Installing A Workstation > Before You Start

Before You Start

If the workstation you are about to prepare is newly-arrived from Gateway, skip to the Wiping the Hard Disk page.

If you are preparing a workstation someone else has used, then it has files that belong to that person. Talk to the co-worker and examine the hard drive for anything they might need. And, even if the co-worker says they won't need such-and-such a file or program, save it anyway. The user will not know whether they will need something until that need comes about…usually long after the workstation is prepped.

Files to save will include:

1. The IE Favorites folder. In Win2K/XP, this is in C:\Documents and Settings\User\Favorites, where User is the user's Novell network name.
2. E-mail folders and address books.
   1. For Eudora, all information is stored in C:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\Qualcomm\Eudora.
   2. For Lotus Client, e-mail and calendar settings are stored on server, but address books and mailing lists are not: They're in C:\Lotus\Data\Names.nsf. (Users of Lotus iNotes have all their settings on server.)
3. Documents of any kind. These usually go in C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents for Win2K/XP. For networked workstations, these are supposed to be saved to a mapped personal or departmental network drive, with the 'My Documents' folder set to that network drive. However, sometimes that does not done, and you will have to check.
4. Some programs have features that let you back up their data. Use those to back up the data, and remember where that data is saved.
5. Other programs, in Win2K/XP, have special folders under C:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\ to store their data.

Once you identify what you need to copy off the workstation, you will need to store it someplace—preferably where the previous user can access it, like their personal or departmental network drive. Make sure there is enough space allotted for storage. If the user is important and you don't know what needs to be saved, boot the workstation on the Imaging CD and image the workstation under the user's Novell name.