Patent ID: 8639598

Claim:
A computer program product to provide technical support for a computing device, the computer program product comprising: a computer-readable storage medium having computer-usable program code embodied therein, the computer-usable program code comprising: computer-usable program code to detect a problem associated with a computing device; computer-usable program code to determine a support level assigned to the computing device, the support level having associated therewith a set of problems for which the computing device will automatically send a message to a support provider upon occurrence of a problem in the set; computer-usable program code to determine whether the problem belongs to a set of problems associated with the support level; computer-usable program code to cause the computing device to automatically send a message to the support provider in the event the problem belongs to the set, while refraining from sending a message to the support provider in the event the problem does not belong to the set; computer-usable program code to enable a user to upgrade the support level of the computing device, thereby expanding the set of problems for which the computing device will automatically send a message to the support provider; and computer-usable program code to enable a user to downgrade the support level of the computing device, thereby reducing the set of problems for which the computing device will automatically send a message to the support provider.