One of my clients bought an XBox for the kids last year and when I needed to pair the second remote before Christmas, I also tried to do an update. The screen showed that it didn't have enough space for the update and that it needed to be formatted. I did both and the game & second remote worked fine. Last week, I got an e-mail stating that the Kinect wasn't working, so I stopped by yesterday. It now shows that an update is needed and the hard drive is un-formatted. What the what? I verified that the green LED on the Kinect blinks, but the window showing movement by the player doesn't sense anything and I tried moving my hand and holding it still, as the screen shows. I shut everything down and disconnected power for about a minute and that solved nothing.

Any help is appreciated.

Did you sell them the XBOX?

I specifically wipe my hands of game consoles.

If there is a picture on the TV then it's not my problem

Exactly. When they call again, give them the number for Microsoft.

The Xbox One is one the the most frustrating pieces of technology that I've had the misfortune to touch. I too now inform people we will run the cabling required but setup is on them.

I just had to charge a guy $500 because of an Xbox one. He called told me his kid couldn't get online because of a my network company went thru everything was fine. The settings on Xbox one by default was the problem. Game console have to be t&m .

Agree wholeheartedly.

My 14yr old set up the Xbox one in a couple of hours. Most of which was DL games and updates. Not sure where your trouble is at, but I also don't touch software or computers or game consoles. I put PSS on one computer and I get calls on it all the time.

Thats the problem right there. Any one I have touched required a couple hours of painful downloads, updates, passwords after passwords after passwords. Every one I have done was thrown in as a, "Oh, can you put this in as well, we just go it for our son". Had I known at the time how long they took, I would have said we will have to come back and charge you the trip charge plus T&M.

Soooooo, is anyone going to answer his actual question? :)

No- I have done all of their AV and security camera/DVR work since early '07, so I said I'd look at it. I did the original installation and it worked fine- both controllers work and the Kinect worked until recently. Next time I go there, I'll format the hard drive and see if that helps.

And start the bill NOW for your time.

Find the acne scarred kid at the Game Stop who all of the other acne scarred kids at the Game Stop look up to. Ask him if he wants to make a quick hundo on a consulting gig and drag him out to do it. Either that, or offer him/her something like $25-30/hr, paid on the spot when it works correctly.

Pass the charge along to the client, with or without a markup.

They know it's a PITA and I don't have ANY problems receiving payments from them- between what I have done for them and all of the referrals, I'm in the >$150K range. Besides- I only have about 20 minutes into it, this time.

Also, you know that idea that someone will pay others to do things when their time is more valuable? That- in spades.

I went to one of the XBox forums last time and did what they told me, but the thing seems to have reverted to a previous setting and I'm absolutely certain that Microsoft will treat me with the utmost respect and care if I call. Or, not.

What? It could happen.

I talked to the zit farm at Game Stop the last time and he said we needed an expansion model when we didn't, so.......