Nobbled

[Covenant]

I am getting a new computer from work in a couple of weeks. Great, I thought, my old one is knackered. Today they inform me I can't put any software on it. That means no Squeezebox and no Foobar.
What am I going to do? :scratch:

[synsei]

I am getting a new computer from work in a couple of weeks. Great, I thought, my old one is knackered. Today they inform me I can't put any software on it. That means no Squeezebox and no Foobar.
What am I going to do? :scratch:

Put software onto it... :lol:

[Covenant]

They say I won't be able to. The phrase they used was 'locked down'......

[synsei]

Spoil sports... Tell them your productivity improves when you listen to music, ya never know :eyebrows:

[MikeMusic]

They say I won't be able to. The phrase they used was 'locked down'......

Probably admin rights
Find a hacker around here somewhere
:)
Wonder if possible to run from an external HD ......

[Covenant]

Wonder if possible to run from an external HD ......

Don't think so, it would be great if that was possible. I might have to use an old netbook in the house. A nuisance though.

[StanleyB]

Never install or store your own stuff on a laptop provided by the company. Don't even use it to log on to your online email box.
If you are asked to leave the company there and then, they will of course take possession of their property and not offer you the chance to retrieve or delete anything. This could be bad news for you if you have anything sensitive on the laptop.

I protected my company laptop by creating an encrypted partition. I also had a piece of software installed that used a double password. The one password would let you boot up normally. The other password would secretly format the encrypted partition in the background. That's the password I gave the IT manager when I left my old company.

[pjdowns]

Never install or store your own stuff on a laptop provided by the company. Don't even use it to log on to your online email box.
If you are asked to leave the company there and then, they will of course take possession of their property and not offer you the chance to retrieve or delete anything. This could be bad news for you if you have anything sensitive on the laptop.

I protected my company laptop by creating an encrypted partition. I also had a piece of software installed that used a double password. The one password would let you boot up normally. The other password would secretly format the encrypted partition in the background. That's the password I gave the IT manager when I left my old company.

Smart move Stan. I'd agree leave your company machine well alone.. You can buy reconditioned machines for as little as £100 that'll easily run the Squeezebox software :)

[Ali Tait]

Yep, a little notebook or even a smartphone will allow you to play music.

[DaveK]

Hi Jerry,
Don't know what OS you have on the 'old' PC or whether it's even yours to 'mess' with but if so, and it's running Windows, try a 'Refresh' (assuming it is then redundant for work purposes). As I understand it (someone will be along to correct me if I'm wrong ;) ), this pretty much wipes everything off except the OS, leaving you with a potential candidate for a dedicated music server.
Dave.

[DaveK]

Double post - sorry!

[pjdowns]

Hi Jerry,
Don't know what OS you have on the 'old' PC or whether it's even yours to 'mess' with but if so, and it's running Windows, try a 'Refresh' (assuming it is then redundant for work purposes). As I understand it (someone will be along to correct me if I'm wrong ;) ), this pretty much wipes everything off except the OS, leaving you with a potential candidate for a dedicated music server.
Dave.

Never heard of a Refresh Dave but you could rebuild the laptop which would invoke re installation of the software and OS. It'd certainly perform better as PCs have a knack of collecting stuff which slows them down over time.

Paul

[MikeMusic]

Never install or store your own stuff on a laptop provided by the company. Don't even use it to log on to your online email box.
If you are asked to leave the company there and then, they will of course take possession of their property and not offer you the chance to retrieve or delete anything. This could be bad news for you if you have anything sensitive on the laptop.

I protected my company laptop by creating an encrypted partition. I also had a piece of software installed that used a double password. The one password would let you boot up normally. The other password would secretly format the encrypted partition in the background. That's the password I gave the IT manager when I left my old company.

Jerry, this is the man you need !

[walpurgis]

You should be able to run everything you want off a USB pen drive. It should work OK, The PC won't care or even know what's on it and once unplugged there's nothing left on the computer (as long as you don't send files from it to the PC).

[MartinT]

Stan's advice is good. Never put personal stuff on your work machine. If you are allowed, put all your documents in SkyDrive or DropBox and access them that way, and make sure they have a different password. That's the password you never give away.

By the way, work won't need your password. We do several things when a member of staff leaves, including archiving all their documents and e-mail. We do it all centrally but it's trivial to change a user's password while we do that before wiping their account. Be warned that if you litigate against your employer, having deleted all your stuff won't make a blind bit of difference to their central archives. We have had staff leave, having wiped every bit of their e-mail. It takes me two minutes to restore it all, then the very act of them having done that makes us more suspicious. Remember that everything you create on a work machine belongs to them.

[Rothchild]

Coupla options

http://portableapps.com/

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

I think the first one will be best but the latter, if they've not locked the BIOS will likely be less traceable.

[Covenant]

I decided in the end to use two computers. My old old will be connected to the internet as well as my work one. There are a number of advantages doing this. All my file storage will be on the old machine which has a large secondary hard drive and will still have my music files/access to internet radio. As I often copy bits from old files I will have two monitors on my desk. My work machine will remain a virgin!