frazer Posted June 3, 2008 Share Posted June 3, 2008 Firstly, apologies to the moderating team for talking about computer stuff, but please bare with me.. We have recently bought two new Avolites Pearl Experts ( :D ) which run on a modified version of Windows XP. Being Windows should we be worried about the chance of someone messing around in the "control panel" and changing settings or even giving the desk a virus :** laughs out loud **: (It does have Internet Explorer - I was tempted to write this post from the desk - but didn't) Any thoughts or comments?? Frazer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flyingwysiwyg Posted June 3, 2008 Share Posted June 3, 2008 Hi Frazer, I believe the Experts run on Windows XP Embedded, which is more secure than the standard OS. There is some good info on the Microsoft website here:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/embedded/aa731409.aspx F - Wyg edited to say: They also ship with an Avolites recovery CD should the worse happen. I always virus scan memory sticks etc on my laptop before introducing them to any Windows based lighting desk, and I wouldn't use a lighting desk to surf the internet either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frazer Posted June 3, 2008 Author Share Posted June 3, 2008 I always virus scan memory sticks etc on my laptop before introducing them to any Windows based lighting desk, and I wouldn't use a lighting desk to surf the internet either. That may be the case for you. But I can't always be confident that whoever hires the desk from us will be the same. Is there a way of putting a password protected lock on such features of the operating system? Frazer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niclights Posted June 3, 2008 Share Posted June 3, 2008 I'm not sure what could be changed in control panel to cause any problems. If someone did then it's their own stupid fault when the show doesn't work. If someone does this to your desk before your show then there's some strange minded people getting access to your console. But a basic understanding of Windows should avoid any real worries here. As for viruses, just don't let anyone run an executable on the console. Common sense really. Again, I can't imagine this ever happening and if it is, as above, someone else on their show then another bit of proof for Darwin's theory... Although Explorer is present there is no wireless access hardware. So, again, a user must deliberately connect to an access point before this even begins to become a risk. Most importantly I have not seen any such problems in all the time I've had the console. I will confidently say that it is highly unlikely either of these things will ever be a problem. I would not be concerned. As a last resort there is the CD. And this does work, although you wouldn't want to be doing this last minute! Best advice (in anticipation of this worst-case scenario) is to backup showfiles to USB (and vis files if appropriate). /edit: As a hire company I would add clear instructions that stated no third-party software can be installed and no access to internet. Do so at own risk! Also enclose CD and instructions for recovery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dosxuk Posted June 3, 2008 Share Posted June 3, 2008 If you're hiring the desk out, add a clause in the hire contracts clearly stating that you'll charge an additional fee for your staff to repair the desk if any software is installed or settings changed. I've seen similar things for media servers which suffer from the same potential issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomo Posted June 4, 2008 Share Posted June 4, 2008 Also, if you get in touch with Avolites they can probably supply a "Re-imaging" CD or USB stick for fairly cheap. Those are often used by technical services to completely and utterly wipe the console, restoring it back to factory defaults in every way. The two main downsides of using those are that any shows are completely lost from the console, and that you would need to re-apply any software updates or patches that came out after the image was created. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lichtwicht Posted June 4, 2008 Share Posted June 4, 2008 Actually many professional lighting products within controllers and media servers run XP embedded (Maxxyz, Maxedia, Hog3 iPC/Fullboar/Roadhog, Axon, Vector etc.) and I haven't ever heard of a problem with the embedded version. Therefore I wouldn't worry that much. Actually the manufacturers have the possibility to lock the OS so you can't access the embedded XP (although a half-trained guy knows who to get into the XP nevertheless).Since the XP embedded is totally stripped down to the purpose of just supporting a software on top, you won't have issues with drivers etc. And as normally every manufacturer should be able tp provide an iso-image of the OS, it's just 15 minutes to totally clean up a desk with XP embedded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick S Posted June 5, 2008 Share Posted June 5, 2008 ...Eos is also XP embedded. I've never had a problem with this on any XP based console. There's also an XP embedded discussion board here, if you're interested: http://windowsfordevices.com/cgi-bin/board...rd=discussionXP Some consoles do a much better job of 'hiding' their XP roots than others. On the Pearl, it's obvious. Sitting down at something like an Eos, its near impossible to tell because of the complete UI rewrite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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