Visited a local library in Springfield and saw their public PC setup

I was dropping off some old parts at the library's donation drive and noticed they have 12 public computers all running on a single thin client setup. The librarian said it cut their IT support calls by about 70% since they switched last year. Has anyone else worked with a public access setup like that and have tips on keeping them clean?

3 comments

3 Comments

charles_baker284h ago

We had good luck with scheduled reboots every night. It clears out any junk files and resets the desktop to a clean image. That simple step made a huge difference in keeping things running smooth.

emma4553h ago

That "clean image" reset sounds perfect. My buddy's work laptop got so slow from all the temp files and forgotten downloads. IT finally set up a nightly restart and it was like a different machine the next morning. He said it stopped freezing during big file transfers completely. Just that one change saved him so much frustration.

jennyr2816m ago

Our library in Oakdale tried the nightly reboot thing for six months and honestly it caused more problems than it solved. People would lose their work if they stepped away for a phone call, and the constant resets made the login process feel super slow. @charles_baker28, I get the idea but it just frustrated our regulars. We found having a simple script that wipes user profiles at logoff works way better, it keeps things clean without interrupting anyone.