Joe thanks, and usually sign that the person advising has no idea what issue is, so that waste your time completely. You see it on other forums a lot... People who have not a clue of issue suggest that a lot.
In my experience with professional tech support, it is most often a sign the support person is being rated or paid based on the number of calls they handle per day or per hour and may even be fired for taking too long on any one call (a common practice in the tech support business). The poor support technician is simply looking for the quickest fix they can find, so they can take another call or maybe work in a bathroom break. While Microsoft did have a minimum number of calls you were expected (required?) to handle per day, they did permit bathroom breaks and had a nice lunchroom in the building. On the other hand, I encountered support people from various third party support organizations who routinely wore disposable underwear because they often had no time for bathroom breaks.
All of that considered it is a
quick fix that in the Windows world, has a high success rate. Not so much in the Mac world, but because it is so common in the Windows world, the advice does bleed over.
