Current Students and Staff

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Staff: Looking after your computer

Many of us have been working off campus with our devices for some time now, and to keep them up to date and secure they require regular restarts and connection to the University Network via the VPN service (Virtual Private Network).

Recommended actions:

Connect to the University Network

We recommend that this is done at least once a week to complete any updates that are required:

Connect your device to the VPN and continue to work while connected for at least an hour or so

If presented with restart prompts as part of any updates – pick a convenient time and follow the instructions

For major updates we will notify you about this beforehand, but these can take longer to complete and it’s important that you leave them to finish without powering-off or closing the lid of your laptop.

Regular restarts

It is important to restart your laptop on a regular basis to install and complete updates including ones fixing security issues, whether on campus or at home.

What are the benefits?

Up to date and secure devices. Additionally, completing these tasks will also help to reduce issues when you do return to campus, as your device will still be registered on the network and will require fewer updates ensuring a smoother transition to on campus working.

We advise that this is done at the earliest convenience, particularly if you haven’t completed either of these actions in the last two weeks.

Instructions to connect to the VPN can be found here.

If you have any further queries regarding this, please contact the IT Service Desk.

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