Microsoft Technical Support - doh

I don't like using this blog as a rant area, but today I am making an exception. We are putting together an Active/Passive cluster for our exchange server and have found documentation available for this to be sparse and conflicting. We haven't used any of our yearly Microsoft Technical Support pack, so today I thought I'd give it a go.

BIG MISTAKE

We basically want to check the SCSI configuration required for both servers in this set-up, which on the face of it, is not a difficult question to ask. So we call the Technical Support line at Microsoft, as we get a few free calls a year because we are Microsoft Certified Partners.

I explain what we are trying to check and the support guy tells us "You need to pay for a consultant". I was amazed. But in fact it gets worse. I receive a rambled excuse that he's not on-site, so he can't advise us on that, and we should check white papers.

Any suggestions for the white papers, I ask - "No you have to find those yourself".

I shudder to think how non Microsoft Certified Partners are treated. The guy seemed like he was having a bad day and couldn't be bothered. It was a simple question, all we wanted was a simple answer, not a drawn out excuse why that information couldn't be given to us.

Let me explain one thing Microsoft, dumb and cockey responses like this are not why we subscribed to the Microsoft Certified Partner Programme. On the positive side for Microsoft, they'll be making a saving, because we won't be calling the support line again.

One other thing Microsoft, rather than paying for a consultant, we will be paying for Merak Mailserver instead.