IT Baseline Protection Manual - The Information Warfare Site

Safeguard Catalogue - Hardware & Software Remarks
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S 4.109 Software reinstallation on workstations
Initiation responsibility: Head of IT Section, IT Security Management
Implementation responsibility: Administrator
Problems with the operating system or the applications which can only be
resolved through user support occur relatively frequently on workstations.
These can be caused, for example, by software errors, configuration changes,
installation of new software or computer viruses.
To avoid administrators having to spend a lot of time troubleshooting on
workstations in connection with the problems described above, a software
reinstallation of the standard configuration should be performed.
First of all the computer must be uniquely identified. Starting from this
identification, it is then necessary using appropriate documentation or a
program to establish precisely what software is installed in what configuration
on this computer. It is helpful here if the IT systems are very similar, at least
in areas with similar assigned tasks.
It is recommended that the workstation hard disk is re-formatted and the
required software and data is then reinstalled.
A software reinstallation can be performed in various ways. For example,
there are special programs which will export a predefined configuration from
a server onto the workstations which are to be reinstalled. It should be noted
that this kind of work is generally doubly time-critical: on the one hand it is
desirable that reconfiguration is effected as quickly as possible so as to make
the IT system available once more, while on the other hand the network
loading must be minimised. This is especially important in the case of training
computers or PC pools.
It is of course also possible to perform the reinstallation "manually". To do
this, a standard installation should be performed first of all. The special
features of the individual computers, such as special device drivers, additional
configuration files or special software, are then copied. However, this requires
that these are available preconfigured, e.g. on the network or on mobile data
media. An up-to-date anti-virus program must then be run.
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IT-Baseline Protection Manual: Oktober 2000
Restoring standard
configuration
Identification of the IT
system
Time-critical
reinstallation