Winter – Fall 2022

Technical Assistance for the Win Upgrade

Windows 10, Windows 7, Microsoft

100-200

Chicago Center of Arts and Technology(CHICAT)

Upgrade completed to preserve Support, Efficiency and Troubleshooting Assistance for the devices at the organization.

The client is a non-profit organization that educates and empowers youth through free arts and technology programs and empowers adults through free job training programs that help them find sustainable employment.

Almost 100 of the devices at the organization(most of them students, but some of them were for staff as well) were running Windows 7 Operating Systems and support from Microsoft was going to end on January 14, 2020.

The devices at CHICAT are used by students as well as some staff for using softwares related to Maintenance Mechanics, Food Technology, 3D Maker software and Graphic Design and we needed to keep in mind class schedules and none of the softwares is affected as well.

CHICAT stresses on the importance of complying with the Child Information Protection Act(CIPA) which is also one of the reasons we needed to have the devices up-to-date and in conjunction to compliance reasons(CIPA) and overall security for the devices.

As AKA Comp Solutions have been managing CHICAT’s IT Infrastructure and helpdesk support, the task was carried out by the Support team to ensure all devices are upgraded and there is no data loss.

The project was executed by first identifying devices which needed the upgrade and which of them have the hardware configuration supported by Windows 10. Next step was to find the correct tool to upgrade to Windows 10; we had Lenovo’s upgrade tool which was created as per the device configuration and the other option was Microsoft’s Windows Update Assistant or the Media Creation Tool, which preserved all the files and upgraded unlike Lenovo’s tool which deleted all the data.

To backup almost 100 devices with software and data and software sizes also being of a large size due to the complex softwares like Creative Cloud and some used in the Maintenance Mechanics class would bring up one more task and was considered time consuming as it was meant to be completed as soon as possible as the devices couldn’t be held on to. A list of softwares from all the devices was made, compatibility with windows 10 was checked and a decision to use Microsoft’s tool to upgrade Windows OS was confirmed. Availability of students and staff devices was taken into consideration as well. Post-upgrade of the devices, Windows and Vendor specific updates was installed, remote monitoring and management software is checked to make sure it can still manage the device and any concerns or questions of the staff were addressed.

The upgrade project which is completed now means that all the devices are up to the latest Windows Operating System offered by Microsoft and it will receive all the new features and security releases from Microsoft. Moving forward, it ensures there is the compatibility of future updates and releases from Microsoft.

The second accomplishment from this project is that the different types of software which are used in the different programs by the staff will be compatible and any new updates or any software will also be compatible with the upgraded Operating System.

This also satisfies the CIPA compliance wherein due to the devices being upgraded are able to receive all security patches protecting the devices from any breaches.