Facepalm heard round the state...

[Dreamstalker]

So the company finally decided to update our computers from Win7 to Win 10.

The upgrade itself happened early Sunday morning, when I got in it took me about 30 minutes to be able to get into the computer. Nobody else knew this was happening either. Luckily the software still worked on the handhelds, so I'm able to shop orders but not access any prep lists for about an hour. Invoicing also fails for about two hours, and we also found out that the arrival-notification software had not been provisioned/activated on the desktop (nor were we provided with any credentials to do so). So we were using the handhelds to keep track of pickups as well until M got in touch with the HelplessDesk to fix it.

Later in the day, I go to print off a couple copies of some forms I need...everything in Documents is gone. Ok, say I, run a search; 10 may have chucked things somewhere else. Search capability has been disabled.

I ask M if she knows what happened to the Docs folder we made...she then tells me that she got an email on Friday evening telling everyone of the upgrade, not only was there an OS update but the physical PCs were being swapped out. So everything that anyone had saved locally would be GONE. The training docs that I created are safe (I'd been emailing them to myself at home just out of habit), but the company docs, forms etc that my department needs have gone bye-bye. I have blank copies of most of what I actually need (I'll bring a blank home just so I have one if needed)...the rest is management's problem as it is their responsibility. The rest of these docs are company stuff; basically everything that I would need to train people (I have some of it and can probably cobble together a doc from memory for the rest) and reference docs that we are required per policy to have on the local drive.

M was off on Saturday, so they should have notified me as I was the only one there then who could back our stuff up to the cloud. Gee thanks guys...

Last I heard, C had sent an email--on Sunday evening--to all the other managers saying "I will see what we can do about recovering the files" following a pileon when people couldn't access their stuff. Seeing as they think 24 hours lead time is good enough for a major system swap (and don't even bother confirming that the people they want/expect to do backups are even going to be here or have time)...

I've been slowly compiling an actual training binder here at home so do have paper copies...but I'm not going to clue them in (M knows but she's not saying nothing to nobody).

[Arcus]

This is the kind of thing that they should have told everyone the as soon as they were told just so there were no surprises. People all over the store could have had lots of time to get everything saved when there was time to spare in case there were problems. I can't help but wonder if the notice email from corporate said to not tell anyone until the day before. That is the kind of thing that non-computer people would do and makes the IT people want to rip their hair out.

[EricKei]

My first thought was "I'm sure they still have the old hard drives somewhere, right? I mean, nobody could be stupid enough to just nuke & pave those and then destroy them without checking to see if they have valuable data on them, right...right?" . . . and then I remembered. Had they done an in-place upgrade on the same systems, 10 would have migrated the old docs/data folder(s) to the corresponding locations in the new OS unless the installer was instructed to do a clean install.

And yeah, seconded on the lead time that should have been there. No less than a month, or two weeks in a pinch, should have been the timeframe.

[Kristev]

Even I know this was a bad idea.

[Dreamstalker]

Remember that they let the entire IT department go over the summer, so are probably not working with the brightest bulbs right now.

The district guy finally told me (vague hints of mansplaining...you should have given me this info on day one you dummy!) that all those documents are on the intranet and "you don't need to save them locally" (does he know what's been going on with our intranet recently?). This was probably the data that I'd been begging them for access rights for four months. I figured out how to download stuff--a bit convoluted, apparently we're discouraged from doing such a thing--and have recreated a folder where I'm chucking all the forms we had before plus some additional things that I didn't know I could access--it might be a good idea to have the Storm Preparedness/Procedures docs somewhere that doesn't rely on an internet connection.

I'd love to be able to back everything up to a flash drive as well, but the new "mini" PCs don't have that many USB ports. I'll figure something out. It's not state/trade secrets we're talking about here, just shit so I can do my job (and potentially save an ass or three).

[dalesys]

... mansplaining...

AKA "Correctile Dysfunction"

[Dreamstalker]

Oh, I love it. Hadn't heard that one before.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Before I retired, I worked for a certain US Government agency (Patent Office). I kept all of my work on floppy disks (remember those?). Not only did I not have to worry about computer updates, no one could access my files. The official copy was the paper in the physical files.

Things have changed since I retired.

[Arcus]

I'd love to be able to back everything up to a flash drive as well, but the new "mini" PCs don't have that many USB ports. I'll figure something out. It's not state/trade secrets we're talking about here, just shit so I can do my job (and potentially save an ass or three).

Get a small USB hub. It doesn't need to be a powered one if no one is trying to use it as a charger.

[EricKei]

Note that some devices (e.g. some receipt printers/blasters, in my experience), require a powered USB hub; without one, they might not even show up in Windows.

[Nunavut Pants]

CD-ROM type drives, HDD enclosures....

But flash drives or memory sticks don't require a powered hub.

[Arcus]

In a case like where all the USB ports are in use, I tend to use the hub on the port where the mouse or keyboard is used because a mouse/keyboard and a flash drive don't draw very much power together. That would leave the other USB ports free for things that do use more power

[BPFH]

My first thought was "I'm sure they still have the old hard drives somewhere, right? I mean, nobody could be stupid enough to just nuke & pave those and then destroy them without checking to see if they have valuable data on them, right...right?" . . . and then I remembered. Had they done an in-place upgrade on the same systems, 10 would have migrated the old docs/data folder(s) to the corresponding locations in the new OS unless the installer was instructed to do a clean install.

And yeah, seconded on the lead time that should have been there. No less than a month, or two weeks in a pinch, should have been the timeframe.

Oh, my yes. Reminds me of the data migration I had to do once - the data was incredibly corrupted, lots of date fields that started as dates then trailed off into the same set of text over and over again, plus lots of other stuff that I've purged from memory. (Just remember, all you C/C++ programmers out there: null terminators on strings are your friends!) "The data's corrupted!" I said. "Could you re-export it from the original so I have a l can copy to work with?" And they replied, "Sorry, those databases have already been taken offline and there are no backups remaining." The "Errors" and "Changes" logs on that migration were huge.

I'm liking the way the new company (old one got acquired) is handling the Office 365 switchover, though. If anything they're overcommunicating, complete with timelines that have been available to us since the deal closed.

[Dreamstalker]

No flash drives can be plugged in (at least the 'virgin' drive I tried today was not recognized). No biggie; I'll just email everything to myself in addition to plopping it on the local drive. If that's how they expect us to do backups, then...that's how we're gonna do it. M wants all our stuff on the local drive unbeholden to the network just in case. I did find out that the printer can accept and print from flash drives, so yay (forms that don't need computer-as-intermediary).

Tempted to also create a hidden folder just in case C finds ours and it goes poof, but that functionality has probably been dispensed with as well.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Tempted to also create a hidden folder just in case C finds ours and it goes poof, but that functionality has probably been dispensed with as well.

There are many ways to hide a folder. Name it something bland, and make several copies with other bland names.

Hide the contents in a zip file, hide the zip file in a system folder with an exe extension.