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- Posts: 172
- Joined: Tue May 30, 2017 6:53 am
Anybody prepared or already switched to windows 10 :
•Do I have to upgrade?
•What are the benefits of upgrading now
•Is there an easy process I can follow
Discussions about chromatography data systems, LIMS, controllers, computer issues and related topics.
bunnahabhain wrote:
All office PCs with connection to the internet must be upgraded for security reasons, of course. Acquisition workstations can only be upgraded if the instrument control software will work under Windows 10. Ask your software supplier for Windows 10 support. If it is not available, separate your workstation from the internet and continue your work as usual.
In my eyes there is no need to upgrade a functional acquisition workstation just to be able to use internet.
James_Ball wrote:
...my instrument acquisition workstation is also my "office" PC where I get the company email which is now "in the cloud"...
DR wrote:James_Ball wrote:
...my instrument acquisition workstation is also my "office" PC where I get the company email which is now "in the cloud"...
Does your IT department like malware and viruses?
I ask because that's a great way to get malware and viruses.
Most acquisition PCs require lots of open ports and most data systems do not work well in the presence of anti-malware programs. This results in port vulnerabilities and no effective means of scanning several folders on a given hard drive (or you close the ports and scan the CDS folders and get no data from your instruments).
You should really get another PC for your email and whatnot while leaving the instrument PCs behind a very restrictive firewall/proxy server or just make them part of a subnet with no direct outside access.
James_Ball wrote:
Most of the acquisition PCs run dual NICs one for the instrument and one for the house network. The internet connections are filtered through the main server as the firewall/proxy which is scanning and recording all inbound and outbound traffic. Certain individuals do not have access to internet when they log into a PC just in case.
In the past it was like pulling teeth just to get a PC that was a little faster to run the instrument, and we usually replaced the instrument PCs with the hand-me-downs from the front office(which makes no sense since a GC/MS or LC/MS/MS will use much more processing power than spreadsheets and email).
But things are changing around here and we now have someone who realizes the importance of the instruments and their needs, but small facilities will often have to make due with what is on hand.
Luckily I am finding that most of the Agilent software will run on W10 even though it isn't certified/supported on it. Though a few legacy instruments need tricks to get them to accept an IP address when they just do not communicate with the BootP as a service.
DR wrote:James_Ball wrote:
Most of the acquisition PCs run dual NICs one for the instrument and one for the house network. The internet connections are filtered through the main server as the firewall/proxy which is scanning and recording all inbound and outbound traffic. Certain individuals do not have access to internet when they log into a PC just in case.
In the past it was like pulling teeth just to get a PC that was a little faster to run the instrument, and we usually replaced the instrument PCs with the hand-me-downs from the front office(which makes no sense since a GC/MS or LC/MS/MS will use much more processing power than spreadsheets and email).
But things are changing around here and we now have someone who realizes the importance of the instruments and their needs, but small facilities will often have to make due with what is on hand.
Luckily I am finding that most of the Agilent software will run on W10 even though it isn't certified/supported on it. Though a few legacy instruments need tricks to get them to accept an IP address when they just do not communicate with the BootP as a service.
While it is a good idea to limit access on instrument PCs, there are still several open ports that are required in order for the acquisition PC to communicate with the server (assuming a C/S environment). This is where the risk comes in. Also, all you need is a badly hung Outlook process to force a reboot and take out several active runs to get things going again. As cheap as PCs are these days, they really should keep a "hands off" policy on instrument PCs.
@ benhutcherson - 3.11 and 2000 machines? You have my condolences. I rather liked 3.11 but was a much bigger fan of 98, XP and 7. I get that 10 works, but I think it is change for change's sake and they always manage to take away things that I used whenever there's a big upgrade. Credit for adding in a virtual drive mounting utility for people who d/l an occasional ISO, but I miss things like photomanager and integrated LAME.
LALman wrote:
James Ball, I agree with you about NT4. That was the most stable OS ever for its time. It even seduced me to abandon OS/2 when IBM abandoned it.
I find that the refurbished HP 6005 Pro SFF and HP 4000 Pro SFF were about $150 refurbished with 8GB of DDR, 500 GB drive, and Win7Pro. I bought a couple of each for backups when my first HP4000 that came with my 5973 instrument bit the dust. I copy the drive to a 256GB SSD and that makes for a fine machine for Chemstation D.XX.XX The HP4000 is a little slow for Chemstation E.XX.XX. The HP 4000 has an intel Pentium E6700 at 3.2GHz and the HP 6005 has an Athlon II X2 at 3.2GHz.
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