IT Setup Advice

[Pross]

I currently use my work laptop for all my personal computing stuff (with the knowledge of the owner of the very small company I work for). This includes having all my personal software such as Lightroom / Photoshop and various other mainly photography related apps installed. However, I'm changing jobs soon and will be getting my own laptop for personal use as the new company, understandably, has much tighter policies. It will obviously be quite easy to simply have my laptop for personal stuff and my work laptop for work stuff but I was thinking of getting my personal laptop set up so that I could access all my work related stuff from it which would mean I wouldn't have to carry the laptop home / back to the office with hybrid working (I'll be cycling or running part of the commute). Therefore I was wondering how best this could be achieved. I know my main CAD software can be installed legitimately and accessed through my account login and I believe the same is true for all MS Office apps through the Microsoft 365 account. I am guessing the best thing to do would be to set up two login profiles on my own laptop to keep work and personal seperate. The main thing I'm not quite sure about is accessing the work Sharepoint folders. If I got this set up once on the work profile of my personal laptop would it just work like it does on the work laptop (i.e. appear as a folder in File Explorer effectively the same a it does with a physical drive). I'm a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to Sharepoint / One Drive and have never quite got my head around them, on my current laptop it is just set up as a folder that I access the same as any other folder.

If it's relatively easy to do this I would rather have things set up so I don't have to lug a laptop back and forth all the time as the work one will be quite hefty (gaming spec for high end CAD use) as well as the cost / hassle if anything happens to it.

 

[fossyant]

Wait and see what the policy is first. We don't allow personal laptops to access the systems

 

[markemark]

I'd be honest with the new employer and ask them. Setting up different profiles on their equipment and installing your various software may not be acceptable or even possible if prevented. Setting it up to work from your personal laptop could be difficult with connecting to their drives, licensing their software etc

You could ask for remote access to your work PC/laptop (Anydesk/Teamviewer etc) and you would then use your home laptop to effectively control your work laptop as and when. All your laptop would then be is a conduit to control your work laptop remotely as if you were using it directly. You'd just need to remmber to leave it switched on and online.

 

[sungod]

what @fossyant says

office 365 can be configured to block access from non-company devices, even for web access

in the environment i worked in, even the least secure laptops were heavily locked down and monitored

personal devices couldn't even connect to the network let alone access anything, the sole exception was smartphones, but only those supporting a separate partition where all secure apps/data were held and remote managed/monitored

imo this should be the norm for any organization these days, given the risk and consequences of compromise

if they'll allow it, putting work on a usb drive to take home and use cad/whatever on you own computer might be an option, but again that's something that really should be blocked to prevent simple data exfiltration

 

[Pross]

Wait and see what the policy is first. We don't allow personal laptops to access the systems

Will do but I don't see it being an issue. It's a small company and I know the owner well plus I'll be second in command so will be trusted. I've been told I can install my LR / PS on my work laptop but would rather keep it seperate.

 

[Pross]

I'd be honest with the new employer and ask them. Setting up different profiles on their equipment and installing your various software may not be acceptable or even possible if prevented. Setting it up to work from your personal laptop could be difficult with connecting to their drives, licensing their software etc

You could ask for remote access to your work PC/laptop (Anydesk/Teamviewer etc) and you would then use your home laptop to effectively control your work laptop as and when. All your laptop would then be is a conduit to control your work laptop remotely as if you were using it directly. You'd just need to remmber to leave it switched on and online.

To be clear, I'm not looking to use the work laptop for anything other than work and wouldn't be installing anything on it. I would only be looking to use my work subscriptions (Office 365 / Autodesk) on my own with the work laptop being left safe and secure in a locked drawer rather than having to lug it back and forth for days when I work from home. I've previously used remore desktop stuff and found it to be very slow although that may have come on a bit in more recent years. It feels a bit unnecessary when all the work information is cloud based and the software operates via cloud based licencing (and allows you to download the software onto multiple devices legitimately to allow working in this way). I don't really see how it's less secure to login to my Microsoft account from my own laptop at home than it would be to login to the same account from my work laptop at home.

 

[Drago]

Wait and see what the policy is first. We don't allow personal laptops to access the systems

Indeed. Mrs D faces this issue with her staff. All sorts of GDPR headaches.

 

[raleighnut]

I'd keep them separate too unless you are expected to work at home.

 

[Pross]

I'd keep them separate too unless you are expected to work at home.

I will be, that’s the whole point. I can, of course, take the work laptop home when I need to but I was looking at whether I could easily avoid that so I wouldn’t have to run / cycle with it on my back when commuting.

 

[Dadam]

Definitely check the policies first. Often termed a BYOD (bring your own device) policy. Even if you're not bringing it, you'd be accessing corporate stuff from home. Assuming that's ok, (and assuming it's Windows 11), you'll need to add your work account to Windows. In Settings / Accounts, Add a work or school account.

Depending on the policies, and any MDM (mobile device management) software they mandate, they may force an install of intrusive software that can track your laptop and remote wipe it if it goes missing. They may also insist all network traffic goes by their corporate VPN and filtering software will quite likely will block certain internet sites, even quite innocent ones can be filtered based on content or perceived categories. It's almost certain your web traffic will be audited too. You may not want all this palaver on your personal device. I know I don't.

To be honest you may be better off (and prefer to) just lug your work laptop home if you're going to be WFH. Most corporate laptops these days (in my experience) aren't too heavy, like the monsters of yesteryear were. 1.2-1.5 kg is common for 13"-14" screen machines.

Another option, if you're that in with the owner, is to request a second corporate laptop to keep at home. Worth a shot.