Device Support Communities
There are many places on the internet, to get help with your device (phone, tablet or computer). Most are free to use but do require that you register with them (don’t worry if you go into the control panel of the website you register with you can restrict how much mail they bombard you with).
Don’t be intimidated in using these site – Introduce yourself as a beginner, if that’s appropriate, so that anyone answering your questions will know how to phrase the answer. Sometimes it’s helpful to post your question on more than one site.
Be aware that these are global sites, so the person who knows the answer may take a time to answer, as they may be in another time zone!
Listed below are a sample few that have high reputations – This isn’t a definitive list as many others are available. Each manufacturer also will have a support forum.
The Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and Google forums have members who are employees and therefore have access to internal resources. The remaining members are users like yourself and will have mixed abilities.
The other forums are third party and therefore no direct internal access to the major IT companies.
All of the forums will have product experts and also members who experience levels that may not be greater than yours so, depending on the issue it maybe prudent to hold out for a second opinion before taking the advice.
In all cases before making any significant changes to your device make a full backup, in case the worst happens.
Windows Devices
Official Microsoft Community – Microsoft Answers (all Microsoft devices)
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us
Windows 10 (devices running Windows 10)
Windows 8 (devices running Windows 8)
Windows 7 (devices running Windows 7)
Apple Devices
Official Apple Community (all Apple devices)
https://discussions.apple.com/welcome
Others
https://forums.macrumors.com/ – All apple devices
https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/forum/apple-help-34/ – All Apple devices
Android
https://support.google.com/android/community?hl=en – Official Google support community
Others
https://forums.androidcentral.com/general-help-how/ – All android devices
https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/help – All Android devices
Kindle Fire
https://www.amazonforum.com/forums/devices – Official Amazon community – All Amazon devices
http://www.kuforum.co.uk/kindlefireforum/ – Kindle Fire only