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Cost-Effective IT: Software Failures

Cost-Effective IT: Software Failures, by Richard Sonnier

Houston Business Show "Advisor" Richard Sonnier, of the Information Technology Services firm Nimble Services, Inc., provides weekly information on our show about business technology issues. He can be reached at 281-445-4800 x250 or rsonnier@nimbleservices.com.

This week I will discuss more on being prepared for IT failures.

Software Failures

Today, business processes are driven by software. The software is complex and interacts with everything. Software failures can be caused by many events but the most common is incompatibility with other software. For example, if you buy a PC with Microsoft Windows and then install 10 PC games on it, it is likely that one of the games will not work due to a conflict with one or more of the others. Game software is especially bad at compatibility because game makers focus on cutting edge features to make the games stunning and exciting. In the business environment you will experience the same problem if you install enough different software packages. Something will break.

Recently, Nimble installed a new PC for a customer with Windows XP Pro and Microsoft Office. Everything went smoothly and the user had no trouble for a week. Then out of the blue the PC started failing with Blue Screen of Death (a very bad software failure), and rebooting several times a day. Was it a hardware problem or software problem? After some troubleshooting, we discovered that several software packages from the Internet had been installed. However, the system continued to fail even after these packages were uninstalled. Sometimes you cannot undo the software failure. Ultimately, we fixed the problem by rolling the installation back to the original load.

To address the problem of software problems you should take the following actions:
  1. Limit software on your business computer to what is really needed. Avoid installing extra software for fun, games, or music.
  2. Always make a complete backup of your system prior to any software install. For example, use a product like Norton Ghost.
  3. Install on a test system and make sure everything works.

Next week, I will continue this discussion of IT failures.

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