A Key To Tech Support is the ability to tone down the language so that the user can understand it. As instructors we do this with the curriculum material but often we haven't touched on the technical aspects of troubleshooting and problem solving.
Students develop a trust with the instructor and will naturally want to contact someone they trust. The goal, however, is to build up the student so that they become empowered to solve the problems and find the solutions on their own.

Following slide covered in Computer Maintenance Module

Are most of the tools you use/deploy commercial? FOSS? What's the response from your clients on the use of such tools?

Address in Class: Computer Maintenance (internet browser-cleaning cookies & disabling popups, disc cleanup, virus and spyware protection, enabling automatic updates for programs like Adobe, Firefox, IE, disc defragment, etc.) Making sure your student can do these basic things on their own will spare you a lot of phone calls, time and headaches. Making sure they know how to run their virus software ( ie, Microsoft Security Essentials) and set up a once a week full scan or how to update the virus software itself.

When choosing to "automatically install updates", you can tell the computer to download updates, but to ask for your permission to install those updates. Or, you can choose a time when your computer is likely NOT turned on so that it doesn't have the ability to do anything until you're sitting at the computer and you can see what is happening.
Another issue : a lot of Windows 7 updates are interfering with wireless card drivers and causing wireless cards to malfunction.

When updating, it will be better for students to choose 'Custom' instead of the 'Express' option. This will cater the update to the individual and his/her machine. However, make sure students are READING the screen and not just clicking.
To this point, it is extremely useful to force students to read the screen out loud during class to get them in this habit. It will also save you trouble after they graduate because many problems can be solved by simply reading the message that is popping up.
Make sure if the computers being distributed have anti-virus software already installed, that you make them aware that this is a TRIAL version and that they must either renew that virus software or download a free malware program like Microsoft Security Essentials to take over when the trial period expires. As mentioned above, if this is the route you go, regardless of which virus software you use, walk them through how to manually run the software as well as how to set up a full scan once a week.

Be sure to stress to student that while there is a new virus program today, 10 people are creating a new virus.....

Understanding of technical terms and situations is also based on general education and logic value.

"Best antivirus is between your ears."

PC Decrapifier!

Malware Bytes is another great free scan that acts as a one time scan available whenever you want it. Bit Defender AVG is a great anti-virus.
TOOLBARS: Stay away from them. They AREN"T needed. Teach how to 'add/remove programs' from the control panel. HOWEVER, a student can do some real damage on this particular screen. Make sure they are NOT removing anything titled Microsoft or Windows, etc.
Tools to Use:
PC Decrapifier. pcdecrapifier.com
Nvear rescue CD
Kasperski rescue CD (need own copy of Windows to use)
F protect

Do NOT accept emails from people you don't know and that don't have a subject. Do NOT click on pop-ups. If it sounds too good to be true, it IS.

There is a lot of great information being shared here...my questions is with the different programs mentioned will users run into compatibility issues?

For email we, in Lexington Urban League, recommend using Gmail which does not have 100's of daily spam compared to yahoo and hotmail. We still teach about yahoo, hotmail, aol, and msn but there have been less viruses found in gmail than any other mail provider.

Deep Freeze is great for Community Sites. It restores the computer back to its original condition in the case of viruses, or saving files or downloading programs that are only necessary for that day or session, etc.
Disable 'Auto-run' for flash drives and thumb drives so that programs don't begin the moment the drive is inserted into the USB port.

Clean Slate also acts like Deep Freeze. If anyone knows of any FREE programs that achieve this objective, please REPLY here :)

I liked James's comment about not opening emails with "no subject". I think all of the suggestions are great. However, I fear that the more technical you get with students, you risk the chance of losing them. How much class time do you think needs to be spent on computer maintenance and protection?

DON'T overload your computers with virus and malware protection as they read each other as potential threats.

Web Of Trust is an Add-on for browsers that will display the potentially dangerous effects of certain websites. It acts as a warning before the site is entered. It may be worth showing students the ease as which this add-on can be downloaded and installed and the potential benefits

CCleaner is another great FREE tool. Don't think it was mentioned yet...

Best Antivirus?
I'm Partial to
Kaspersky and
Esset Nod 32

Make sure students are "mousing over" links and they are focusing on where exactly that link is from or where it is taking them. Also, just make sure you are reiterating to your students the importance of GOING to the website themselves and not following links in email or in social networks, etc. "Phishing" is no different than "Fishing"...a big net will eventually catch some.

Can you talk about end-to-end solutions?
Firewalls -- relevance/importance
Wireless -- security and implications
Cell phones -- security/access: bluetooth, bad apps, etc.

Also: data cleansing -> use a good destruction tool when repurposing your hard disk (DBAN it!)

A couple other things that I like to use:
1. Sanboxie allows you to run your web browser in a sandbox to virtualize what you do such as downloading (you have to manually recover anything you download from the box)
2. Hoster: allows you to quickly access the .hosts file to either edit it, make it read-only, and restore the original.

For our computers that go home with the SBA, we set up recovery partitions with Acronis Secure Zone and provide instructions on how to restore it. We can provide written instructions for the SBA to finish that process (it's easy).

You may want to create a bogus email account to send to your students to teach the potential effects of opening up emails from people you don't know. You can use a blank subject line, or create a bogus name, or perhaps put some of the common spam subject lines in there and see who opens up that email. Make an example of those particular students as a learning tool for everyone in the room.

Google Apps for non-profit organizations as a way to battle the problem of signing up too many people in the same day. Easy to download and follow and will allow you to sign up more students in large classes or multiple classes at the same location throughout the day.

techguy.org
technetmicrosoft.com
techsupportforum.com
support.microsoft.com

1-800- ?? :)
connected living tech support
Salesforce.com : ticketing system

Possible solutions: Use One Google Voice number for Computer problems/internet problems

spiceworks.com

Tech Support Forum... working through email. Using Students as possible help for other students as well as instructors, etc.

And 95% of the time you can fix alot of issues with a restart

In all capacities digital literacy is an enormous task and all of our
efforts on the front lines of this calling should be acknowledged and
celebrated. On behalf of Mrs. Tate and I, thanks for all the questions,
insight, advice, and ideas you have provided. Armed with this information,
I think each one of us will be able to better serve our respective communities
in bridging what has become the digital divide.