Hello everyone, I hope I came to the right place to ask my stupid question. I’m currently working in a company that stuck way way back in time. I’m talking some people are still working in DOS level back in time. There is some revamping of this in progres, but it’s going to be a long run.
The “IT department” (called computing department, lol) consist basically of 2 people, boss and me. Boss loves the old days, he’s “happily” using Win XP on his computer and hates everything newer than Win7, although half of everything he tries to do doesn’t work there anymore (and don’t even start with security of the OS). Anyway… that’s about the company background and what to expect.
During currently ongoing upgrades to get this company at least to 21st cwntury, there will be some sw licencing happening. I’m expecting like buying dozens of Office 2021 keys and some other standalone soft too. But there’s problem with managing those keys, as there is no precedence, no rules and everything’s going to be from the scratch almost. People are coming and going, PCs are dying (remember, there are still some DOS machines), hard drives replacing, etc. etc. Windows domain? Not in this company. Ever.
So, how do you keep track of what is installed and where? Thank you very much.
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Q: How do you eat an elephant?
A: One bite at a time.
Whilst you are faced with a multitude of issues, don’t get lost in the weeds by details when you are trying to untangle the past to move it forward.
A simple spreadsheet to track hardware, licenses and other details like location, specs and primary contact is a perfectly reasonable starting point.
I say that because you don’t know what you don’t know yet. You might for example discover that some shops are doing their own thing, regardless of company policy.
Creating a ticketing system is useful to track stuff for everyone. I settled on
traxwith web access to people who need it, but the computer literacy levels might prevent some from using this.Burnout is a very distinct possibility in an environment like this, so make sure that you set aside time for you to think. Call it a meeting, call it an on-site visit, whatever you do, take time to think.
Also, remember to backup your work. It’s not unheard of for it to vanish unexpectedly if you are perceived as a threat.
Source, I’ve been working in this profession for 40 years.
I always wonder how these relics make any money using systems that old. To do business with some of our clients, they audit us for ISO 27001 compliance once per year. Anything out of support would be flagged and we could lose a lot of business.
It’s small grocery store chain in the middle of European nowhere, with about hundred of stores run mostly in small villages. Some of those ancient software was made in-house decades ago for internal ordering from wholesaler (also run by the company) to individual shops. Everything in wholesale warehouse runs on the same DOS thing too, with stock inventory, invoice, ordering, … There’s already plan to (finally!!) put it to sleep and replace with something newer and more flexible, but given how low on resources and manpower the company is, it’s not going to happen fast.
Mobile Device Management software to keep track of what’s installed on devices (probably won’t work with DOS)
I personally use a password manager to keep track of software keys, but realistically you should probably look for a way to get licenses that doesn’t involve typing a key everywhere.
If you’re buying dozens of Office keys, then a site license for Windows and Office makes a lot more sense.
And those licenses are managed between you and MS. Then it’s a simple count of Office installations and you know how many licenses you should be using. You typically do an annual license “true up” with MS.
Or Office 365. Yeah, I know people hate SaaS, but businesses love it. Licensing is flexible and scales up and down as you need it. And you get major updates as long as you have a license, unlike when you buy 2021 Pro Plus or whatever, where you’ll always be on 2021.
We recently had discussion on this too and 365 is also a possibility. Nobody wants to deal with MS and their licensing though :-D
Libreoffice it is!
That’s what we’re using now and where quite some problems come from. I don’t have anything against it, it’s awesome suite for personal use, but running it in company we constantly run into problems with compatibility. Every partner we’re dealing with is using MS Office and when they’re exchanging spreadsheets or documents with us it’s often pain in the a*s to make it work. And MS is not helping in this…
If you can get the organization to switch to Debian, you could do it all with free software and manage the whole thing with Ansible.
I mention this because if the org is running Windows software that old, then current generation FOSS software is going to be a breathe of fresh air, by comparison.
It might not work if someone with a C title has a specific magical Windows package they want.
But even then, I would manage one or two Windows PCs (for a couple of C suite execs) by hand, than a full organization full. And you would save the organization a boatload of money.
There are multitude of OS & software in running. Some people still use DOS, but most of those were already upgraded - to windows XP. These machines are currently being replaced with Win10 ones. But due to some specific old SW there still need to be some DOS machines running, at least for couple upcoming years. Linux is sadly not an option for typical office workers, again due to some software in use. There’s at least open source in places where possible with more (Firefox, Thunderbird, tightVNC, …) or less (LibreOffice) success.
Can you run the DOS software under DOSBox?
I haven’t tried, but given how quirky it is (in house development decades ago with patches and hotfixes stuck to it over years) I highly doubt it would work. The main problem is that there’s no will to use Linux in office environment…
We’re at least running it on POS machines - about 150 openSUSE installs - where there’s nothing fancy needed.
DOSBox runs on both Linux and Windows (and probably Mac too?); I was suggesting it since you might be able to replace the dying DOS computers with a modern system and just launch the legacy system as an application under it. (You might be able to do the same with a VM as well, but DOSBox came to mind first and may be easier to setup and distribute.)
Just a thought. If it’s not useful, feel free to disregard.
