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Issue
33 - September 2002
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Operating
System Upgrade to Windows XP
By
Raymond Poon
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Microsoft
will soon cease its support on Windows 98 (Win98) and
a lot of hardware and software, especially the new ones,
will be better supported under Windows XP (WinXP). More
importantly, the Banner 5, which is scheduled to go
live in September 2002, will not run under Win98. As
a result, the University is inevitably prompted to phase
out Win98 shortly and to cease the support for Windows
2000 (Win2K) within the next few months.
As
such, a campus-wide operating system upgrade to WinXP
for all client PCs on staff LAN will be launched in
1 September 2002 and may take 2 to 3 months to complete.
Staff training on WinXP will be conducted regularly
until the upgrade has been completed. Training sessions
will start in mid-September and their schedules be announced
shortly through network message. Staff are encouraged
to upgrade their PCs themselves as soon as possible.
Upgrade instructions can be found at "http://www.cityu.edu.hk/itdev/XP/stafflan/"
while the option for invoking the upgrade is available
at the "Software Tools & Utilities" menu
in the Intranet.
Since
many departments may not feel comfortable with staff
doing the upgrade themselves, an External Service Provider
(ESP) has been appointed to carry out some or all upgrade
work for departments when needed. A central fund has
also been made available to finance the upgrade work.
As the fund will not be sufficient to cover all requirements
of all departments, only the following "standard
upgrade package" will therefore be provided to
departments free of charge:
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The minimum configuration requirement for the PCs
to be upgraded must at least be a Pentium III machine
with a CPU speed of 500Mhz and 128MB RAM. Departments
with staff LAN PCs that otherwise meet this requirement
except for the size of RAM can request the Computing
Services Centre (CSC) to upgrade their memory to128MB
free of charge.
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Only
staff's desktop PCs on Staff LAN will be upgraded.
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Only
upgrade from either Win98 or Win2K to WinXP environment
will be provided.
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The
centrally
provided client software will be upgraded and
installed at the same time as the operating system.
Installation of a reasonable number of non-centrally
provided client software will also be covered.
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Reborn
cards currently installed on Staff LAN PCs will be
removed during the upgrade in order to eliminate compatibility
problems with the new WinXP file system.
While
the package should be sufficient for most of the staff
machines, however, should some machines in departments
require work above or deviated from the standard coverage,
the CSC can negotiate with the ESP, on behalf of departments,
on any such work. However, any service charge incurred
in excess of the standard provision will be fully borne
by departments. Below are examples of some such service
work:
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WinXP
upgrade for PCs fail to meet the minimum configuration
requirement
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WinXP
upgrade for portables and notebooks
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WinXP
upgrade for PCs on Student LANs
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PC
with Win95 or WinME being upgraded to WinXP
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Use
of new hard disk for installing the WinXP
To
ensure a smooth operating system upgrade, the following
preparation work prior to the upgrade are recommended:
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Each
department should nominate a staff member, served
as the coordinator, to liaise with the CSC on matters
related to this upgrade.
-
The
minimum configuration requirement for the PCs to be
upgraded must at least be a Pentium III machine with
a CPU speed of 500Mhz and 128MB RAM. Departments with
staff LAN PCs that otherwise meet this requirement
except for the size of RAM can request the CSC to
upgrade their memory to128MB free of charge.
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Visit
"http://www.cityu.edu.hk/itdev/XP/stafflan/"
to check whether any hardware and software used by
departments are known to be incompatible to XP. If
found, allocate sufficient funding to either upgrade
or replace such incompatible hardware and/or software.
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Should
a department need Chinese environment under Win XP,
the CSC recommends it to install English WinXP with
Multi-language pack as opposed to install native Chinese
WinXP because the CSC at present can only provide
very limited support and network services under the
native Chinese Win XP (both Simplified and Traditional
versions).
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Staff
should do the backup themselves prior to the upgrade
even though the ESP will also do so for them as the
ESP will only keep the contents of the backup for
3 days.
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If a department opts to use new hard disks for the
upgrade (for details, please consult your Departmental
Network Administrator (DNA)), either the department
provides its own hard disks and cables, or pay for
the costs of the hard disks (e.g. the current market
price for a 60GB hard disk with cable is around HK$700
per unit).
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Should
a department opt to use self-provided hard disks for
the upgrade, make sure the disk cables are long enough
and there are empty bays and disk controller ports
on the target PCs for the installation of the additional
hard disks. There may be charge incurred should the
ESP be asked to do the hardware installation.
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Should
a department require quotations on any installation
or upgrade work that are either not covered by or
deviated from the standard upgrade, please send the
list of work to your CSC Representative before the
upgrade so that CSC can negotiate with the ESP on
behalf of departments in a timely manner.
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Staff's
presence will be required both at the beginning and
at the end of the upgrade process for entering their
existing and new passwords respectively unless someone
in the department can do it on their behalf. Hence
each department should prepare a list of passwords
that belong to those staff that will be absent during
the upgrade and should remind them to change their
passwords after the upgrade.
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As
the estimated time for the upgrade is at least 3 hours
per PC and the ESP can only upgrade a limited number
of PCs at a time, departments, if necessary, should
plan ahead the upgrade priorities among PCs.
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Staff
training on WinXP will be available in mid-September.
Should departments have specific training needs, they
should bring to CSC's attention during the project
meeting prior to the upgrade. Once the schedules of
these training sessions are known, departments may
need to work out a plan for staff to attend these
training sessions in turn.
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Besides
the upgrade of operating system, the ESP will also
label and record all PCs that are or will be under
the CSC support no matter whether the operating systems
of these PCs will be upgraded in this exercise. Each
department is therefore requested to have either a
list showing the locations of these PCs or someone
who can lead the ESP to such locations.
Should
you have any query on this upgrade, please contact your
DNA or the CSC Help Desk at 27887658.
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