What do you tell end-users when they don't want to restart?

Question

Hello, I work in tech support for a company whose end-users seem to think every-time we are telling them to restart, we are taking a shortcut of some sort. In general (since it really depends on the applications and operating system in use), what do you tell them when they ask "why do I have to restart"?

Thanks.

Answer 1

You must have some strange users, I support hundreds from various companies, and I never had one that questioned me on that question.

I suppose in ways, you could say 'In order for the update or changes to work correctly, they need to restart or the computer may not work correctly and they may lose any work they been working with."

Answer 2

Well, years ago when working as a systems programmmer and system administrator on a set of large mainframes, there was 1 programmer in the development staff that used to keep coming to me saying the system had a problem. I'd look at what he was doing, explain what was wrong, and where to look in what manual for an explanation. He always refused to believe he could be making an error, and it was always "your systems have a problem". I finally got so tired of it that one day I kept resetting his password. He'd come to me and say "I'm sorry, but I forgot my password again". I'd screw around for a while and then reset it again. Did this all day. Funny thing, he never came back and said that "my" systems (the mainframe OS's) had a problem.

So, why not disable a network connection for them, and when they want it fixed just tell them they need to shut down first, then call you when they are down so you can do something (just re-enable it) and call them back when you're "done".

Answer 3

they need to reset the system parameters.....when dealing with the public, if you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bulls#*t

Answer 4

what you just told me