You probably (hopefully!) saw an email from Jonas recently about bringing your laptop in to get a ‘tune-up’. While this is voluntary maintenance we are hopeful that many staff will take advantage of this. Here are the most important reasons to do so:
- Your laptop will be re-imaged
- You might hear the term ‘re-imaged’ from us a lot and maybe you aren’t sure exactly what that means. It’s actually quite simple! Whenever the division purchases a new laptop we have to set it up so that it works in our environment and on our networks. Imaging is the process where we install a customized version of the operating system (Windows 10) and set up the laptop to receive all the polices, software and drivers that make it operate properly and safely.
The image is constantly maintained so that it has the latest Windows updates and optimal drivers. Your laptop was almost certainly re-imaged when you received it but this was possibly years ago in some cases. We have systems in places that will push out updates and policies to deployed laptops but these things are not failproof and so your laptop slowly, over time, can get out of date and re-imaging it will correct that!
Warning! Imaging your laptop will erase all it’s contents. Ensure that your OneDrive is up-to-date and you have saved anything else you need from it!
- You might hear the term ‘re-imaged’ from us a lot and maybe you aren’t sure exactly what that means. It’s actually quite simple! Whenever the division purchases a new laptop we have to set it up so that it works in our environment and on our networks. Imaging is the process where we install a customized version of the operating system (Windows 10) and set up the laptop to receive all the polices, software and drivers that make it operate properly and safely.
- The latest version of Microsoft Office, Office 365, will be installed
- Your laptop almost certainly has Office 2016 installed on it, most of them do. During this tune-up the Office 365 client is going to be installed and so you will have all the features you have come to expect from using the Office 365 online version, but on your desktop! This version of Office, although similar in functionality, is actually different in a key way from any previous version.
This version of Office is distributed in a model called SaaS which stands for software as a service. What does that mean for you? You currently have Office 2016 and before that you had Office 2013 and maybe even Office 2010 before that (👴). This version of Office has no year attached because there is an update engine built in that Microsoft will use to keep the software up to date. You’ll always have the latest features!
- Your laptop almost certainly has Office 2016 installed on it, most of them do. During this tune-up the Office 365 client is going to be installed and so you will have all the features you have come to expect from using the Office 365 online version, but on your desktop! This version of Office, although similar in functionality, is actually different in a key way from any previous version.
- Microsoft Teams will be installed
- You may or may not already have it but the Teams craze is sweeping the division! Microsoft has stated that the end of life date for Skype for Business is July of 2021 and so we will have to transition everyone to Teams before then. The tune up will see Teams installed and Skype removed from your device. Teams has all the features of Skype and more so it’s time to embrace the change!
I hope all this newness excites you and you are ready to drop your schedule your appointment! Book online using our scheduler!
