frogza

My employer just pulled me into his office to tell me he is laying off our IT guy and wants me to fill the position in addition to my current duties. My background is in Graphic design and Marketing, which means I am pretty good on a computer and I know a handful of web related scripting languages. I have never set up or managed a real network (outside of my home network with 2 hardwired computers and a laptop on a wireless router.) Given my background, I am most comfortable with macs, not PCs. I will now be the guy that keeps the PCs here running and virus free.

Can anyone suggest a good crash course book to learn how to maintain a network and basic PC repair and care?

Lasereth

Get on a PC and go to as many porn sites as you can and get as much spyware and viruses as you can. Then use the links at the top of this section to fix it. You will learn a lot about fixing computers doing this! I wish I was kidding.

Vigilante

Yep. Google is your best friend. Remember that. Get used to seeing the processes in the task manager, and try to remember them so when something funky shows up, you already know what to look for.

Laying off the IT guy is a BAD idea. Change all passwords now. And by now, I mean yesterday. Find out of there are open ports on the router, or if there are open VPN accounts he has access to. Lock it down with your own passwords. Change local/domain admin passwords. Give one copy to the owner of the business and keep the other in your head. On the other hand you can put them in a hidden fire proof safe and keep them in your head. If you can just keep them in your head, that is best, of course

NEVER!!! update drivers from windows update. Get them from the manufacturer's website. You have been warned.

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Jove

A book will help you understand all the computer names and parts in theory, but when you sit in front of a computer, it is a different game.

First thing you should do is disable the IT person's account, so he can't get into the computer and mess around with the network. Next, I would get all the documentation on the infrastructure including the settings on the servers, which may include the password, ip address, email account information and how active directory was set up.

If the IT individual has excellent documentation of the network and overall infrastructure, your job just became a little easier. If the individual did not document any of it, then you should spend time gather information of each computer, like their computer name, ip address, location and the person who uses that computer. This can be an easy task if you use an application that will obtain a list of computers by IP address, but it will not tell you their location in the building. Check out this website for possible freeware products: MajorGeeks.com - Download Freeware and Shareware Computer Utilities.

Now, all computers look like they are running great, but check out event viewer because this area will have logs of what is going on with the computer. The application and system log will display information, warnings and errors. If you notice a ton of errors, then you should try to fix them by either googling the event id number and name, or you can go to EventID.Net - Troubleshooting information for Windows event logs, which is a fantastic website that will give you information on the problem.

To look at event viewer, right click on my computer, left click on manage and new window will pop up. Double click on event viewer and you will see the application, Internet exploer, security, and system logs. Click on each one and view the information.

If you want to read a few books to learn about computer or network problems, I would recommend going to amazon and going to their computer book section. If the server runs Windows Server 2003, then find books talking about the OS.

frogza

Thanks for the feedback, I'll start checking out logs now.

MikeSty

Wow, that's pretty intense. I don't think I could ever handle that - I've felt like I've never learned anything IT-related through any book or article reading, and that it's one of the few things in my young life that I've picked up almost completely through experience and building intuition.

Lasereth was definitely on the right track. I really wish I could point you to some sort of training or literature, but I feel like there is no substitute for years of experience. I also think luciferase75 is right: firing the IT guy sounds like a horrible idea.

Disclosure: I'm really young and I have no certifications.

spindles

The upside is, in future, your friends will see you as a go-to man when their computer is screwed

Actually, from personal experience, it is not really that big an upside

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