Chromatography Forum

I'm trying to figure out how to configure OpenLab Chemstation (standalone workstations) to give some security of data, outside of the OpenLab application. Currently Windows is logged in as an admin, so there is access to all folders and settings, so you can go and find you data and do what you like with it. Is it possible to restrict access to these folders to OpenLab only?

I've tried looking at the literature on Agilent's website but they seem to be pushing add-on software for this that does a lot more than we need. I don't know if it's possible to set up a different Windows login with restricted access but have OpenLab still able to access the areas it needs to - or if this is required? Maybe there is another way?

I'd recommend getting a second PC, and configuring an automatic back-up of all new files created in the data-area of your instrument PC onto the back-up PC, say on an hourly basis. You could also back up onto a network file-server if you prefer. The backed-up area should be read-only for those users who need to look at data. The weakness of this approach is that there is an hour's window in which files are vulnerable to meddling, but thereafter they're not only resistant to human intervention, they're also resistant to hard disk failure.

The system isn't perfect, because someone, somewhere, is bound to have admin rights to the back-up area, but it's a fairly efficient way to avoid data-loss.

I'd recommend getting a second PC, and configuring an automatic back-up of all new files created in the data-area of your instrument PC onto the back-up PC, say on an hourly basis. You could also back up onto a network file-server if you prefer. The backed-up area should be read-only for those users who need to look at data. The weakness of this approach is that there is an hour's window in which files are vulnerable to meddling, but thereafter they're not only resistant to human intervention, they're also resistant to hard disk failure.

The system isn't perfect, because someone, somewhere, is bound to have admin rights to the back-up area, but it's a fairly efficient way to avoid data-loss.

I'm not sure how OpenLab works with data but I remember that the old Agilent ICPMS Chemstation had problems with read only files. We used to backup or drives to CD and DVD-rom and it would not allow us to open those files until we copied them back to a hard drive and changed the attributes to remove the read only tag. There was on file in the data it had to be able to edit before it would allow access.

We had the same issue in the old lab where i worked. Both lmh and James Ball make good points. Making automatic backups on a separate PC or an external HDD is a solution, although chemstation will ask you to not have the files as read-only (in some cases) when you are processing data.
What we have done, is take away the admin privileges from the users, and create user accounts without the option of deleting, renaming or moving files from the Chemstation data folders. I don't exactly remember how my colleagues from the IT department did it back then, but it can be done.