Workshop

You’ll also find forums run by third-party vendors who use them as advertising vehicles. The attraction
of these is that the third-party vendors are ostensibly impartial about the product and are mostly
concerned with getting it to work for their users. Again, your mileage may vary. (See Figure 7.3 for a
sample forum screen for Windows NT.)
Figure 7.3 A third-party Windows NT support site.
Pay to Play
All free support entails very little obligation on the part of the vendor, but it can be pretty good if you
take ownership of the problem and follow up aggressively. Still, there are times when you might need
more than you can get for free; in this case, you can invest in a CD-ROM technical support knowledge
base.
In particular, some Web-based knowledge bases, such as Microsoft’s, are so busy that it can be
aggravating waiting for each page to download. Instead, you can buy a subscription to Microsoft’s
TechNet for a couple of hundred dollars. Whether you love or hate Microsoft, you’ve got to love
TechNet. As with most CD-ROM knowledge bases, you get what you pay for—much more sophisticated
features, which result in speedier access. For example, you can refine your search results by product type
and you can bookmark. TechNet has every single technical information document available on the Web
site, but it runs about ten times faster (see Figure 7.4).
Figure 7.4 A Microsoft TechNet session.