Have an Online Chat With Tech Support

PCSupport.com offers expert advice via live chat, but don't expect perfection.

Lincoln Spector, special to PC World

Third-party Web sites are looking to bridge the gap between your technical support expectations and the actual service that you may be getting. But many of those sites aren't exactly what you need, either. They offer expert advice, but to get it you have to submit your question (usually by e-mail) and then wait until you eventually get an answer.

Now you have a new place to turn.

On Monday, PCsupport.com announced a more immediate approach to Web-based technical support. The PC Support Center now offers expert advice via chat, known as Live Assist Support.

Now you can expect an expert to answer your technical query in minutes or seconds, as opposed to hours or days. But in some ways, the wait can seem longer than that required for support by e-mail. Why? Because you really have to wait for the answer, staring at your screen instead of going about your business.

The PC Support Center will also have an e-mail-based system called Email Assist. Both services are free.

Is It Live?

Live chat has some decided advantages over e-mail when it comes to getting how-to information. For one thing, there's a real dialogue, which lets the specialist tailor the answers to your needs.

For instance, I asked the PC Support Center about changing the default NumLock setting on my computer. The technician first told me I could change it in my CMOS. Feigning ignorance, I asked him what a CMOS was. He then made the reasonable assumption that I was a novice who shouldn't be fiddling around with my CMOS, and told me--through careful, step-by-step instructions--how to change the setting in config.sys.

But the Support Center staff doesn't always have the right answer.

When I asked about problems shutting down Windows 98 SE, the technician didn't know about a documented SE bug for which a patch is available. And I had to wait days for a particular Quicken answer; what I finally received, via e-mail, was an admission that they didn't know.

Additional Goodies

The folks at PCsupport.com can even look at your computer. Through technology from WebEx, Support Center personnel can access and diagnose your PC remotely. That does sound a bit scary, but PCsupport.com promises that they won't do it without your permission.

The site also offers free utilities that you run over the Internet, including disk maintenance, software updates, and backup. The company is promising that virus scanning will be available at an unspecified future date.

Technical support can never be perfect; no one can possibly know everything. But PCsupport.com is one more place you can go for free information, and perhaps find an answer.