If you can't behave, I will take it away from everyone

[nicolecj]

So... I am not the tech support, but recently they locked down our computers and i just found out why.

Background: we save ALOT of documents and other crap everyday. We have servers where we are supposed to save this too so other people can access it as well. Kind of a giant file sharing/ backup system. We are not supposed to save on our computers unless it is a work in progress that is not supposed to be posted yet so we don't clutter up the machines. We get new machines every few years.

Okay, so I guess a lady did not get that memo, and it turns out she had been saving the documents on line, so we all saw them as we were supposed to, but unbeknownst to us she had also saved a backup copy of EVERY SINGLE ITEM on her computer since we got the last round of new computers.

Eventually her computer gave her some warnings about running out of memory and needed to reduce the amount of crap on her PC. She decided that it was her duty, not to call the techies, but to delete some unused stuff. I don't know where this idea came from. She went into program files, and ran across the windows folder. She went in and deleted the entire start up application because she figured that since she did not know what it was she did not need it. I have no idea what else she erased, but I know that the computer ended up having to be reformatted and returned without a single document saved on it.

As a result, our friendly techies have released upon us poor minions a lockdown so severe that you can't even change the time display in the corner of the computer.

I can only hope to eventualy convince them that I am not a complete moron and get the lock down lifted... just a little

[MoonCat]

See, I'm the opposite. "What's that? No idea. Better leave it alone!"

[Daskinor]

Yea the users are not even allowed to push the 'start' button here.

[EvilEmpryss]

I wish you luck in getting that lock-down lifted. I had the same thing in the military with the IT guys.

If you work hard, praise their expertise, and promise to sacrifice your mother's entrails to the god of Intel in the depths of Dell should you ever do so much as think about clicking on an inappropriate email link, they might ease up on your restrictions.

[fma_fanatic]

Yep. We had that happen last year. Only a select few of us were able to get our computers saved from it because the PC Services/IT manager knows we're not going to screw things up.

[Andara Bledin]

I'm on the "don't lock her computer down, 'cause she knows what she's doing" list, myself.

^-.-^

[nicolecj]

I think we have the 'there are hundreds of workers, so since it is easier, we are releasing an update that will lock them all down... like a biblical plague bwahahaha' type of IT department. Due to 'favortism' complaints what is done to one must be done to all.

So I will kiss a$$ and try to get them to ease up a little... Oh please relent gods of BITS (BITS is the bureau of information and technology systems).

I understand why they did it, but I don't have to like it!

[lordlundar]

Eventually her computer gave her some warnings about running out of memory and needed to reduce the amount of crap on her PC. She decided that it was her duty, not to call the techies, but to delete some unused stuff.

I got to this point and I just pictured the angel of death hovering over the machine...

[EvilEmpryss]

I got to this point and I just pictured the angel of death hovering over the machine...

I got to that point and wondered just how much crap this woman was saving on her computer (or how small her hard drive was). I'm a major picture packrat, and I do a LOT of photoshop work, and even with my music library I still have tons of room on my hard drive.

I'd like to know if the IT guys bothered to see just what this woman was hoarding on her hard drive before they reformatted it.

[sld72382]

A long time ago at my workplace some enterprising soul figured out the process names for the firewall (the one that blocks access to certain sites) and call monitoring software and proceeded to kill them with task manager.

So what did IT do? Block access to task manager. If a single program crashed we had to restart the whole computer.

When I returned to lunch they restored access to it and did something they should have done in the first place - lock down the process names so if you tried to kill it, it would give an "access denied" error.

BTW the enterprising soul who killed the processes did it on a call he was being audited on. One doesn't have to really think about what happened next to him.

[nicolecj]

I got to that point and wondered just how much crap this woman was saving on her computer (or how small her hard drive was). I'm a major picture packrat, and I do a LOT of photoshop work, and even with my music library I still have tons of room on my hard drive.

I'd like to know if the IT guys bothered to see just what this woman was hoarding on her hard drive before they reformatted it.

To be entirely honest, I have no idea... I don't know the guys in IT very well for a good reason. My mother is a manager for IT in a different department of this same government and works in the same city. I do actually know who they are and who likes or dislikes her, and i don't have any desire to get stuck in the middle. I have a common last name, but we look a lot alike so I am trying to keep my head down.

Mummy is known as a bit of a powerhouse when it comes to IT departments that are not doing well. She is the one they bring in to turn it around. She is not always well loved.

[roothorick]

Eventually her computer gave her some warnings about running out of memory and needed to reduce the amount of crap on her PC. She decided that it was her duty, not to call the techies, but to delete some unused stuff. I don't know where this idea came from. She went into program files, and ran across the windows folder. She went in and deleted the entire start up application because she figured that since she did not know what it was she did not need it. I have no idea what else she erased, but I know that the computer ended up having to be reformatted and returned without a single document saved on it.

The fact that the computer LET HER do that tells me your IT department is partially -- no, mostly -- to blame. That's network security 101 -- any user that's not part of IT should NOT, under any circumstances, have write access to system folders. PERIOD. Your IT guys dropped the ball there.

[bsaana]

I wish the powers where I work would lock our users from doing many things. Unfortunately they have not done so. We get calls every so often because part of the programs they need to actually do the work they are supposed to do don't work. We've often found that they have installed toolbars, and various games to the systems. We first have to report it to a couple people, and only after they are done are we allowed to remove it.

I blame software that was badly written that requires the admin privilidges to work.

[PepperElf]

we had issues like that on my ship.

people - especially the chiefs/officers cos they were the WORST abusers - wouldn't just save files to the local drive. they would SPECIFICALLY save them to the desktop.

they would save personal copies of official documents so they had them easily on hand... instead of oh, i dunno. saving a shortcut instead?


the thing is... they refused to understand that THIS was why it took forever to log in. the desktop files were part of the profile and you had to load the entire profile to let someone log in. and when the profile gets corrupted ... um yeah, all those files get deleted which created yet another hell.

=/

[ShadowBall]

I admit I will sometimes go in and delete shit from my programs folder to make space, but I would not touch anything in the Windows folder. That's just asking for trouble, IMHO.

I also am a big picture and music collector, and I've got a bunch of Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash stuff on here...sooo I do have to make space occasionally if I want room for that 500 MB PSD file.

Then again, my computer hates me. Takes forever for any Adobe program to start up, Illustrator shuts off for no reason, and I get told I don't have enough memory to complete something when I have 13 GB left. Oh, I could go on for hours about my POS laptop, but I'll spare you guys.