Windows XP Information Windows XP Information
All College of Engineering Windows computers are in the engr domain, a designation that specifies that the computer is governed by Engineering College policies. (On campus there is a Iowa domain that is governed by ITS policies. The computers in the general assignment classrooms in SC are in the Iowa domain. There is also a medicine domain.)
Windows XP saves configuration files in H:\windowsdata. Do not delete that directory or files in it.
With Windows XP, CSS has a robust way of quickly installing patches and new software. To accomplish that maintenance weekly, CSS closes all open Windows connections between 2am-5am each Sunday morning, loads the new patches, etc., and reboots all Windows computers. Save all open files and logout weekly before this Sunday shutdown. If you do not logout before the shutdown, changes made to open files will be lost.
By default Microsoft Office products (Word, Excel, etc.) want to save files to My Documents. CSS has mapped My Documents to be H:\Documents. In that directory you’ll also see these directories: My eBooks, My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos, as well as files you have stored there.
Each software package that must run on Window XP computers must be installed and tested before it is deployed. (Read the March 2003 Essentials newsletter article "How Software Gets There" to appreciate what the process is that gets Windows XP software to the Start | All Programs... menu.) Some software behaves better than other programs, and so the time for installing and testing any given piece of software is hard to predict. View software list to see what software is installed on the Engineering Computer Network.
Read the College's software acquisition policy.
Personal Software Policy
For additional personal software not used in classes, the following guidelines apply:
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