
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The Crazy HelpDesk
Summary
Summary........................................................................................................................5
Switch on...................................................................................................................... 10
Start .......................................................................................................................... .... 11
The %Environnement% ............................................................................................ 14
The House .................................................................................................................... 17
The day when chaos came ..........................................................................................20
The new Helpdesk .......................................................................................................22
Chaos installs ............................................................................................................... 29
It’s lunchtime ...............................................................................................32
The visit of the Garden gnomes ................................................................................. 39
Make a distribution list in Outlook .....................................................................43
The good Helpdesk......................................................................................................45
FAQs Windows............................................................................................................ 52
Menu Bars................................................................................................................ 53
Toolbars ................................................................................................................... 53
Taskbar ....................................................................................................................54
“Must I now right-click or left-click or what-click?”........................................54
Zip files, pdf files, expand & collapse .....................................................................54
It’s raining trainees .....................................................................................................56
Active Directory ......................................................................................................56
Logon.......................................................................................................................59
Change password ..................................................................................................... 65
The Key and Super User.............................................................................................67
Network, LAN, router, hub, IP address, Gateway, TCP/IP .....................................71
Tools-Options-Preferences ......................................................................................73
Registry.................................................................................................................... 73
Where are my documents? ......................................................................................... 78
A dangerous command: Save and Save As.............................................................. 78
Files and Folders......................................................................................................81
Create a new folder .................................................................................................. 82
Servers ..................................................................................................................... 83
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The Crazy HelpDesk
Shares.......................................................................................................................83
Permissions .............................................................................................................. 85
It’s lunchtime..................................................................................................85
The mystery of the E: drive .....................................................................................86
Map – because what is life without an E: drive ....................................................... 89
Where put my documents ........................................................................................90
The diabolic plan ......................................................................................................... 94
Sensitive Hardware ................................................................................................... 100
Blue screen of death............................................................................................... 103
Restart your computer............................................................................................ 104
Wrong Keyboard Driver ........................................................................................ 104
Printers stuck ......................................................................................................... 104
What’s a Driver...................................................................................................... 106
It’s lunchtime...............................................................................................107
Network problems ................................................................................................. 111
IP-Address ............................................................................................................. 111
Sound not working................................................................................................. 113
Digital camera........................................................................................................ 114
USB-FlashDisk ...................................................................................................... 114
Icons and text too small ......................................................................................... 116
And all those cables ...............................................................................................117
Phantom users ........................................................................................................... 118
Permissions!........................................................................................................... 124
It’s lunchtime ..............................................................................................125
Show this folder as an Email address book ........................................................... 127
All work and no play................................................................................................. 131
It’s lunchtime ..............................................................................................140
A Computer romance ............................................................................................... 143
It’s lunchtime ..............................................................................................146
Logon not working ................................................................................................ 151
Wanted! The problem user ...................................................................................... 153
Black screen........................................................................................................... 154
It’s lunchtime. ............................................................................................160
The Light.................................................................................................................... 164
Some VBScript code.............................................................................................. 166
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The Crazy HelpDesk
Show this folder as an Email address book ........................................................... 168
Properties ............................................................................................................... 169
It’s lunchtime ..............................................................................................170
The World is watching.............................................................................................. 173
Intranet & Internet ................................................................................................. 173
JavaScript............................................................................................................... 178
I love only two things in life...................................................................................... 179
Magic is needed ......................................................................................................... 188
It’s lunchtime ..............................................................................................192
Grateful users ............................................................................................................ 194
Doctor Watson in jail ................................................................................................ 202
a Tab in a table.......................................................................................................207
Copy a good text format elsewhere ....................................................................... 207
Corrupted documents............................................................................................. 208
Check Spelling as you type.................................................................................... 212
It’s lunchtime ..............................................................................................212
The midnight fair ...................................................................................................... 216
A Midnight lunch........................................................................................216
Artificial Intelligence, Biometrics .........................................................................218
Incognito Mailboxes .............................................................................................. 220
Birthday databases.................................................................................................... 223
Install a delegate Access ........................................................................................ 224
Tracking Options ................................................................................................... 228
It’s lunchtime ..............................................................................................232
A Birthday database in MS Access........................................................................ 233
Create a table ......................................................................................................... 234
Create a Form ........................................................................................................ 235
Print a Report......................................................................................................... 236
Create a Select Query in Access ............................................................................ 237
Update Query......................................................................................................... 238
Relational databases............................................................................................... 238
Web princes ............................................................................................................... 241
Learn Internet in 5 minutes.................................................................................... 241
Find a topic, save a picture of it, send the page by Email, save the link, page not
found and HTTP 404 ............................................................................................. 241
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The Crazy HelpDesk
It’s lunchtime................................................................................................246
Misty children............................................................................................................ 249
Minimum requirements for a PC ........................................................................... 253
Web crushes............................................................................................................... 260
It’s lunchtime ..............................................................................................266
@ Bracelet.................................................................................................................. 269
Instead of lunch ............................................................................................272
Search for files you can’t find................................................................................ 273
Poetic formulas .......................................................................................................... 276
Some mysterious formulas in Excel. ..................................................................... 279
Carnival......................................................................................................................286
And some lunchtime....................................................................................295
Garden of Software ................................................................................................... 297
Digital Sender ........................................................................................................ 299
Acrobat PDF .......................................................................................................... 299
Optical Character Recognition............................................................................... 299
Image editors ......................................................................................................... 300
Audio editors ......................................................................................................... 301
Burn a CD .............................................................................................................. 302
Download sites....................................................................................................... 302
It’s lunchtime .............................................................................................304
A Bowl of Milk........................................................................................................... 305
A tangible formula .................................................................................................... 309
It’s lunchtime ..............................................................................................311
Excel - Make a wish................................................................................................... 314
Second line in an Excel cell ................................................................................... 314
How to put an Excel table into Word..................................................................... 314
How to make a sheet fit on one page for printing..................................................315
Print the table titles on each page .......................................................................... 315
It’s lunchtime ..............................................................................................319
Make a pretty signature in Outlook ....................................................................... 319
Excel formulas. Date, String, If and more ............................................................. 321
Insert a Name for your end results......................................................................... 324
Lovely code ................................................................................................................ 325
Macros ................................................................................................................... 326
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The Crazy HelpDesk
Loop....................................................................................................................... 328
If-then-else............................................................................................................. 329
It’s lunchtime - but only an appointment yet ..............................................330
It’s lunchtime - but nothing happens...........................................................333
WordArt................................................................................................................. 333
The secret room ..................................