Got promoted to Desktop Support!

Got good news this week: I'm being promoted to Desktop Support from my helpdesk position. No more phones!

It will be a pretty large increase in pay and responsibility. I am really nervous, though, as I feel I don't know nearly enough about imaging, printers or generally harder windows troubleshooting problems.

Are there any resources that I should brush up on to prepare for a position like this? I had studied for the 70-685/686 but never took the tests. I just feel like I should know more net commands and other things like that which are important. Any current or former desktop guys want to give me some tips/tricks or advice on things that can really help me out in day to day tasks? Should I learn a scripting language?

Thanks guys!

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Comments

Devilry

Congrats on the promotion! Go get your 70-680, it will help you in that position most likely.

MrBishop

I would like to be the first to congratulate you on your promotion. Well, the second NOW!

cyberguypr

Congrats! I started my IT career doing deskside support many years ago. Just take your time to know the environment before going crazy reviewing stuff. And don't forget to ask questions and research if you don't know something. I still remember a guy getting fired 10+ years ago because he re-imaged 2 exec computers and didn't even care to ask them any questions or backup files.

N2IT

Nice work, it's always nice to see hard work come through.

kriscamaro68

Study for the 70-680-686 and learn the cmd-line/powershell it will make life easier. Also if your company uses it learn SCCM/Config Manager.

Kopite_21

Congrats on the promotion.

MeanDrunkR2D2

Congrats on the promotion! Myself, I'm a Desktop Admin and have been for over 2 years now at my current company. Honestly, don't over think the position because it may not be as intensive with scripting that you may fear. Google will be your best friend when trying to troubleshoot weird issues. Myself I am going to finish the 70-686 soon so that I have the MCITP EDA cert, and that is a track that I'd recommend. Its very helpful to have this knowledge with Windows 7 and the imaging solutions that it deals with. And each place is different and your imaging solution may be altirus ghost or something else. Hopefully you have a good co-worker that will be there to show you the oddness of some of the programs that you have in the company and tricks to fix them and common issues. Before you know it you'll be the go to guy.

spoonsslick

kudos on the promo! I need to start a tech. support job soon.

the_Grinch

Congrats! I'd give it a month before deciding what you need to start picking up. A lot of places use all different types of imaging solutions and for the most part they are straight forward. I second checking before doing a wipe (ask about files being backed up, etc). I once ran into an issue where I was told everyone saved to their H drive and the person was on vacation when they told me to switch out the computer. I did and then reimaged it for student use, of course the person had files on it. Good luck!

FloOz

congrats! you will be fine i am sure

X10MMX

Congrats... Remember your colleagues are there to help you. They were also in a new position before. If all else fails google is your friend

DigitalZeroOne

Congratulations, my advice is to always keep it simple when troubleshooting. No network connectivity? Make sure you check the cable first, machine not working...reboot. As you gain more experience, it becomes very easy to over-troubleshoot situations, so always try and start with the basics, rebooting, checking physical connections, using ping, comparing a working machine to a non-working machine.

As far as scripting, I vote for Powershell, depending on your job, you may or may not have an immediate use for it, but looking forward to System Admin jobs, Powershell will be very helpful because it touches so many products. Just think of the user that forgets to copy files to their home directory, write a one-line script, schedule it to run at a certain time, and you will have 1 less headache to worry about.

Oh, one last thing. If a user wants a file or files deleted, show them how to do it, but don't delete them, it can come back to bite you.

Akaricloud

The best piece of advice I can give is always, ALWAYS ask the user to save everything they have open before you touch their computer, no matter how simple the task is.

I've had this come back to bite me multiple times, including once where I caused the Dean of a major university to lose a bunch of open work. I was just checking the asset tag on the bottom of the laptop and ended up with losing power to the computer.

paulgswanson

Don't stress the Imaging techniques. They'll teach you all that, and scripting thats pretty much for the Senior OSS staff and server side folks. Desktop support is a pretty simple job once you figure it all out. Need any guidance once you start your role google it.

I pretty much have 60% of my day to study and goof off (and we're understaffed). Ping will be your bestest friend though

Akaricloud

paulgswanson wrote: »

I pretty much have 60% of my day to study and goof off (and we're understaffed).

If you have 60% of your day free then you've overstaffed, not understaffed. When I worked desktop support I had 0 downtime and ended up working late quite often because we were understaffed.

kurosaki00

gratz man!
I dont know you, but desktop support is sooo much better than call center/tech support center

I wish u success! Remember to keep on studying and getting better!

paulgswanson

If you have 60% of your day free then you've overstaffed, not understaffed. When I worked desktop support I had 0 downtime and ended up working late quite often because we were understaffed.

Not really, see we have Manage build environment and we're really used to the same crap, so most of the issues we have are a extremely easy fix. But we do actually get a lot of tickets just not this time of year. Besides you can hardly call 3 guys for 2000 machines overstaffed when there is 9 guys that handle less than 750 client machines on the other team.

N2IT

paulgswanson wrote: »

Don't stress the Imaging techniques. They'll teach you all that, and scripting thats pretty much for the Senior OSS staff and server side folks. Desktop support is a pretty simple job once you figure it all out. Need any guidance once you start your role google it.
I pretty much have 60% of my day to study and goof off (and we're understaffed). Ping will be your bestest friend though

The best and most knowledgeable eadvice in this thread. Forget the certifications at this point and learn the job. You will have far more success with that strategy.

Mean and Grinch provide some really wise advice as well.

rep21

Thanks for all the advice guys. I really appreciate it. I can't wait to start doing desktop support!

I'll be finishing up WGU this fall and then I hope to advance even farther to some type of database admin or developer position. I can't believe I just started learning about IT in the fall of 2010 and now less than two years later, I've finished an AAS, gotten some good certs, advanced to desktop support, and have almost finished my Bachelor's. I've completed every single goal I have had so far. What a ride, and its only just beginning. I wish I would have started this ten years ago.

a.a.!4life

Congrats on the promotion, I'm sure you'll update us with a database admin/developer promotion in no time.

MeanDrunkR2D2

rep21 wrote: »

Thanks for all the advice guys. I really appreciate it. I can't wait to start doing desktop support!

I'll be finishing up WGU this fall and then I hope to advance even farther to some type of database admin or developer position. I can't believe I just started learning about IT in the fall of 2010 and now less than two years later, I've finished an AAS, gotten some good certs, advanced to desktop support, and have almost finished my Bachelor's. I've completed every single goal I have had so far. What a ride, and its only just beginning. I wish I would have started this ten years ago.

I will agree with you on that. I wish I would have started down this path 10 years earlier in my life, but well, I was a bit of a party animal when younger and just worked whatever jobs that paid me well enough to get by and have fun. Then when I hit 27 I realized that I was going nowhere fast and to really move forward and do something I liked I needed to get back to school and get on track. Congrats again on your promotion and soon, your graduation with your Bachelors.

Keep your head up and work hard. Before you know it you'll be making the next jump forward in your career.

jamesp1983

Congrats! This will be a great experience for you.

doobies

Congrats... i know how it feels to not deal with calls. Printers will be your most annoything to deal with. Everything else tho.. is a breeze if they have good SOPs.

Get your MCP... GET your MCP... once you get your MCP ITP whatever its called nowadays .. get your MCSA/E/MCTS... that way you can move to a system admin eventually.

imaging isn't hard. Google sysprep... and don't forget to select the right settings. Connectivity issues are pretty simple.. look for the obvious stuff first. (disconnected cords, disabled nic cards, nic cards not plugged in, ports not live in the patch closet) learn to use fluke if they have one, group policy, ipconfig, flushdns., powershell, and remote tools as you will have situations where you will have to remotely restart pc's, install packages.. unlock accounts.. learn active directory as you will have to create/enable accounts.

should be a fun move for you... get your experience but plan to move... this is the gateway. but you can only move if you challange yourself.

net+ / ccna for networking
mcse/sa ITP for sysadmin

you already got your sec +.. if you want security and you don't have a true shop i would bypass your ceh and get an associate ISC cert.

again gratz