Friday, September 11, 2009

File under: Office Annoyances, IT


This has happened to me twice this week: I get in to work, logon, have just enough time to open my email program, read a few messages, wonder why my computer is so slow this morning, get several spreadsheets open to do some research in order to respond to those emails, hit reply on the first email of the day...and then: "Beep! Automatic Updates. Do you want to restart now or later?" Actually, I do not, since I just started making progress on something. Since "No" is not an option, I generally go with later so I can finish what I am doing, but soon enough it is back again, popping up in the middle of the screen to prevent anything useful from being done. So I close down everything and restart. Then I open everything back up again and take 5-10 minutes to get back to where I was. Great.

Today's annoyance was compounded by the dreaded: "Beep! You have 7 grace logins remaining before you must change your password." upon initial login. After automatic updates..."Beep! You have 6 grace logins remaining before you must change your password." I just want to make it through Friday without changing to a new password so I don't forget it over the weekend, leave me alone! I think our password expiration period has gotten shorter, but I know other companies have way more cryptic password r3q_1Remen+5, so I won't complain too much.

I can't decide if a slow computer & forced restart right after you login is better or worse than the old way of pushing updates which involved IT sending everyone 5+ high priority emails the day before saying "LEAVE YOUR COMPUTER ON TONIGHT - REQUIRED UPDATE!"

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