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BT only takes bookings online for its Home IT Support service, which is a problem if you have internet access issues. It's also only available to BT landline subscribers, and payment is made via your phone bill. Unlike the next-day service offered by Geek Squad and PC Callout Limited, BT Home IT Support requires three days' notice for an engineer visit.

The engineer arrived on time and was quick to diagnose the spyware infection. This is hardly a Holmesian feat of deduction, given the gigantic spyware warning on the desktop. This, he suggested, was likely to be the root of all of the laptop's problems and, with the spyware removed, all should be well. He produced a utility CD, slipped it into the laptop and attempted to install Spybot Search & Destroy. The key word here is 'attempt'.

As part of its standard installation, Spybot attempts to download updates from its server, although this option can be disabled. This simple fact seemed to escape the engineer's attention, who was puzzled by Spybot's inability to download anything. He thought it should be obtaining its updates from the CD. We suggested plugging in our USB 3G modem to remedy this, but he dismissed the idea.

After several unsuccessful attempts to install Spybot, the engineer concluded that the operating system had some missing components. After pursuing a fruitless line of enquiry with Windows System Restore (the earliest restore point was from a month before), he reached for the Samsung recovery disc.

More fun then followed as the engineer repeatedly tried to run the recovery disc from within Windows. However, the laptop had been updated to Windows XP Service Pack 2 and the recovery disc has Service Pack 1. The recovery process failed with a complaint about a "newer version of Windows" being installed. This too appeared to baffle the engineer.

After wasting more time repeatedly trying to run the system recovery within Windows, he decided to boot the laptop from the CD instead. We stifled a cheer. Alas, the laptop insisted on booting from the hard disk, so the engineer then spent several minutes tinkering with the drive boot order in the BIOS, all to no avail. What he missed was that the BIOS option to disable the full-screen Samsung logo (which appears after the usual POST) hides the "Press any key to boot from CD" BIOS message.

So, it was back into Windows, where he wasted 10 more minutes uninstalling Service Pack 2. The recovery disc then ran successfully from within Windows and we waited another 40 minutes for it to complete. However, the engineer opted just to delete the existing Windows folder and reinstall the operating system over the top of the remaining files, rather than delete the C: partition and reinstall Windows from scratch.

With Windows reinstalled, the engineer tried installing Spybot S&D again, but this time he disabled the auto-update option. This is something he should have done an hour earlier. The spyware-generated Windows Desktop message had gone, since the HTML file it consisted of had been deleted along with the Windows folder. The engineer claimed that we now didn't need to run a spyware scan and that having Spybot S&D running in the background would be sufficient.

After checking that Windows Update was working (it was, since the corrupt folder had been deleted), the engineer wrote up the bill, happy with his handiwork. Despite his advice, once he'd gone, we ran a Spybot scan and it found some traces of spyware. The hard disk was just as troublesome as ever.

1 Web www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayCategory.do?categoryId=CON-HM-IT-SUPORT-R1 Phone N/A Home services www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayTopic.do?topicId=22816 Telephone service N/A Engineer manner Friendly, but displayed an apparent worrying lack of technical knowledge Cost £150 Time taken One hour 45 minutes Verdict BT Home Support proved by far the most expensive service, due to the engineer wasting an hour on the trivial spyware problem and ignoring the other two issues.