How I love my IT department, let me count the ways

Post by **bio** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 11:55 am

Our IT department, in their infinite wisdom, pushed down a new policy and some updates to my laptop on Thrusday.

Fuckers.

We can no longer access windows update ourselves. If we actually try to maintain our own pc's, we get the following message:

Network policy settings prevent you from using Windows Update to download and install updates on your computer. If you believe you have received this message in error, please check with your system administrator.

They also enabled the firewall on our wireless NIC... but apparently forgot to also set it up to enable firewall access via the IBM Access Connections Manager (and, as I have an IBM laptop... that's kinda critical).

So.... I had to plug in manually.... fucker with it a bit, and do some tweaks. It works now (well... the wireless does).

Post by **eddiecanuck** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 4:56 pm

Great!! Maybe that's why I'm having VPN problems. That really pisses me off, no offense PM. But they really need to think about what they hell they are doing BEFORE they do it. I don't think some of them realize the need for engineering to have a little more control over their PCs/laptops. Guess I'll work on it tomorrow.

Rocketdork · Post by **Rocketdork** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 6:18 pm

OWA has been down all weekend too...

I was expecting an Email from someone...and haven't been able to check it.

dang it...

Pigman · Post by **Pigman** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 7:16 pm

eddiecanuck wrote:Great!! Maybe that's why I'm having VPN problems. That really pisses me off, no offense PM. But they really need to think about what they hell they are doing BEFORE they do it. I don't think some of them realize the need for engineering to have a little more control over their PCs/laptops. Guess I'll work on it tomorrow.

All out of my control .. I do know that if you log on to your PCs locally, you have full access to the update site. I believe I.T. sent an email out explaining all of this, but of course, no one bothers to read em...

(I just checked my email and EVERYONE was notified back in March that this was gonna happen.)

Update Type: Informational

Topic: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2

Date: March 21, 2005

In preparation for this rollout, the windows update feature provided by Microsoft will be disabled temporarily on Windows XP systems. Necessary Windows updates will be distributed to your computer by IT utilizing our Systems Management Server.

Post by **eddiecanuck** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 9:43 pm

I remember that email, but do not recall them saying anything about turning on the firewall. My VPN issues my be due to my router as well. Got a new one coming tomorrow... hopefully

Thanks for the update on OWA RD, I've been trying all weekend and thought it was my network. Guess I've got a good excuse for not checking email this weekend now

Post by **bio** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 9:53 pm

I tried OWA here too with the same result.

But, if you VPN in and launch Outlook, that works (though it's about as speedy as it is at work).

We're not attacking you, pigman, but whom ever came up with the idea of tossing the firewall up on the wireless NIC without the ability to add in the software that actually allows you to use it should be beaten to death... or forced to work in our IT department.

I'm not sure which is worse.

Pigman · Post by **Pigman** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 6:40 am

bio wrote:I tried OWA here too with the same result.

But, if you VPN in and launch Outlook, that works (though it's about as speedy as it is at work).

We're not attacking you, pigman, but whom ever came up with the idea of tossing the firewall up on the wireless NIC without the ability to add in the software that actually allows you to use it should be beaten to death... or forced to work in our IT department.

I'm not sure which is worse.

I haven't heard of any changes proposed or acted upon in ref to firewalls and the wireless network. Will check on that this morning.

AsaJay · Post by **AsaJay** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 6:55 am

You know, I can't be -sure-, but I think after I installed ZoneAlarm on the PC I had at the lazy-I, IT couldn't actually -do- anything to it anymore. It was so sweet. I updated the OS on a regular basis, kept all the virus scanners and spyware scanner running regularly, and never had a problem.

Post by **eddiecanuck** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 9:28 am

Well PM just informed me that he asked the guys in IT and they said they didn't do anything.

I've had no problems with wireless at work, just VPN at home. Here's hoping the new wireless router arrives today. I think my problem may be the MTU speed. The router I borrowed from breaman doesn't let me set the MTU speed on it. So I'll try it with the new one.