I’ll post the slides from today’s IT Forum when they’re available, but in the meantime here’s what I thought was the most important news from Jim Franceschelli’s talk on “Desktops of the Future”:
- Windows 7 will be rolling out around November, since Windows XP Extended Support is ending. IR computers will get the rollout first (probably this month).
- IR will be setting up standard user accounts on University-owned computers. These user accounts will limit what applications users can install, in order to make the campus more secure. MOST applications will be blocked, but some whitelisted applications (e.g., iTunes) will be allowed. This has me a little concerned – it seems like an area where we’ll need a lot of communication between IR and faculty to make sure that faculty can download and install the applications they need on their desktops.
- IR will also soon be rolling out Active Directory, a tool that will sync your Windows account – so that you’ll be able to access to mapped drives, etc from any computer on campus.
- IR is encouraging everyone to delete any personally identifiable information (PII) from their computers. A tool called Identity Finder will be rolled out soon that will try to locate what it thinks is PII on your desktop and then give you the option to delete or encrypt it.
- Remote desktop assistance will be available soon – this will allow IR staff members to remotely connect to your system, making repairs faster and making the TSC more efficient.
- The University is heading towards a virtual desktop environment (where all data is stored on Royal Drive and access to your “desktop” is via a thin client on a terminal). IR already has the thin client and will be testing it later this month. The current plan is to set up a prototype lab in January to be tested by users in Spring 2011.
I agree and am worried about the “Standard user accounts” as well. This can cause a little bit of headache when you need to install things for, say, faculty research. Though I can understand why. But the only way that I can possible see the standard user account being effective is if the remote desktop assistance is rolled out *at the same time* AND that there is a quick and easy method for faculty to install what they want/need. If I can call the HELP desk and it can be done in little longer than I would be able to do it myself, then that’s fine. But if I have to wait a day to install something that I would be able to do myself in just a few minutes, I think this could be a problem.
We had a discussion about standard user accounts in our faculty meeting today. Several of the librarians had good questions that we’ll need answers to. As in,
1) Can we (the faculty) submit to IR a big list of applications we’d like to be whitelisted from the beginning? So when these user accounts are first implemented there isn’t a huge wait time to have all of our applications approved?
2) Would these user accounts prevent us from installing extensions and add-ons onto our browsers?
3) If you’re using an application specific to your work (for us, something like MarcEdit or CONTENTdm’s Project Client) and it needs an update, will you be able to install the update? If you request that application be whitelisted, does the whitelisted status carry over all future updates?
4) When will these user accounts be rolled out? Will it be simultaneous with the Windows 7 rollout?
[…] Standard user accounts are mentioned on p. 7, but no further details on what kinds of software we will and own’t be able to install on our own computers. […]
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