I've spent two days trying to get my Outlook account to actually work. It always did and then one day it didn't anymore. No more calendars and contacts for me for some reason.
During all of this I have waded through some fairly twisted support and security stuff that seems more like something out of some scifi comedy where the protagonist argues at length with an insulted vending machine.
It started amusingly with me being asked to click on something only to then be told that I needed to do this from the same device as where the request came from. It was the same device (although I could have stupidly been in the wrong dimension).
Another way into the support swamp had me clicking on links to continue only to be met with "that page doesn't exist, please try a valid link". Various times.
I was then unexpectedly thrust into a battle with an authenticator app I was asked to download. (it wouldn't at first, claiming that either I or it didn't exist, I didn't quite catch which but there was a long error code involved). Once installed it fed me verification codes and then promptly told me that none of these were valid. As an alternative way in I could scan qr codes but I needed to do this using the same handset that the qr code was displayed on. Presumingly by tearing off the phone's camera and pointing it at the screen.
I tried again at Microsoft support and found myself in a conversation with a computer generated support person that answered anything I said with these absurd completely non related haiku like answers. I was starting to think it was all some sort of a hidden camera show setup.
My non human chat partner told me that I could request a human being to talk to. This I did and was immediately told that my request was invalid.
Throughout all of this I have also frequently been forwarded to a Norwegian support page since I live in Norway, even though my language is set to US English. The twist is of course that the Norwegian page is also auto generated and auto translated into some sort of pseudo language with technical terms that aren't actually real words.
So this was just today and yesterday, trying to get my Outlook account to work. Amazingly I remain calm yet with no calendar nor friends. I'm successfully logged in and verified in every way but it still doesn't work. I can see my contacts online, just not access them in any way on my phone.
So what to do? I would throw this Windows handset away (into a nice brick wall perhaps) and buy an iPhone, if it wasn't for a very similar experience recently regarding an iPad that suddenly found me its good old faithful owner, a security threat. That time I needed to schedule a phone conversation a day in advance with a poor clueless person who decided during the conversation to call Apple customer support himself while I waited. For half an hour while I was listening to a broken distorted music track that was turned up so high it was all just painful crunchy distorted torture noise! (Well, to be fair they did fix the bug that time unlike now).
I think that if things suddenly go really wrong due to some random bug, you are pretty much screwed unless some smart kind real human on an independant forum is able to help you. As for the official support, they may very well not even try to help you if it's an actual problem that doesn't simply involve turning it off and on again. You are on your own. Throw device into previously mentioned brick wall. Buy a new device and try to convince yourself that you've won.
I have vented. So if you have read this far, I'm hoping that you too may have some interesting support experiences to share. Please do so now!
During all of this I have waded through some fairly twisted support and security stuff that seems more like something out of some scifi comedy where the protagonist argues at length with an insulted vending machine.
It started amusingly with me being asked to click on something only to then be told that I needed to do this from the same device as where the request came from. It was the same device (although I could have stupidly been in the wrong dimension).
Another way into the support swamp had me clicking on links to continue only to be met with "that page doesn't exist, please try a valid link". Various times.
I was then unexpectedly thrust into a battle with an authenticator app I was asked to download. (it wouldn't at first, claiming that either I or it didn't exist, I didn't quite catch which but there was a long error code involved). Once installed it fed me verification codes and then promptly told me that none of these were valid. As an alternative way in I could scan qr codes but I needed to do this using the same handset that the qr code was displayed on. Presumingly by tearing off the phone's camera and pointing it at the screen.
I tried again at Microsoft support and found myself in a conversation with a computer generated support person that answered anything I said with these absurd completely non related haiku like answers. I was starting to think it was all some sort of a hidden camera show setup.
My non human chat partner told me that I could request a human being to talk to. This I did and was immediately told that my request was invalid.
Throughout all of this I have also frequently been forwarded to a Norwegian support page since I live in Norway, even though my language is set to US English. The twist is of course that the Norwegian page is also auto generated and auto translated into some sort of pseudo language with technical terms that aren't actually real words.
So this was just today and yesterday, trying to get my Outlook account to work. Amazingly I remain calm yet with no calendar nor friends. I'm successfully logged in and verified in every way but it still doesn't work. I can see my contacts online, just not access them in any way on my phone.
So what to do? I would throw this Windows handset away (into a nice brick wall perhaps) and buy an iPhone, if it wasn't for a very similar experience recently regarding an iPad that suddenly found me its good old faithful owner, a security threat. That time I needed to schedule a phone conversation a day in advance with a poor clueless person who decided during the conversation to call Apple customer support himself while I waited. For half an hour while I was listening to a broken distorted music track that was turned up so high it was all just painful crunchy distorted torture noise! (Well, to be fair they did fix the bug that time unlike now).
I think that if things suddenly go really wrong due to some random bug, you are pretty much screwed unless some smart kind real human on an independant forum is able to help you. As for the official support, they may very well not even try to help you if it's an actual problem that doesn't simply involve turning it off and on again. You are on your own. Throw device into previously mentioned brick wall. Buy a new device and try to convince yourself that you've won.
I have vented. So if you have read this far, I'm hoping that you too may have some interesting support experiences to share. Please do so now!
Support for everything sucks anymore... but wm10 and outlook are extra bad
I've found it's best to not use free apps or activate features on your phone you don't need. My current Android phone is bone stock and only used as a phone with occasional pictures and texting. 
Progress isn't always good....
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