Over the next couple of weeks, the instrument host computers in the Shared Instrument Lab will be receiving upgrades. Consequently, there will be times when one or more of the instruments will not be available. Please check the instrument calendar in advance of your instrument need to be sure that the instrument you wish to use is available.
The computer upgrades are necessary for the switch* to Windows 11, which will also be done. For the curious, Microsoft designed Windows 11 to not play nicely with traditional hard drives (the kind with spinning platters inside); our options for avoiding the switch to Windows 11 are very limited at best and so we are compelled to upgrade the HDs to SSDs. <cue your favorite quote about the inexorable march of progress>
( * I very deliberately did not refer to the switch to Win11 as an upgrade; there are compelling reasons to put off the change until closer to the Win10 drop-dead date, and few if any compelling reasons to go ahead with the change. Of course, if we could get instrument vendors to publish cross-platform or platform-agnostic software , we wouldn’t be having this discussion. What if you could operate your instrument from a web browser? Tantalizing thought there; dream it with me. )