Purchase a new PC or laptop lately for your business?  Here are a couple tips to help you get it up and running on your network.

Username/Password - When setting up your new PC, it usually will ask you for your name.  The name you enter becomes your new username.  If your username on the old PC was different, now when you try to access the network, you will be prompted for a username and password.  You could always add the new username and password to your Server, but that's one more step that may not be needed.  If you make a new account on the new PC, it will create a new desktop that does not have any of the personalization's the original account has.  Use the same name and password on the new PC as the old one, unless they are both to be on the network at the same time.

Firewalls - Most Pre-installed PC/Laptops come with some sort of trial anti-virus/Internet Security Suite.  Most Internet security suites have a built-in firewall, that if not properly setup, could keep you from accessing your Server resources and applications.  You may want to check each of these and tune the firewall for each if it complains. You can turn the firewall off until you tune it.  Make sure the rest of the system is working and come back to this step.

Consistency - This is probably the most important tip.  Be consistent on how your PC's are setup.  A good example of how this can cause complications comes to mind.  A customer recently bought a new Pre-installed PC that came with Windows 7.  He ran through the start-up steps the PC guided him through.

This PC was replacing a current older PC, that shared a printer.  He attached the printer but had no luck printing from any other PC's.  The main issue here was that most of the PC's in the business were authenticating through a Domain Controller or Server.  The network was setup this way because most of the administrative tasks could be performed there instead of having to go to each PC administration.  With the mix of Domain and non-Domain PC's, only some of the machines could access the new one.  To complicate things one of the more important PC's could do what it needed over the network.

There are many other ways to help keep things running smoothly in a network.  I have listed the 3 that I find most people do not pay enough attention to on new installations.   They are some of the easiest to make things "just work".

If you need some network help, or some general advice on adding or replacing a PC on your network, please call the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800-672-4806 or email_us

-Bryan