Installing A Workstation > Before You Start
Before You Start
If the workstation you are about to prepare is newly-arrived
from Gateway, skip to the Wiping the Hard Disk page.
If you are preparing a workstation someone else has used,
then it has files that belong to that person. Talk to the
co-worker and examine the hard drive for anything they might
need. And, even if the co-worker says they won't need
such-and-such a file or program, save it anyway. The user
will not know whether they will need something until that
need comes about…usually long after the workstation
is prepped.
Files to save will include:
- The IE Favorites folder. In Win2K/XP, this is in
C:\Documents and Settings\User\Favorites, where
User is the user's Novell network name.
- E-mail folders and address books.
- For Eudora, all information is stored in C:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\Qualcomm\Eudora.
- For Lotus Client, e-mail and calendar settings are stored on
server, but address books and mailing lists are not: They're
in C:\Lotus\Data\Names.nsf. (Users of Lotus iNotes
have all their settings on server.)
- Documents of any kind. These usually go in C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents
for Win2K/XP. For networked workstations, these are supposed
to be saved to a mapped personal or departmental network
drive, with the 'My Documents' folder set to that network drive.
However, sometimes that does not done, and you will have to check.
- Some programs have features that let you back up their data.
Use those to back up the data, and remember where that data
is saved.
- Other programs, in Win2K/XP, have special folders under
C:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\ to store
their data.
Once you identify what you need to copy off the workstation,
you will need to store it someplace—preferably where the
previous user can access it, like their personal or departmental
network drive. Make sure there is enough space allotted for storage.
If the user is important and you don't know what needs to be saved,
boot the workstation on the Imaging CD and image the workstation under
the user's Novell name.
© 2003 by Andy West. Written 26 November 2003.