Help Desk: Course Introduction

In one line: a zero-to-Tier-1 course — theory, then hands-on labs — and the habits you set up now (notes, lab, asking good questions) carry the rest of it.

Companion to: TCM Security, Practical Help Desk, section 1.

What the course covers

Area	What you’ll be able to do
IT in business	Explain what an IT department does and where help desk fits
Computing	Explain binary, bits, bytes and how a computer computes
Hardware	Identify, remove and replace desktop and laptop components
Operating systems	Explain the kernel and userland, file systems and file types
Virtualization	Install a hypervisor and build Windows and Linux VMs
Administration	Install, configure and troubleshoot Windows and Linux
Networking	IP addressing, the OSI model, and network troubleshooting tools
Support skills	Remote support, security fundamentals, and self-hosted ticketing
Capstone	Build and administer a Windows Active Directory environment

The course maps to TCM’s PHDA (Practical Help Desk Associate) certification, the first step on their Security Operations path.

Lesson formats

Marker	Format
(plain)	Video lesson
🖥️	Hands-on lab — do it, don’t just watch it
🎟️	Ticket Interrupt — a realistic support ticket to solve with what you’ve just learned
✏️	Check-In Quiz at the end of each section

Lab requirements

Resource	Recommended
RAM	At least 8 GB — 8–12 GB or more to run several VMs
Free disk	80–100 GB
Storage type	SSD strongly recommended
CPU	Virtualization (VT-x / AMD-V) enabled in firmware

# Is virtualization enabled? (Windows)
systeminfo | findstr /i "Virtualization"          # look for "Virtualization Enabled In Firmware: Yes"
(Get-CimInstance Win32_Processor).VirtualizationFirmwareEnabled

# Linux: a non-zero count means the CPU supports it
grep -Ec '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo

If Hyper-V or WSL is already running on Windows, systeminfo may instead say a hypervisor has been detected. That also means virtualization is on.

Asking for help (course Discord and later, real tickets)

A good question is shaped exactly like a good ticket:

Include	Example
What you were trying to do	“Install Ubuntu in VirtualBox for the Linux lab”
What happened	“VM won’t start: VT-x is not available”
Exact error text	Paste it — don’t paraphrase
What you’ve tried	“Checked BIOS, rebooted, disabled Hyper-V”
Environment	Host OS, hypervisor and version, RAM given to the VM

🔐 Security notes

Redact before you share. Screenshots in public channels can leak usernames, hostnames, IP addresses, email addresses, licence keys and tokens.
Keep labs separate from work and personal machines. Use VMs you can snapshot and destroy.
Credentials in lab write-ups: fine for throwaway lab accounts, never for anything real.

Practice drills

1. Does this PC meet the lab spec?

Check RAM and CPU with Get-CimInstance Win32_ComputerSystem | Select-Object TotalPhysicalMemory and Get-CimInstance Win32_Processor. Check free disk with Get-Volume.

2. Rewrite "my VM doesn't work, help" as a useful question.

Goal, exact error, what you’ve tried, and environment — e.g. “Ubuntu VM in VirtualBox 7 fails with ‘VT-x is not available’; virtualization is enabled in BIOS; Hyper-V was on and I’ve now disabled it; host is Windows 11 with 16 GB RAM.”

3. What's a 🎟️ Ticket Interrupt for?

Practising the section’s skills on a realistic support request, the way the job actually arrives.

Key takeaways

The course runs from IT basics to an Active Directory capstone and lines up with the PHDA certification.
Labs need roughly 8–12 GB RAM, 80–100 GB on an SSD, and virtualization switched on.
Ask questions the way you’ll write tickets: goal, exact error, what you tried, environment.