PC support over the phone is a ridiculous idea

It's easy to laugh at PC call centres, but I think the problem is in the nature of the PC itself. It does many things and isn't quite an appliance. There are just too many failure points in software, especially on a system administered by novices.

That said, PC support over the phone is a ridiculous idea. If PC vendors really wanted to improve customer service experience, they should add screenshare software into their BIOS (with an obvious hardware kill switch). When you can actually *see* the other desktop, lots of problems become easy. (And if the network is fubar-ed so this BIOS-based screen share doesn't work, give the customer an onsite visit (charge for it if it's not in the service plan).