Getting Ready for a Computer Rebuild/Upgrade
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In this document we discuss what happens during a planned rebuild or upgrade of your computer.

When your computer is scheduled for a rebuild or upgrade, someone from the Library Systems Office will contact you at least a week prior to let you know when the installation will happen and to review with you what you need to do to prepare for the rebuild. We discuss below what your responsibilities are in preparing for the rebuild.

What you (the computer's user) should do

When a computer is rebuilt or upgraded, all data on the local hard drive (i.e., the C: drive) is erased. Thus, it is very important that you save any work-related data that may be stored on the local hard drive to a network drive. For instructions on how to do this, please read the page Protect your data: saving to the network.

The new machine will come with several standard programs installed. Be sure to inform the person rebuilding your machine if there are any non-standard applications that need to be installed.

Let us know the names of any other library personnel that regularly use your machine. This way, we can alert them of the upcoming rebuild and they can save any work-related data to the network.

What we (the Library Systems Office) will do

Aside from setting up the hardware and installing the operating system and the standard applications, we will also help you set up your e-mail client. The Library Systems Office provides support for two e-mail clients: Mozilla/Thunderbird (recommended) and Eudora.

We will also ensure that the Windows update service is running properly and that the Virus scan application is setup. A day or two after the rebuild we will check back with you to make sure everything is working properly.