5 Things Your IT Troubleshooter Wishes You’d Stop Doing

Many small businesses prefer to handle their own IT matters. They may be comfortable enough with technology to care for routine upkeep, or a strict budget might make an on-staff IT person a future goal rather than the current reality. However you slice it, though, most businesses still need someone to call on from time to time to help them out with the trickier aspects of technology.

Read this post to learn about how to get great IT on a small budget.

Your IT troubleshooter could be a friend, a relative, or a professional team like TechSperts. If you’re not the most tech-savvy person, your go-to IT guru probably has one or two (or five) things they’d like to tell you.

Are You Guilty of These Five IT Misdemeanors?

Honestly, IT people don’t mind your relative inexperience with computers. They don’t expect you to know a motherboard from a mother-of-pearl button. But there are a few things that you could do that would make their job way easier—or way harder. So, without further ado, here are five things your IT troubleshooter wishes you’d stop doing:

1. Failing to Install Updates. Most Windows computers automatically install updates. However, a surprising number of people either turn off the computers before the updates are finished installing or, intentionally or unintentionally, disable this feature. Yes, we know updates sometimes cause a hassle. But they are released for a reason. In the case of buggy updates, it’s easier for us to uninstall a single update than to fix all the problems that come with a bunch of failed updates. So please, set your computer to automatically install updates.
2. Turning Off (or Not Installing) Security Programs. You know you need an antivirus, firewall, and the lot. But here’s the thing—you have to let them do their jobs. Let them run in the background. Update them, just as you do your operating system. And for goodness sake, run a regular virus scan every week. If something turns up, don’t panic. Either your antivirus program will remove it automatically, or you can call us and we’ll take care of it.
3. Downloading Random Files. We’ll make this one simple. Unless you absolutely trust the source of a file, don’t download it. This applies to emails with suspicious names, media files, picture files, PDFs—pretty much anything. This is how viruses spread, people. Give unsolicited, unauthenticated files a very wide berth.
4. Not Telling Us Everything. Once, a friend told me that her laptop wouldn’t charge. Other than that it was fine. Simple, I thought. New battery. Done.

Not so fast. What she didn’t tell me was that the reason the laptop wouldn’t charge was because the plug could no longer fit in the adapter. Prior to giving me her computer, it was turning on and off and the screen was flashing. What was supposed to be a simple battery replacement was actually a broken DC jack, which, in turn, had fried the motherboard. Result? Disappointment all around. Please, tell us the whole story when we come to repair your computer.

5. Waiting Too Long to Call Us. Do you wait to call your IT troubleshooter until you’re so frustrated you’re ready to slam your fist through your computer screen? Please don’t. You make it much harder for us to do our job. Not only do we have to deal with a malfunctioning computer, we have to deal with a grumpy human. Call us before the problem escalates and let us take care of it. This also applies to when you first notice and/or suspect a virus or some other problem. Call us before it gets out of hand.

So there you go. Five things your IT troubleshooter is too polite to tell you to stop doing. Make everyone’s lives easier: start applying these suggestions today.

TechSperts Services provides troubleshooting and managed IT solutions for small businesses just like yours. Give us a call today and we’ll talk about the best IT for your needs.

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