A Quick Guide: IT Service Desk and Employee Workstations

Is your company investing in new employee workstations? If so, you’ll appreciate this guide to get your new equipment up and running. Even the IT service desk pros can get so busy that little steps are missed — making it harder to maintain the machines and troubleshoot later on.

Enter New Equipment Into the IT Asset Management System

Stop! Before deploying all those pretty new machines, be sure to tag them and put all of the towers, monitors, printers, keyboards, mouses, etc. into the asset management system.

Install Necessary Drivers and Software Packages

The best idea is to poll users ahead of time and find out what software and equipment they use regularly. This will keep you from spending hours installing programs in the accounting department that are only useful to the workers in HR. Make sure you also install the drivers for their printers and other equipment so that the workers are 100 percent good to go when you deliver their fancy new computers. Leave enough time during this process to wait for all those Windows updates.

Eliminate the Bloatware

With almost all new software packages, you can expect a hearty helping of bloatware to install if you’re not careful. Even if you are careful, you’re likely going to have to scrape some off the systems anyway. After installing your necessary packages, you can do this manually — or better yet — use a product like PC Decrapifier. This is a free download available to wipe that crap right off your nice new systems. Your users will think you’re Gandalf.

Set Up With Security in Mind From the Start

Unfortunately, 2014 was not a happy year in many IT service desks around the nation. After such an unprecedented year of attacks on systems, nobody can afford to be lax about security issues anymore. It’s safe to assume that Martha in bookkeeping has not learned her lesson about downloading cat videos and that Bob in marketing will still insist on opening all of his emails, even when you’ve explained 1,000 times what a malware-loaded email looks like. Pack those new computers with robust malware from the start, and pray or rub a rabbit’s foot or invest in a four-leaf clover, and hope something works.