Everquest. Writing calculus tutorial. Music. Sake.

Been looking at smartsheet.com for a bit and I think I'll start using it for project management.

Beastie Boys - Fight For Your Right (Revisited) Full Length

@Dashrender said in Taking over IT for a small business:

How are you dealing with machines that people turn off at night?

If you can't change policy easily then maybe just schedule sometime during lunch and give people a heads up.

@Dashrender said in Taking over IT for a small business:

How are you dealing with machines that people turn off at night?

Most people do not turn machine off but occasionally(every couple months) I'll use wmic to make sure machines are getting updates somewhat regularly. It shouldnt be critical in any way to miss a few weeks updates but I just make sure someone hasnt gone 3 months or something like that. I have every department in a text file list and I use those a lot for various things.

@Dashrender said in Taking over IT for a small business:

@jmoore said in Taking over IT for a small business:

There is a powershell module "windowsupdate" that works ok for me here. I schedule that here along with chocolatey updates for our free stuff.

Why do you kick windows update - do the systems not auto update themselves on a semi-regular basis?

The big question is - do the systems auto force movement to the next version - which I know they eventually will force... but timing is a kinda a big deal to most offices.. they don't want windows kicking off a 2 hour update when the employee logs in at 8 AM.

Keep in mind I'm talking about my environment here and this is what I've seen. Yours or theirs could be different. The systems here will auto-update and do regular security and app updates eventually, but it usually takes a long time, sometimes months. I like to keep things more up to date than that. I havent had any issues scheduling windows updates for every 2 weeks here.

The other big reason why I schedule the updates is so I can control when they happen. I schedule for the evening and so far no has had to wait 2 hours to log in or be interrupted at 9am with a large update. I was told that used to happen a lot. Users would arrive at 8am, turn computer on, have it start configuring a large update and not be able to log in for 2 hours.

I am not sure but I don't believe the large feature updates( such as 1903) happen on their own. At least I have not seen anything do one yet. Its possible I don't wait long enough to see if it happens. For my environment, I don't have a reason to.

i am not sure

@Dashrender
I think your ideas look very reasonable and a good idea. My thoughts are:

I would get everything to windows 10 if possible, I understand it might not be with those pos systems.

I would stick with Defender unless you find out a reason to get more complex later on.

If they don't understand security very much I would propose to the bosses getting everyone off admin accounts if possible. Have one for yourself and regular user accounts for everyone else that will let them do their job.

There is a powershell module "windowsupdate" that works ok for me here. I schedule that here along with chocolatey updates for our free stuff.

@IRJ Yep your right about that.

@Dashrender said in Laptop setup - multiple monitors, etc - suggestions?:

@jmoore said in Laptop setup - multiple monitors, etc - suggestions?:

@Dashrender I agree DisplayPort is what you should use. No reason for hdmi here, its a lot more expensive and I'm sure you have seperate usb speakers.

Nope - speakers are only needed for error noises, so no external speakers are deployed here.

I have had several issues with the usb-c as well. Laptops were a mix of Latitude and Precision and Dell ultrasharp monitors.

Our Surface Pro's seem to work well with our docks. I have one user with that setup I believe. She runs 2 monitors with the Surface and a dock.

Surface Pro - How are you connecting the dock? Do you have the MS Surface Dock? Assuming MS Surface Pro, multi-monitors, and MS Surface Dock - is she able to not have the Surface Pro screen on? i.e. only a dual monitor while docked setup, instead of a triple?

HDMI with the Kensington SD-7000 dock. I think thats the model. I do not know what happens with her monitors. I would ask but she's at a conference right now.

@wrx7m said in Laptop setup - multiple monitors, etc - suggestions?:

Do they all use the same model of monitor? I am wondering if the docks don't like the HDMI on Asus 24 inch monitors that I have been buying for several years.

My configuration has been 2 seperate Dell Ultrasharp monitors using Display port