Honestly, I think we need to stop telling people to just 'reinstall Windows' for every single problem.

Tbh, I see this advice given out like candy on forums and even in shops. A customer brought me a laptop from a local school last week that was running slow. The first tech they saw told them a full wipe and reinstall was the only fix. Ngl, that's lazy. I ran a proper check and found a failing 2.5 inch SATA drive. The system was slow because of constant read errors, not software. A simple $50 SSD swap and a data transfer fixed it in an hour, saving all their files and settings. If we jump straight to a nuclear option, we miss the real issue and cause the user way more stress. It makes us look like we don't know how to actually diagnose things. Has anyone else had to clean up after a bad 'just reinstall it' call?

3 comments

3 Comments

king.aaron29d ago

Guilty as charged on that one. I've definitely thrown out the reinstall advice when I was in a hurry or feeling lazy. It's the tech equivalent of turning it off and on again, but sometimes you actually need to open the case and look.

the_julia29d ago

My last three tech support calls were just me telling people to reboot.

sarah43129d ago

Right there with you, it's my go-to fix too lol.