ANSWER: I am sure readers are chuckling at the first word of your question, wondering how you got so lucky. Many firms are experiencing more than occasional problems with either their hardware or software or both. While the goal of recent improvements has been to simplify our lives, the reality is our computers are more complex than ever. The investment community has made technology the sweetheart of the stock market. When software companies get investment capital, their priorities, by necessity, must change. Instead of focusing primarily on making an excellent product that people will want to buy, technology vendors also need to provide a return on investment to backers and stockholders. Suddenly, the quarterly numbers are more important than the software patches and technical support they provided at no charge.

The investment environment, combined with consumer expectations (part of this might be our fault?), means products are being rushed to market with less testing than in previous generations. WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS was introduced in 1989. It was several years before the next version came out. In contrast, most vendors now are on annual cycles for major product releases and often have minor upgrades throughout the year. Consumers, who are forever being told what they want will be in the next version, are partly to blame because by pushing for that next version, more pressure is added to vendors.

Further complicating things is the wide variety of products that must work together to ensure a stable environment. In fact, determining the source of the problem often can be the most-frustrating step, but the most-important. One product can conflict with another. The hardest part of troubleshooting is isolating the conflict and resolving it.

There are some cynical people who believe we may as well throw up our hands since the underlying operating system software (Windows 95, 98 or NT) often is the cause of many of the problems. Recently, a technician at a software company told me he had heard that Microsoft’s unofficial slogan is “The product isn’t complete until Netscape (or whatever other product was in their sights) won’t run.” When it comes to an operating system, in this climate, unless you’re brave, have a lot of time, are desperate for a new feature or simply can’t buy a computer without it, you’re best off waiting until a new product has been in use for a couple months before introducing it into your firm. The web site for a particular product can be a good source to see if patches have been introduced to resolve problems early adapters have uncovered.

Begin diagnosis

The first step is determining whether you’re dealing with an equipment-based problem or a software glitch. This diagnosis requires a careful look at the problem you’re encountering. The first question is, “What has been done recently to the computer to make it behave differently?” Sometimes, you’ll get lucky and realize it was moved from one side of the office to the other and the problem is a loose cable. After checking the obvious things — is it plugged into the surge protector and is the surge protector on? — you should examine the other components if you suspect an equipment failure. This may make it necessary to open the computer to be sure all the boards are still tightly connected and all the cables properly connected.

If you’re on a network, make sure your computer still is properly connected. Again, check the wires and take a look at the Network Neighbourhood icon to make sure you can see more than your local floppy and hard drives. One advantage of a network is you can compare one workstation to another when you’re having problems. For instance, if one or two workstations are experiencing problems while others aren’t, you can focus on the differences between the working systems and the malfunctioning units.

You also should consider whether all the programs on a computer are causing problems, such as inability to print, or if there are performance issues, such as a noticeable slowdown in starting programs. If every program on a given computer has suddenly gone into slow motion but other computers in the office are behaving properly, you should compare the drivers and programs on the two computers. Did you recently download new virus protection files on the bad computer? What else is different?

Adventure time

Sometimes, trying to figure out why you’re having a particular problem can seem as if you’ve embarked on a wild adventure.

A few months ago, I was helping a client set up three new computers: one each for her office, her weekend house and a laptop for home. We installed the office computer and configured lots of programs including WordPerfect. With the purchase of the new computers, my client was making the move from DOS to Windows. In her old system, she had relied on Notebook, a wonderful, flexible Rolodex program that could be used to create letters and other documents from the names on the list. As a result of her reliance on this Rolodex, we converted her data to the Corel Address Book, which is part of the WordPerfect Suite.

The problems arose when we transferred the customized components to the two other computers. After ensuring all the required files had been copied to the other PCs, we started to test everything. For some unexplained reason, we couldn’t get into the Address Book. We kept getting an error message: “An error occurred trying to logon to MAPI for Address Book Services.” OK, so what could we do?

Our first choice, if we had a lot of time and unlimited dollars, would be to call Corel’s technical support department. Depending on the nature of the problem, the particular product and, to some extent, the luck of the draw, you may be able to get specific help quickly by telephone. Very few companies still offer toll-free technical support. Alas, when they do, you often get what you pay for. It’s even more frustrating when you’ve paid an annual fee to get help and don’t get it when you need it. While there are some vendors who continue to provide excellent technical support by telephone, these vendors are in the minority. Firms still converting from DOS versions may encounter additional frustration. The people at the other end of the phone rarely have worked with the DOS versions of their company’s products. It’s pointless to ask them to tell you where a favorite feature has gone.

Insiders’ secret

What other options are there for getting problems resolved? Before calling your hardware vendor or computer consultant and spending real dollars to get a resolution, you should check out the best-kept secret for resolving computer problems: the Internet. Every major vendor, and even most minor ones, have web sites that will give you a lot of help in resolving problems.

The first place to look is within the help resources within the particular program. This assumes, of course, you have isolated the problem to a specific product and can explain it in terms the program understands. Sometimes, there will be a section under the Contents tab titled Troubleshooting. This generally is a good place to start. The index also may be helpful if you have a term you can search that might guide you to help-text about that topic. A little-known trick with the help options within software programs is to choose the Find tab. The first time you select this for a particular program, it will run a Wizard. You can choose the minimum data base. After it has created the data base, you can use this feature to search for a word or phrase anywhere in the help files for the program. For example, if you’re trying to figure out the best way to print multiple envelopes from a merge file, you might not get too much help from the Table of Contents or the index. However, if you search for “envelope” in the Find section, you will get more choices.

Another place to look on a vendor’s site is for software patches or new drivers if you’re experiencing hardware difficulties. Frequently, you’re not the first person dealing with the problem and the vendor already may have resolved the issue with a software patch. Downloading patches from the Internet is pretty easy and they’re usually accompanied by installation instructions. Read through the list of items the patch is fixing before downloading or copying it to your computer. Unless you’re in dire need, wait a bit if the patch is fairly recent.

Tech support base

The other resource on many web sites is the company’s technical support knowledge base. In the past, these data bases were used exclusively by the vendor’s telephone technical support staff to answer questions. It’s more beneficial economically for computer companies to share this information directly with customers.

Searching the Corel knowledge base (kb.corel.com/) for the phrase “logon MAPI Address Book,” we were directed to the Microsoft knowledge base (microsoft.com/kb/). This was an instance when that software technician was right about Microsoft not releasing its software until its competitors’ products wouldn’t work. The source of the address book problem was the way Microsoft Outlook, part of the Office 97 suite, had been pre-installed by the hardware manufacturer. The knowledge base told us to remove Outlook and reinstall it with the corporate instead of individual option. Once we found this information, we were able to get the Corel Address Book working properly.

Ironically, while my client insisted the PCs were identical, they were not. Her office machine did not have the Microsoft suite while the laptop and weekend-house computers did. In fact, she told me that on those models, she would have had to pay to have the hardware manufacturer not install the suite. (Are you really wondering why Microsoft is battling the Justice Department on anti-trust charges?)

Fax and e-mail

Another resource many computer companies provide is access to their technical support personnel by fax and e-mail. Fax-based services usually have canned responses to frequently asked questions. These can be handy if your problem is one the company often encounters. Some vendors accept questions by fax and will provide detailed, specific answers free of charge, while others will answer only commonly asked questions.

E-mail can be a very effective tool for getting quick answers to troublesome problems, provided the vendor responds to inquiries. I have been surprised over the years how few vendors reply substantively to e-mail requests for help. Those that do, however, are doing a real service to their customers.

Legal technology magazines such as Law Office Computing from James Publishing and the American Bar Association’s Law Practice Management Magazine also can be useful sources of help. Often, they include tips and tricks for dealing with popular legal software, along with product reviews.

On the net

There also are many places on-line where lawyers and others in the legal community meet to troubleshoot problems. Among the more popular are the TechnoLawyer Community, which consists of a listserv (common mailing list of shared e-mail messages) (technolawyer.com), and Network 2d (abanet.org/lpm). There also are so-called Usenet groups for almost every major software product including legal groups within them.

If you’re in the process of upgrading software, you also may want to look at training resources on the Internet. When working with off-the-shelf products such as word processors, there is a wealth of training materials in a variety of media. There are web sites, such as tutorials.com, that deliver multimedia training sessions over the Internet. These are innovative methods for training people to use new software.

With the complications of today’s hardware and software, an expert is merely someone who has already grappled with the problem and figured out a solution.

Carol L. Schlein is president of Law Office Systems, a Montclair-based training and consulting firm specializing in law firms. She formerly chaired the Computer and Technology Division of the ABA Law Practice Management Section. She will be speaking at next month’s ABA Techshow in Chicago. She can be reached at (973) 746-6454 or carol@losinc.com.

Questions for Carol Schlein on law office technology may be faxed to New Jersey Lawyer at (732) 750-0010 or mailed to “Law Technology Questions,” New Jersey Lawyer, Koll Corporate Plaza, 485B Route 1, Suite 100, Iselin, N.J. 08830.