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Windows 10 Fall Creator’s Update (a.k.a. 1709) Coming Soon!

On March 27, 2018 Information Technology Services will be approving the Windows 10 Fall Creator’s Update (a.k.a. Windows 10 1709) for installation via our internal Windows Update Server. If your computer is running a version of Windows 10 which is older than 1709 it will be updated to this latest version. Computers running any version of Windows older than Windows 10, such as Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 will NOT be affected by this.

You will not have to do anything to receive this update as it will be applied in the background like any other update to Windows. The main difference you will notice with this feature update is that when you restart your computer after being prompted that there are updates to be applied, the restart will take longer than normal; usually about 20-30 minutes, give or take.

NOTE: Your files, settings, and data will be unchanged by this update however we do remind you that we recommend you frequently back up your important files and data to a network drive, OneDrive, USB thumb drive, external hard drive, or some other medium.
If you would like to see what to expect during the upgrade process read on below!

Should you open the Update & Settings section of your Settings application and look under Windows Update you might see something like this as the update is being downloaded from our update server and is installed to your system:

Once the update has been downloaded and applied to your system you would see this:

Note that if you like, you can choose to schedule the restart at a later time here:

However if you aren’t checking the Settings application and you just attempt to restart your computer the dialog may look slightly different:

You may also receive other prompts to restart that can come as a pop up window or notification toast.

Note once more that if you receive this notice you may choose to restart and install now or pick a different time:

Once you choose to restart or your system restarts at the time you chose you will see this:

Your computer will restart and then you will see this:

Finally, once your computer has likely restarted a few more times you will see your normal login screen:

Once logging on with your normal credentials Windows will have a few more items to take care of and you will see the following screens:

Finally, you will be back at your normal desktop.

At this point the update has been applied and you can use your computer as you normally do. If you would like to know what some of the changes are in this update Microsoft has a blog post on that very subject:
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2017/10/17/whats-new-windows-10-fall-creators-update/#teYsWj4XmI1iH127.97
If you have any questions, problems, or concerns please contact the ITS Solutions Centre at (403)329-2490.

The Results Are In – SU Food Bank Challenge!

December is always a busy month but the University took the time to show its community spirit by coming together and raising always welcome donations for the Student’s Union Food Bank.

IT Services and Financial Services threw down the gauntlet again this year and challenged each other to see who could raise the most donations and the results were fantastic! A total of 874 food items and a whopping $1,239.00 in cash was raised. Shelly Tuff, USLU Health & Dental Plan Administrator, said that the USLU foodbank has been well stocked. “Thanks to IT and Financial Services for all the food and cash collected, it will help out a lot of students in need. And thanks to all who donated, we at the Student’s Union are very grateful for your generosity!”

The friendly rivalry started early in December with both departments collecting food and cash donations. IT Services had a Chili Cook Off fundraiser which was very well supported. Managers donated their time and chili and The PMO Office came out victorious with the most votes for the favorite. All those who attended enjoyed some great food and donated generously. Plans are in the works to host another cook off next year.

For cash donations, IT Services raised $934.00 followed by Financial Services with a total of $423.00. For food items IT Services collected 514 items and Financial Services collected 360.
The response was overwhelming and we would like to thank everyone from both departments for their enthusiasm, generosity and support. The victors in this friendly competition are definitely the students in need.

We’re looking forward to another spirited competition next year!

 

volunteers-sorting-cans

IT Services update for week of April 1, 2013

CRITICAL SERVICES: (Banner, Moodle, Wireless, Internet, Telephony)

  • Some students in the Testing Centre experienced intermittent error messages in Moodle this afternoon.  We have changed out a network device that may have been causing the problem, and will be monitoring Moodle closely when the Testing Centre opens tomorrow morning.

KPI SPOTLIGHT:

Anticipating the need to re-develop the University homepage, we have been collecting some data to better understand the needs of those using our site.  The “heatmap” below was generated over 3 days of activity in March (17,352 clicks). Much of this data aligns with areas we are already planning to address.  A few highlights:

  • The search box is well used, which could be a symptom of poor information architecture, or habitual user behaviour
  • The direct links by demographic in the “Apply Now” section is well visited, however the award offer beside it is almost never interacted with
  • Current Students and Faculty & Staff tabs in the lower quadrant are well-used and could be used as justification for a current student / employee portal (intranet) – to better focus our public website content.
  • “Services for Students” is well visited, even with lower positioning and size relationships to other elements on the page.
  • Our social media links in the footer are poorly visited.
  • The flexible messaging area graphic is heavily interacted with; people engage often with the slideshow format.

Heatmap spotlight

SERVICE IMPROVMENTS:

We have engaged an instructor from Lethbridge College to provide training for interested faculty and staff on Microsoft Office software (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.)  We have completed three courses so far and the feedback has been extremely positive.  We have included a few of the comments from participants below, as well as the scorecard showing top marks for the course evaluation.

“Good instructor; made course more fun. Thanks!”

“Excellent course – I learned lots of little tricks even though I’d taken other basic courses.”

Training comments

 

Kathy Retirement

The University community bid farewell to one of its longest serving employees in June.

Kathy Lee, in Information Technology,  “troubleshoot-ed” (troubleshot?) and assisted with her last PC, Macintosh, telephone, printer, any many other technology devices and services, after 30-plus years.

It’s with mixed emotions we say goodbye.