Analysing the problem

When computer problems occur in your company or the company you are servicing the employee always screems at the computer admins that they don´t do there work and everything not ok with there computer system and it does not matter if the problem is the computer or some software.

I´ve been on two lectures this month and I noticed that everytime the lecture started there where always some software problems.  The first lecture some slides did not show and some other minor problems, the second lecture the computer had virus and was very slow. I learned alot just from watching the teachers trying to figure out what the problem was with the computer and software. I did not want to intervene because I just wanted to see from first hand how the problem would resolve.  The teachers tried to call the computer admins with out any result so the lectures continued with some software problems, even when the computer system was very slow.

I think that similar problems happen very often when users are using the computers at some important meetings, lectures, classes etc. So it got me thinking why is this happening and how can the computer administrator help to fix this problems. There are few options that the computer administrators must consider.

1. Consider using terminal services/remote desktop services
2. Consider using VDI machines
3. Consider using App-V and Med-V

But why should the computer administrator use these features and what problems can this solve for these users.  If you use terminal services/remote desktop services you always need to be online to access the terminal services/remote desktop services.  There can be some issues with compatibility with applications running on terminal services/remote desktop services so it can be hard sometimes especially when some 3rd party applications are badly developed and I have run into many such applications.  The terminal server is locked down so the user cannot install or change anything other than the settings in the user profile unless you choose to use mandadory profile.  If you choose the VDI infrastructure every user gets its own virtual computer and can be older or newer operating system and is rock solid for compatibility for applications.

If you use app-v and med-v you are choosing the holy grail for computer administrator, why because the software does not install itself on the computer, that means that there is less problems.  I can say it´s like if the software is like mandadory profile, it does not change after it has been sequenced.  The only thing that is changed is the settings for the user witch is private, that can be some registry keys or somthing like that.  So the software such as 3rd party applications does not install "junk" registry keys into the actual physical registry of the machine and also the "junk" dlls that conflict with other dlls on the machine. You know if you install a lot of applications into the computer there can be some major problems occuring with the OS, so everytime a user calls the admin it´s because of 3rd party applications that are not working is problably because there is somthing conflicting.  App-V and Med-V solve these problems, and it is actually true.  I´ve been an administrator for a long time now and I´ve seen alot of solutions out there but nothing like App-V.

There is another thing that the administrator has to consided is to teach the users to test everything before the lecture, meeting, class etc.

Thanks,
Gisli Gudmundsson