Having given up on Symantec’s “Norton” products for protecting my PCs against malware, I’ve been casting about for another vendor of security software. Tracie’s Dell laptop came pre-loaded with some anti-spam\/anti-virus stuff from Trend Micro. It seems to work fairly well, so I purchased a three-seat pack of their current Internet Security 2007 package and installed it on the Paper Jade corporate computer and my other main PC. All seemed well at first, and I noticed in particular that its spam filter was quite effective.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately it doesn’t get along well with the Microsoft debugger. This tool is essential for my Audio Damage work; if I can’t use the debugger, I can’t get my job done. So I sent the following message to Trend Micro’s support department via their web form:<\/p>\n
I installed your product on my main PC and it seems to interact badly with Microsoft’s Visual C++ debugger. Your product seems to generate an endless stream of spurious log events when I use the debugger. Is there are workaround for this issue? I have been forced to remove your product since it makes me unable to do my work, but I would like to resume using it because I have been pleased with its performance on my other machine. Thanks for your assistance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I’ll admit that this is not the most complete and detailed problem report that one could write. However, I figured that this is a known problem–I can’t be the only one who’s trying to run their software and Microsoft’s development tools at the same time–so I assumed that someone would see it, go “oh yeah, the debugger problem” and send me the appropriate canned response. Here’s the respose I received:<\/p>\n
Dear Adam,<\/p>\n
A pleasant day to you!<\/p>\n
Thank you for contacting Trend Micro Technical Support. I have carefully read your email and I understand that you may seems to have issues with firewall.<\/p>\n
If I misunderstood your concern, please feel free in replying to this email with more information. If I was able to determine the problem properly, kindly refer to the information I have provided below:<\/p>\n
For PC-cillin Internet Security 2007.<\/p>\n
Kindly do the following to change the Personal Firewall Profile…<\/p>\n
1. Open the PC-Cillin’s main console and then click on Personal Network and Firewall Controls.<\/p>\n
2. Click on Personal Firewall, then click on the Settings button.<\/p>\n
3. Click on Home Network then click on Activate this Profile button.<\/p>\n
4. Click OK.<\/p>\n
Note: The Knowledge Base is a depository of information allowing users to get help in resolving any issue that may arise in using Trend Micro products. You can visit knowledge base web site at this link: http:\/\/kb.trendmicro.com\/solutions\/solutionSearch.asp<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n
Please try the suggestions above at your earliest convenience. Should you have further concerns, please do not hesitate in sending us an e-mail. It is always our pleasure assisting you.<\/p>\n
If ever your issue has been resolved, please email us back with a simple “close case” message so that we could formally close this case.<\/p>\n
Thanks for choosing our product!<\/p>\n
Best Regards,<\/p>\n
Karen Martin<\/p>\n
Consumer Support Team<\/p>\n
TrendLabs HQ, Trend Micro Incorporated<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Obviously this response is of no use to me. To point out the obvious: I didn’t say anything about the firewall, and she didn’t say anything about the debugger. Ever-so-slightly less obvious is the point that I can’t “try the suggestions above at [my] earliest convenience” because even if they were relevant, I’ve already removed the software from my computer. (Yes, I did visit their Knowledge Base; I did so before filing the support request.)<\/p>\n
I assume that somehow someone (or something) didn’t have a ready response to my inquiry and grabbed one of the canned responses at random, hoping I’d give up and go away. Instead I replied as follows:<\/p>\n
To whom it may concern,<\/p>\n
Your reply has nothing at all to do with the problem I’m having with your product. Please re-read my original query and answer it. Thank you.<\/p>\n
–Adam<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I’ll post their response when I receive it. I’m not holding my breath. Meanwhile I’m giving the spam filter by PC Tools a try. Their Spyware Doctor (now available free from Google) seems quite good. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Having given up on Symantec’s “Norton” products for protecting my PCs against malware, I’ve been casting about for another vendor of security software. Tracie’s Dell laptop came pre-loaded with some anti-spam\/anti-virus stuff from Trend Micro. It seems to work fairly well, so I purchased a three-seat pack of their current Internet Security 2007 package and… Continue reading Trend Micro: Impressively Bad Customer Support<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}