How do pc technicians fix Computers??

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I see computer technicians at my school fixing computers and i looks so awesome!
The pc in my school wasn't working and the computer technician had to come down and fix it, it looked really cool he just opened up the command prompt and started entering code and it was fixed. I would would love to be able to learn that.
I remember the days where I thought all that was black magic. Though learning the Windows command prompt is probably the worst experience you'll ever endure with computers.

Luckily, you can fix anything you ever need to without the command prompt in windows. I only ever use it for basic stuff (ipconfig, ping, nslookup, and tracert). I'm not a PC tech, but I do have to work on them on occasion.
With school computers they usually just re-image the computer with a template, which completely obliterates any problem the computer may have had.
ResidentBiscuit wrote:
Luckily, you can fix anything you ever need to without the command prompt in windows

I'm 99% sure that statement is untrue.
chrisname wrote:
I'm 99% sure that statement is untrue.
You are correct. There are some things that you almost need to open a command prompt for.

@OP
It's not as cool as it seems. I've spent the past 2 years as a PC technician. It was pretty cool to begin with, but it's not somewhere I would want to end up staying for the rest of my life. It's good to learn about computers, but aim to bigger and better things, because it doesn't take too long in the field before there's just nothing else for you to learn. It's very repetitive.
Also keep in mind that it's nothing like it is in movies. I can't stress that enough. You can't type on a keyboard for a few minutes and hack into the pentagon. I see far to many people trying to get into this stuff expecting it to be like hollywood wants you to think it is.
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Eh well anything I've ever needed to do I could do without the command prompt. Except for finding MAC address. But then again all I ever need to do is diagnose network issues. I'm not a PC tech.

Just out curiosity, what would have to use the command prompt for? Seems like in windows there's a graphical interface for everywhere somewhere.
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I think I could fix any PC if you give me enough money to fly to Canada first.
I was an IT Technician before becoming a programmer.

Worst job ever.
What was you supposed to be doing?
I always hear about IT Technicians but I don't know what do they do.
iHutch105 wrote:
I was an IT Technician before becoming a programmer.
Worst job ever.
It would be good if not for users.

For OP question: there is seweral posiibilities:
1) We know what probably caused problem from its description. We confirm and fix it.
2) We don't know what caused problem, but can deduce from our knowledge and logic where to look and after some messing around fix it.
3) We do not know program problem happened with, area where problem liers or both. Then we just follow intuition. There is some subconcious logic, action eliminaion and we probably can explain reasons behind action we had taken, if asked immideatly after, but usually it looks like black magic to observer, especially if he knows about our incompetence in this field.

EssGeEich wrote:
What was you supposed to be doing?
When I was working as one, I did everything requiring interaction with users or their PCs: building PCs, replacing parts, installing programs, fixing user-end problems and testing network cables.

Where I work now IT Techs does the same, aside from cables, + tech support

Also I want to note that term IT Tech is a very broad and covers different kinds of work.
Where I live we have narrower definition of one.
You might want to include Network Administrators and IT security to IT Techs
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For OP question: there is seweral posiibilities:
And if that doesn't help: Have you tried turning it off and on again?
coder777 wrote:
And if that doesn't help: Have you tried turning it off and on again?
It is best solution sometimes.
Problem: Visualisation program will not load some textures sometimes. It is just black scene with several objects with loaded textures. Restarting program or reloading scene did not help.
Solution: open config window, switch screen resolution back and forth (leaving it same in the end, just to force apply button to become active), press apply button. Scene restarts with loaded textures.
coder777 wrote:
And if that doesn't help: Have you tried turning it off and on again?
And when for whatever reason you cannot recreate the problem the user is having. I swear just about every time I interviewed a user about their computer when they were leaving it with me I couldn't recreate the problem in front of them. "Oh, it blue screens all the time." and I can't get it to bluescreen until they've been gone for a few hours. Lol. Temperamental little things.
EssGeEich wrote:
What was you supposed to be doing?

It was just anything generally related to IT. Spanned a fair range, from installing and networking printers, to building and upgrading, to troubleshooting and fixing. It was in a section of a university - I was the sole IT technician for the section of around 200 users.

Basically, any new PCs that came in needed to be built in line with specifications set out by the university. I'd use Active Directory to manage software images and the like. Any existing PCs needed maintenance, done on an as-and-when basis. If someone had a problem, they'd email, call, knock.

The worst thing I remember is people complaining of computers running "slow". Slow is a subjective term. A lot of them ran just fine and impatience was the issue. In other cases, it was a matter of throwing another couple of gigs of RAM in their machine. By the end of my time there, my handy Bosch screwdriver and I could finish a RAM upgrade in a good 30 seconds or so. :-)

MiiniPaa wrote:
It would be good if not for users.

Yep, this pretty much sums it up, especially when working with academics. I found people to be impatient and over-demanding a lot of the time. Another thing was that it was a lonely job. Being the only technician was socially crap. People only ever contacted you when there was a problem.

That last reason is why I love working as a programmer. The company I'm currently at is a large IT consultancy company where I'm working in a large team (at least until July when I head off to a larger computer company). Whatever shortcomings can be found from other people's working effort, I'd much prefer it to working on my lonesome like the technician days.

So... Basical things?
It looks like an useless job since 1997.
Wikipedia wrote:
Google Search was originally developed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1997.
More or less. You wouldn't believe how stupid can be...
iHutch105 wrote:
You wouldn't believe how stupid can be...
You accidentally the subject.
ResidentBiscuit wrote:
Just out curiosity, what would have to use the command prompt for? Seems like in windows there's a graphical interface for everywhere somewhere.

Some things related to disk partitioning can only be done through the command-line program diskpart and not with the graphical partitioner. I'm sure there are other things as well.
There is also network related information you can only get via command line (tracert, or nslookup, for example).
There are also things like system file checker (sfc), fixboot, and driver verifier that are useful command line utilities.
And if you're dealing with a Windows XP recovery console, it helps to know how to move files around via command line to fix some issues.
What's impressive about the command prompt?

And no, you don't need the command prompt to run these programs,
NO you do not need to use it to fix these issues, and no there is no magic.

It's just an simple console executable that executes a program with the arguments specified.
ipconfig(.exe) is a program in System32 (%PATH%), it's just an executable (like every function cmd has).

The command line parameters, are just arguments passed to the program.

Everything the system() function does, can be done by running the program used by cmd (IE ping.exe).
In Windows it's as simple as CreateProcess() of the program, with the arguments needed.

The only function I am aware of that isn't an executable is the useless CLS (clear screen) function.


C:\Windows\system32\help.exe

Run that tn the Command Line, and you will see even the help function is just an executable!!!!


Bottom line

Programming is more impressive than what these silly IT technicians do.
I can, without doubt, fix any computer problem without using the command line.

These "technicians" are simply running c programs that we developed, and take credit for the results.
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