Re: IT time forMaintenance

Trish wrote:
I have several questions pertaining to maintenance and programs on 2 predominantly XP Home networks that exist in 2 physically separate buildings with no servers. As I know that XP Home cannot log in to a domain, the domain that we do have is not used. User groups are set up with no permissions set and all users have Admin accounts. This was not my choice, but came from the Executive Director who has no understanding nor does she want to understand the repercussions of such settings on the computers. 1. How much time should be allotted to do backups on each computer? There are a total of 65 between the 2 physically separate networks. Some computers have CD burning capabilities, some do not.
2. How much time should be allotted to install programs on these computers?
3. How much time should be allotted to provide instruction to employees, clients on the use of these programs i.e. Office and basic computer operation? Keeping in mind that 90% are not computer literate.
4. How much time and how often should be allowed for maintenance. 5. How often should it be preformed?
6. How much time should be allotted for repair and re-installations of programs?

The reason that I ask is that I need to be able to document to some extent the time that is normally required for these task per some sort of industry standards.
I understand that there are probably no hard answers for these questions but perhaps there is some type of guidance that can be provided.


A good starting point would be to attach a large external drive to one of the PCs or the network in each location and backup all the PCs to it. You can either use the backup software of your choice or XCOPY in a batch file. Once you configure the backup to run after hours that will eliminate a huge nightmare. Having everyone backup their own PC is not going to work and having to find CDs for those with burners is just another problem.
Next I would install a good firewall, like Sygate or ZoneAlarm, and an anti-virus program on each computer. This will limit the damage done by any malware entering the network.
Once these steps are taken the day to day maintenance should be mostly eliminated and you can concentrate on training and fixing the few problems that appear. Any free time can be used to checking and cleaning the interior of the PCs.

.

Relevant Pages

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