Managed Workstation Services News
March 22, 2017
Planned work on 4/2 for home and group directories
A service outage is planned for all Managed Workstation home (H:) and group (I:\groups) directories. What and When: On Sunday, April 2, 2017, all Managed Workstation home (H:) and group (I:\groups) directories will be unavailable from 8am to 9am, for planned maintenance. More info: This work is required to switch the underlying authentication mechanisms for the file servers that provide the home and group directories as part of the migration to the NETID domain. During this work, there will be no access to files and folders in both user home directories (H:) and group directories (i:\groups). If you have questions...
February 28, 2017
Windows 8.1 will move to retirement
The Managed Workstation Service is moving Windows 8.1 into retirement on May 1, 2017. What and When: Starting on May 1, 2017, Managed Workstation support for Windows 8.1 will be done on a consulting hours basis only. What does this mean? Managed Workstation will continue to provide automatic fixes, security updates, and technical assistance for Windows 8.1 as part of the Managed Workstation rate through April 30, 2017. After May 1, 2017, all support for Windows 8.1 will be done on a consulting hours basis only. See our Operating System lifecycle and support page for additional info. What You Need...
February 21, 2017
Windows 7 moves to containment
Every operating system has a support life-cycle determined by the software publisher, and the Managed Workstation service places each operating system into a support life-cycle. The Managed Workstation Service is moving Windows 7 into containment. What and When: Managed Workstation will continue to support Windows 7, however we no longer provide an image using Lite-touch deployment or through CDW-G. On February 28, 2017, Windows 7 will move into containment. What does this mean? Managed Workstation will continue to provide automatic fixes, security updates, and technical assistance for Windows 7 operating system as part of the Managed Workstation rate. Microsoft will...
January 31, 2017
Windows 10 upgrades coming next week
We will start upgrading all computers running Windows 10 to the latest version, 1607 - also known as Anniversary Edition, starting next week (2/6/2017). What and when As we recently announced, all computers running Windows 10 will be upgraded to version 1607, which is also known as the Anniversary Edition. This upgrade is mandatory as Microsoft will stop supporting versions of Windows 10 older than 1607 in March. The upgrade will be done automatically in the evenings, requires no user interaction, and will not impact any user settings or files. We will start the process on 2/6/2017, and upgrade 50-100...
January 13, 2017
Brown bag lunch January 30th 2017
Join us January 30, 2017 from 12:00pm – 1:00pm for an awesome open discussion on the Windows 10 Anniversary Edition upgrade. Grab your lunch and join us in the Visitors Dining Room on the 4th floor in the UW Tower. Agenda Newsletter highlights – Brian Arkills Nebula to NetID Domain migration – Brian Arkills Windows 10 Anniversary Edition upgrade – Brian Smith New features (start menu, dark theme, Edge, Search/Cortana, etc. Better Security (how vulnerable is Windows 10 compared to older versions, How to get your system infected (what NOT to do), how to protect your data). Your privacy...
November 14, 2016
Disabling all remaining NEBULA2 accounts
We will begin disabling all remaining NEBULA2 user accounts the week of 11/28. What and when: Starting the week of 11/28, we will begin disabling the remaining 221 NEBULA2 accounts that are still in use. What you need to do: If you are still using your NEBULA2 user account, you need to migrate to your NETID account. See https://it.uw.edu/wares/nebula/adding-users/nebula2-user-disables/ for information on how to do so. More info: For the last few years we have been encouraging users to use their NETID accounts rather than their NEBULA2 accounts as part of a migration of Managed Workstations services to use the...
November 14, 2016
Nebula2 Account Disables
We will begin disabling all remaining NEBULA2 user accounts the week of 11/28. What and when: The week of 11/28, we will begin disabling the remaining 221 NEBULA2 accounts that are still in use. What you need to do: If you are still using your NEBULA2 user account, you need to migrate to your NETID account. See https://it.uw.edu/wares/nebula/adding-users/nebula2-user-disables/ for information on how to do so. More info: For the last few years we have been encouraging users to use their NETID accounts rather than their NEBULA2 accounts as part of a migration of Managed Workstations services to use the NETID...
October 20, 2016
Managed Workstation Newsletter (December 2016)
Welcome to the semi-annual Managed Workstation service newsletter, which brings you valuable updates and information to help you make the most of our services. This is usually semi-annual, but we’re late by 3 months this time around. Sorry! New Capabilities and Improvements Documentation reorganized and notable gaps filled: Over time our documentation lost its focus. So we've whipped it back into shape, so you can find what you need. In the future, we'll be renaming the URL to our documentation to drop "Nebula". Lowered FY17 rates: Almost every Managed Workstation FY17 rate was lower when compared to FY16. Service catalog support...
September 27, 2016
Service design change: DNS search suffixes
Managed Workstation service design change: DNS search suffixes What and When We'll be making a change to all managed workstations over a period of a week, in increasing numbers of computers. A few will get this change Friday night 9/30, more Monday night, and so on. Every managed workstation get this change by 10/7. In the past, we've provided configuration of a setting which gives managed workstations a hint to address the situation where a user doesn't provide a fully qualified name for a server they want to connect to. We are no longer providing that configuration. This configuration setting...
September 27, 2016
Service design change: Default domain
Managed Workstation service design change: Default domain What and When We'll be making a change to all managed workstations over a period of a week, in increasing numbers of computers. A few will get this change Friday night 9/30, more Monday night, and so on. Every managed workstation get this change by 10/7. Each Windows computer has a setting called the default domain which determines which Windows domain the computer's logon interface defaults to for user logon. This setting is relevant for Windows 7 or older computers, but doesn't mean much on newer versions of Windows. We will be configuring...