Psych Nexus Notes

Here's the primary locations to store your files depending on your needs and who else you want to share the files with:

1. OneDrive space - 5Tb of MS cloud space available under "OneDrive - University of Waterloo" in File Explorer. Stash the bulk of your files here which also make things easily accessible from elsewhere (laptops, home machines, phones, web browser, etc.). Only your Windows Documents, Desktop, and Pictures folders are mapped to your OneDrive space. Other folders, including Downloads, Videos, and Music are not mapped to OneDrive - those files/folders are stored only on the local drive which are not backed up.

2. D:\users and D:\users-nobackup - on the D: drive is the local hard disk. Files stored here are available to anyone with a Nexus account who logs into the machine. The contents of D:\users get backed up nightly. The contents of D:\users-nobackup do not get backed up. We have limited backup capacity for D:\users so store larger data sets such as video/audio files, etc in D:\users-nobackup and perform backups yourself to external hard drives, DVDs, etc. You'll probably want to use D:\users and/or D:\users-nobackup for any sort of data collection to avoid network latencies and the fact that some data collection programs simply don't work well when using network drives. Backups of D:\users are only stored for 8 weeks - be sure to make your own additional backups on a regular basis to avoid disasters.

3. MS Teams sites - if you are member of a Teams site, you'll have access to content there.

4. Psych Share Folders (\\psychfile\psych$) *** these are no longer in wide use since most things have moved to MS Teams *** - quickest way to get here if you are working on a Nexus station in Psych is to double-click the "Psych Shortcuts" icon on the desktop and then double-click 'Explore Psych'. Here you will see different folders for various groups in our department. There's probably no surprises here - people associated with psych-lab-dbesner will be able to read/save files in that folder, others won't. These folders can also be accessed from off campus once your've connected with the UW VPN Service (see below for more details). Stuff stored here gets backed up several times per day. To see the members of each group, check our Nexus Security Group Lists. Send email to PsychIT@uwaterloo.ca to change who should have access to these groups. Backups are only stored for 16 weeks - be sure to make your own additional backups on a regular basis to avoid disasters.

• Generic lab accounts (i.e., non-people accounts) do not have OneDrive space. Ensure personal login credentials are never used with generic lab accounts - i.e., if one RA logs in to OneDrive or M365 with their personal crdentials, logs out, and then a second RA logs in to the same machine with the same generic account, the second RA will have access to all M365 files/emails/etc of the first RA.. Generic accounts should only save files under D:\users or D:\users-nobackup (accessible to anyone who logs into the machine. Anything saved to Documents or Desktop folders are not backed up anywhere so if the machine blows up, those files are lost.

• Your OneDrive space will follow you as you login to different Nexus stations on campus. Your user profile does not follow you from machine to machine so you will have to re-select program preferences and re-install printers as you move from machine to machine.

• Your Windows Downloads, Videos, and Music folder are not backed up and will not follow you from machine to machine. Copy files from those folders which you would like to keep to your OneDrive space and please try to get in the habit of emptying your Downloads folder before you logout each day.

• ***NB***. Only faculty, staff, grads, RAs or others associated with a group in Psychology will be able to browse to \\psychfile\psych$. If you suspect you aren't part of an existing Psychology group, email PsychIT@uwaterloo.ca with the details. A whole bunch of things won't work for you if you aren't associated with a group in Psychology.

• Windows has a 260 character limit on file paths - i.e., the location, including all containing folder names can't exceed 255 characters. If you have many subfolders to a location, you may need to keep the individual folders names short in order to not exceed the limit otherwise files may be lost.

  Avoid using third party network storage solutions such as Dropbox, LiveDrive, box, Google Drive, Sky Drive, etc. as servers are housed in the USA and there may be concerns about the US Patriot Act (researchers would need prior Ethics approval to store data there). Please see Policy 8 - Information Security FAQ, Policy 8 - Information Security and Information Security for Research, as well as Office of Research Ethics (Human) and Guidelines/Policies. In general, avoid any concerns and house all UW files/data relating to teaching/research/admin using resources here on campus.

User Profile Setup

Although your OneDrive space follows you from machine to machine, you'll need to customize your user profile on each different machine you log in to. Here's a walk through for setting various things (see the N.B. note below regarding generic lab accounts):

1. Ensure Onedrive is running. Check the taskbar icons down by the clock in the lower right. If the cloud icon is grey, login and accept defaults.
2. Start Outlook from the Start Menu and set up your UWuserid@uwaterloo.ca email address (8 characters or less - don't specify your friendly address). Once it's setup, in Outlook click File / Account Settings / Account Settings, select your email account so that it's high-lighted in blue, click Change, and move the "Download email for the past" slider all the way to the right to "All". This allows Outlook to index all your email rather than just the past year so that older stuff will also appear in searches. If you had previously created signatures in Outlook, they will need to be recreated (just check your Sent Mail and copy/paste). Also, while Outlook is running, right-click the Outlook icon in the taskbar and select "Pin to taskbar" which will make it easy to start the next time you login.
3. Right-click on the "Mail" icon in the taskbar and select "Unpin from taskbar" (you'll be using Outlook for email).
4. Right-click on the "Microsoft Store" icon in the taskbar and select "Unpin from taskbar".
5. Follow instructions in the Printing section below to set up your printer(s).
6. Start File Explorer form the Start Menu, then right-click on the FIle Explorer icon in the taskbar to make it easy to find/start in the future.
7. You'll want change a few default applications. Click "Start / Settings / Apps / Default apps" and under "Set defaults for applications":
   1. For "Mail / mailto" select Outlook.
   2. For "Web browser" ensure your preferred browser (Edge, Chrome, or Firefox) is selected as your default browser.
   3. Clinical folks might want to select "VLC media player" as their default for .mp4 files as that's typically used for playing clinical session videos.
8. You'll also need to set Adobe Acrobat as the default to open PDFs. Click "Start / Settings / Apps (under hamburger menu in the top-left on Win11) / Default apps" and near the bottom of the screen click "Choose default apps by file type". Scroll down the long list that appears and look for .pdf" and select "Adobe Acrobat" as the default app. To edit, PDFs, you'll need to login to Adobe Acrobat by starting it and clicking the "Sign in" icon in the top-right and when signing in, specify your UWuserid@uwaterloo.ca userid and select "Company of School Account" when logging in.
9. Ensure Microsoft Teams is running. If not, start it from the Start Menu. Once you start it, right-click on the icon in the taskbar and select "Pin to taskbar" so it's easy to find next time you need it, but it should start automatically on the machine moving forward. Once Teams is running, click the 3 dots near the top-right and go into Settings. Under "Layout" ensure "List" is selected. Under "Applicaiton" ensure "Auto-start application" is selected; and "On close, keep the application running" is selected. Other default should be OK.
10. Start your favourite browser, then right-click on the icon in the taskbar and select "Pin to taskbar". Browser bookmarks are not saved in a location that is backed up so consider logging into your favourite web browser so that your bookmarks are saved to the cloud. If you want the beeHive as a start page and bookmark in Chrome, go into your Chrome settings, click Appearance, enable "Show home button and enter https://beehive.uwaterloo.ca/, also enable "Show bookmark bar", and then you can add the beeHive to your bookmarks as well (chances are you know how to do that). Same sort of routine for Edge and Firefox so I'll leave that to you. Nexus stations will also have a beeHive icon on the desktop which will open it in your default browser.
11. Start Skype for Business from the Start Menu, click Tools/Options/Personal. Check "Automatically start the app when I login to Windows". Uncheck "Start the app in the foreground". Right-click on the S4B icon in the taskbar and select "Pin to taskbar".
12. In File Explorer, you can pin locations to the "Quick Access" section in the top-right. To do that, browser to the folder you want to pin, right-click on "Quick access" and select "Pin current folder to Quick access". Clinical folks and a few others will probably want to look under \\psychfile\psych$ for network locations that may regularly be needed.

Printing

• By default, when your Nexus account is created, you will have access to a printer called q_arts which is down in the ACO area (PAS 1099) - there's a real money charge to print to that q_arts. Feel free to delete this printer if you aren't using it.

• Only people associated with groups in Psychology can print to printers located in the Department of Psychology. If you need access, have a faculty member, lab manager or grad student send a note to PsychIT@uwaterloo.ca indicating your full name, UWuserid and the group you are working with.

• To add a printer, do NOT use the "Add Printer" wizard. Simply do the following while logged into a Nexus station in Psych:
  1. double-click on the "Psych Shortcuts" icon on the desktop
  2. double-click "Printer Setups"
  3. double-click on the printer to install

  The printer name is usually on a yellow sticky on the top of the printer.

• You can specify you default printer by default by going into 'Start/Devices and Printers', right-clicking on the printer name and selecting 'Set as Default Printer'.

• People on non-Nexus PCs (including wireless) can also print to printers in Psychology (assuming they are associated with the correct group in Psychology, see below):
  1. Select 'Start/Run' and enter '\\psychfile\psych$\utl\printers' (or just press Win+E to pop up File Explorer and enter that location)
  2. double-click the printer you want to install.

  If it asks you for a password at any point, when specifying your userid, you'll need to enter nexus\YOURUSERID along with your Nexus password. Please ensure you don't try to set up a printer using the 'Add Printer' wizard in Windows as this may result in the printer being accessed with different drivers and leaving it in a bad state due to "driver wars".

• If you are printing from a Mac check the yellow sticker on the printer to get the printer name and also the IP# (something like 172.20.3.xxx but with numbers instead of x's). Then on your Mac:
  1. Go to System Preferences / Printers & Scanners
  2. Click the + button in the lower left.
  3. Click the button for “IP” which looks like a globe
  4. Fill the Address field with the IP# of the printer
  5. Fill the Name field with the name of the printer
  6. Save and try sending a test page

• If you have problems printing, first ensure it's not a problem with the printer itself - turn the printer off, wait about 40 seconds and turn it on again.

  If printing still doesn't work, try removing and re-adding the printer:

  1. To delete a printer, from the Start Menu, select "Start Settings / Devices / Printers & scanners" and then select the printer you want to remove and click "Remove device".
  2. To add a printer, double-click on the "Psych Shortcuts" (on your desktop), then double-click 'Printer Setups' and finally double-click on the printer you would like to install. DO NOT use the "Add Printer" wizard as you would for a home printer otherwise things will break.
  3. If you want to change your default printer, go into 'Start/Devices and Printers', right-click on the printer name and selecting 'Set as Default Printer'.

• NB. Only faculty, staff, grads, RAs or others associated with a group in Psychology will be able to browse to the "Psych Shortcuts" folder. If you suspect you aren't part of an existing Psychology group, send an email to PsychIT@uwaterloo.ca.

• If you want to print from wireless using a non-Nexus Windows laptop/PC to a Nexus printer, do this:
  1. You will need to know the name of the printer you want to connect to. There should be a yellow sticker on the top of the printer with the name (e.g. "psysochp"), but you will actually need to know the full name of the printer. To determine the full name of the printer, login to a Nexus station, and double-click "Psych Shortcuts" on the desktop and then "Printer Setups" and look for the full printer name there (e.g., "p_psych_psysochp" ignore the ".cmd" portion).
  2. Ensure your laptop is logged into Eduroam or the UW VPN Service and can browse the network.
  3. Use WordPad or NotePad to create a file called printerperms.cmd on your Desktop containing the following two lines

     net use /user:nexus\UWUSERID \\artsprint.nexus.uwaterloo.ca\p_psych_THEPRINTERNAME
     rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /in /n \\artsprint.nexus.uwaterloo.ca\p_psych_THEPRINTERNAME

     You'll also need to change change "UWUSERID" to your nexus userid and also change "THEPRINTERNAME" to the name of the printer you want to print to (e.g., p_psych_psysochp, p_psych_efriskolabprt, p_psych_jdancprt2, p_psych_ioprt).

     Basically the first line authenticates your userid to Nexus (since your laptop initially doesn't know about your Nexus account) and the second line installs the print driver.

  4. After it's created, double-click on the printerperms.cmd file and when it asks for a password, enter your Nexus password. This file only needs to be run once in order to install the printer and associated driver. Be patient, the print driver install may take a couple minutes.
  5. Now that the print driver is installed, we'll edit the file and comment out the second line with a 'rem' statement. I.E., change the file so that it contains:

     net use /user:nexus\UWUSERID \\artsprint.nexus.uwaterloo.ca\p_psych_THEPRINTERNAME
     rem rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /in /n \\artsprint.nexus.uwaterloo.ca\p_psych_THEPRINTERNAME

     Again, ensure "UWUSERID" and "THEPRINTERNAME" are changed for what you need.
  6. You'll need to double-click on printerperms.cmd after every login/reboot and probably each day when you come on campus before you print to this printer. I.e., run it once in the morning and you can then send numerous different print jobs that same day without re-running it as long as you don't logout or reboot.

• If a printer is not available in your lab area, please visit the ACO Printing, scanning, and copying page which mentions additional printing options on campus including colour. A uPrint black and white printer, rs-public-pas3023.prt, is also available in PAS 3023. The Dana Porter Library will have a colour queue set up in September 2015, but so the moment, just save what you need to print as a PDF on a USB stick and go to the Service Desk in the Dana Porter Library.

Free Up Space

1. You can check the amount of free space on your drives by starting File Explorer and clicking on "This PC" in the left panel.
2. Empty your Recycle Bin.
3. Your Downloads, Videos, and Music folders are not synced to your OneDrive cloud space so copy any files your want to keep to somewhere under your "OneDrive - University of Waterloo" folder - perhaps in folders in your Documents folder to make them easily accessible.
4. Check your blue OneDrive cloud folder in the taskbar and wait until it indicates it is "Up to date" or "Your files are synced" to ensure all files have been copied to the cloud.
5. In File Explorer, right-click on your “OneDrive – University of Waterloo” folder and select “Free up space”. This will remove local copies of files which exist in your OneDrive cloud space.
6. If you have synced any Teams channels, in File Explorer, go into your “University of Waterloo” folder, right click on each Teams channel and select “Free up space”. This will remove local copies of files which exist in your Teams cloud space.

Backups and Recovering Files/Folders

• Backups are not kept forever. OneDrive files can easily be restored with 93 days after being deleted. No harm macking additional long term backups of critical files on a regular basis to avoid disasters.

• Backups of D:\users (on the local hard disk of Psych Nexus stations) are kept for 8 weeks. Backups of your Nexus profile (printers setups, shortcuts, etc) are kept for 8 weeks. Be sure to make your own backups on a regular basis in case you delete something critical today, but don't realize it until 6 months from now. To recover files/folders from D:\users, send a request to PsychIT@uwaterloo.ca indicating the exact name of the file/folder you need recovered including the exact folder and subfolder names, and also the date of the backup it should be recovered from.

• Backups of \\psychfile\psych$ are kept for about 16 weeks. I.E., if you delete a file today, you have about 16 weeks during which time it can be recovered. To recover files/folders from \\psychfile\psych$ do the following on a Windows Nexus machine:
  1. Right-click on the folder which contained your file/folder (or the current file/folder if it still exists) and select "Restore previous versions".
  2. In the pop-up window, look at the "Date modified" column, choose which you would like to restore from and click "Open".
  3. A new Explorer window will appear and you can copy the file or folder you would like to another location.

  Alternatively, you can also use the "Copy..." or "Restore..." buttons, but using the "Open" button provides the most flexibility.

  The "hourly" backups are the backups made in the last 48 hours with "hourly.0" being the most recent. In the same way, the "nightly.0" and "weekly.0" backups are the most recent from each night and week. The "weekly.3" backup is from 4 weeks previous, etc.

Accessing Your Nexus Files From Elsewhere

• Your OneDrive space is available anywhere you login to the OneDrive application. There's also an app for phones which can be used. To access your OneDrive space in a web browser, go to M365. There's no need to login to the UW VPN before connecting.

• If you are working from a non-Nexus PC or laptop including from off campus, you can also access files/folders under \\psychfile\psych$ remotely. Connecting to the UW VPN Service is required in this case.

  1. You can simply enter the address in the File Explorer (the file browser, not the web browser):
     1. If you are working from off campus login to the UW VPN Service.
     2. From the Windows Start Menu, click "Start -- Programs -- Accessories -- File Explorer".
     3. In the address bar of File Explorer, enter:
        • \\psychfile\psych$
     4. When prompted for a userid and password, you'll need to enter nexus\YOURUSERID for the userid along with your Nexus password.

  If it doesn't prompt you for a password, try this... In the Windows Start Menu, search for "Credential Manager" and open it. Click the "Windows Credentials" tab, then beside "Windows Credentials", click "Add a Windows credential" and enter the following:

  • Internet or network address: psychfile
  • User name: nexus\YOURUSERID
  • Password: YOURPASSWORD

  The VPN install and login is required, so read the docs carefully first at http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/cs/vpn/vpn4windows.html and be sure to set up the "Trusted Sites" in IE as documented otherwise the install won't work. If you have problems installing or connecting to the VPN, call the IST Helpdesk at 519-888-4567 x37070 - they've seen all sorts of weird problems and I'm sure they can help sort out any issues.

  Most service providers (e.g., Rogers, Bell, etc), provide download speeds which are 10 times faster than upload speeds. What this means is that if you double-click on a file to open it, and it opens in 1 second, doing a File/Save on the same file will take 10 seconds before the save is complete.

  Mac users can mount the same locations above by following the instructions at https://users.wfu.edu/yipcw/atg/apple/smb/. Same sort of details as above (Go | Connect to Server | smb://psychfile/psych$) and again, use nexus\YOURUSERID when specifying your username.

  Windows Education or Windows Professional works best with network resources. Windows Home can be finicky and not handle multiple connections properly. If you are using Windows Home and having problems, logout, reboot and after you login again and connect to the VPN, make sure you enter your userid and password correctly the first time.

• Of course, people with Nexus stations in their office can also have them configured to use Remote Desktop so that you can login to your office machine remotely. In addition to working on the machine, before you login select "Options/Local Resources" and enable drives which will allow you to copy files to/from your Nexus workstation (you will see additional drive letters of the machine you are sitting at). If someone is logged into a machine remotely, others can't login at the keyboard - for this reason we don't enable Remote Desktop on teaching lab machines. Also, a number of faculty members do not want Remote Desktop enabled on their lab machines (no harm asking your advisor though).

Remote Desktop Access

We typically don't have Remote Desktop (RDP) access to Nexus stations enabled unless a faculty member requests it for their research machines. If needed, have the faculty member who owns the machine send an email to PsychIT@uwaterloo.ca. The machine names are typically on a yellow sticker on the top of the machine or you can also check this list of Nexus stations in Psychology and their rooms (login to the UW VPN Service first if you aren't on campus). For machines in research lab areas, if RDP access to a specific lab machine is needed, we would typically grant access for the entire lab group.

Only one person can be logged into a machine at a time so it might require some coordination if multiple people need to RDP to the same machine. Also, it's important to properly logout from the remote session when you are done - not just disconnect. See further details below.

Using RDP on Windows

I'll use the example of USERID who would like to connect to the machine called MACHINE - just substitute your userid and Nexus machine name:

• Install and login to the UW VPN: https://uwaterloo.ca/information-systems-technology/services/virtual-private-network-vpn/about-virtual-private-network-vpn
• On your home (or wherever) PC select "Start / Windows Accessories / Remote Desktop Connection" and for the Computer enter: MACHINE.nexus.uwaterloo.ca
• If nexus\USERID is not shown beside "User name", click "Show Options" and enter your username as: nexus\USERID
• Click Connect and enter your Nexus password.

See also IST's Windows RDP notes.

Using RDP on MacOS

Read all the details above and it's a similar process on Macs. Again, I'll use the example of USERID who would like to connect to the machine called MACHINE - just substitute your userid and Nexus machine name:

• Install and login to the UW VPN: https://uwaterloo.ca/information-systems-technology/services/virtual-private-network-vpn/about-virtual-private-network-vpn
• Macs don't have RDP capability built in so a separate download/install is required. You'll need to download and install Microsoft's Remote Desktop software for macOS from the Mac Store (it's free): https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/microsoft-remote-desktop-10/id1295203466
• Similar to the Windows method, you'll need to specifiy the entire machine name: MACHINE.nexus.uwaterloo.ca and when prompted for your password enter nexus\USERID

See also IST's MacOS RDP notes.

Troubleshooting RDP

• Ensure you also log out properly when you are finished your RDP session. At the top of the RDP window you'll see the usual thingys to minimize, resize or close the window - avoid clicking the 'X' to close the window as this will disconnect your session but leave you logged in. If you were to click the 'X', the window will disappear but you'll still be logged into the machine in PAS - no one else will be able to login and use it since the screen will be locked. As well, being logged in will prevent the usual nightly updates from happening. Rather than closing it with the 'X', when you are done with it, you should do the same thing you always do on a Nexus station and select "Start / Sign out" IN THE RDP WINDOWS session (not from the Start Menu of the machine you are working on).
• Keep in mind that if you are logged in with RDP, people can't use the machine at the machine itself - it will appear locked. As well, if someone is logged in at the keyboard, you won't be able to login with RDP. If there's several people who may want to use a lab machine, you'll want to coordinate the use of it somehow (perhaps on your lab Teams site).
• You can use multiple displays at home while logged in to your Nexus station with RDP. Start RDP, but before you connect and login, click "Show Options". Go into the Display tab and you'll see an option you can check for "Use all my moni tors for the remote session."
• If you have a headset at home you'd like to use for communications (e.g., with Skype for Business or in MS Teams meetings), you may need to ensure the mic is enabled over RDP. Start RDP, but before you connect and login, click "Show O ptions". In the "Local Resources" tab, click "Settings" in the "Remote audio" se ction. Ensure "Record from this computer" is selected under "Remote audio record ing". Also ensure "Play on this computer" is selected under "Remote audio playba ck."
• When you are following the IST instructions to install the VPN client, your RDP connection does not require that you to follow the optional instructions under "Accessing campus 'network drives' from Windows clients" - this would only be used if you wanted to access your Nexus file space as a local drive on your home machine or laptop (i.e., you could double-click on N: on your home PC or laptop and see files in your Nexus My Documents folder or lab share). If you want to take advantage of that as well, I have details above which apply directly to folks in Psych which takes a bit of the mystery out of it: https://beehive.uwaterloo.ca/nexus/usernotes.html#elsewhere

Preparing for Machine Rebuilds

1. The rebuild will take 2-3 working days.
2. The contents of D:\users and D:\users-nobackup will be maintained after the machine is rebuilt, but if there's any files you might need while the machine is being worked on, grab a copy. Backups are good, so no harm making an extra copy of everything yourself. :-)
3. Files stored on OneDrive and Teams are available anywhere you login so no need to make extra copies of those. This includes your Documents, Desktop and Pictures folders which are synced to the OneDrive cloud. You can confirm what is stored in the cloud in a browser by going to https://portal.office.com/, click the 9 dots in the top-left, select "OneDrive", then "My Files". Alternatively, you can also login to another Nexus station to check as your OneDrive files will follow you from machine to machine.
4. A few folders which are typically not not stored in the cloud include your Downloads, Videos, and Music folders. You'll need to copy any files you want to keep from those to a OneDrive location.
5. Browser bookmarks will also be lost when the machine is wiped and rebuilt. If you login to your browser, bookmarks should follow you around (just login to another machine to confirm), but if you don't, you'll want to export your bookmarks and them import them once the machine is rebuilt. Google for how to do this for whichever browser you use.
6. If generic non-people accounts which do not use OneDrive are being used for data collection, normally all files being worked on should have been saved to D:\users, but you might want to check for important files in Documents and Desktop folders as well in case RAs were storing things in the wrong location.
7. Once the machine has been rebuilt and is back in place, follow the steps in the User Profile Setup section to reconfigure things.

Nexus Laptop Considerations

Since your laptop may be moving between your home and office, or even being used in various places on wireless, to avoid potential issues it's a good idea to shutdown the laptop when you are leaving one location, and restarting it when you arrive in the new location.

If you are starting the laptop in your office:

1. Ensure the machine is powered off. If not, sign out of Windows and at the login screen, press ctrl-alt-del and select Shutdown from the Power icon menu in the bottom-right.
2. Connect the machine to the docking station in your office and ensure the network cable to the docking station is secured.
3. Turn the laptop on.
4. If you leave the laptop in your office overnight, sign out of Windows and leave it turned on so that nightly updates, maintenance (including a reboot), and the D:\users backup will happen.

If you are starting the laptop at home or elsewhere (on or off campus) using wireless:

1. Ensure the machine is powered off. If not, sign out of Windows and at the login screen, press ctrl-alt-del and select Shutdown from the Power icon menu in the bottom-right.
2. Turn the laptop on.
3. Before logging into Windows on the laptop, ensure you are connected to wireless and also the UW VPN:
   1. press ctrl-alt-del and click the network icon and connect to your wireless network.
   2. press ctrl-alt-del and click the Cisco AnyConnect icon to connect to the UW VPN. Connect using UW-General-Campus if you are working off campus. Connect using UW-general-Campus-Internal if you are using your laptop on Eduroam on campus.
4. press ctrl-alt-del and login to Windows.
5. If you are working at home, sign out of Windows and leave it turned on so that nightly updates, maintenance (including a reboot), and the D:\users backup will happen. Try to do this at least once every week or two if you don't usually have it connected in your office overnight.

Since many people might want to use the laptop while it's closed and connected to external LCDs, we typically disable sleep mode on Nexus laptops. Before putting your laptpo in a travel case, ensure you sign out of Windows, press ctrl-alt-del and select Shutdown from the Power icon otherwise it can overheat which may cause damage.

Avoid Data Collection Interuptions

Normally you want to leave this running at all times, but if there is scheduled testing of the ENS, you may want to disable it if you are running a participant.

1. In your taskbar, look for the AdhocAlert icon (red with a white bell) in the bottom-right near the clock (you might need to click the "^" to see it.
2. Click on the AdhocAlert icon and select Quit.

The above will disable it for the duration of the current login session. It will start again if you logout and login, or you can also again start AdHocAlert manually from the Start Menu.

See also:

1. Regroup Mobile setup and instructions
2. Regroup's AdHocAlert desktop notification - Windows installation guide
3. Regroup's AdHocAlert desktop notification - MacOS installation guide
4. Regroup emergency notifications for campus visitors

You can also subscribe to receive email notifications of when testing for the Emergency Notication System is scheduled:

1. Go to: https://status.uwaterloo.ca/
2. Click the blue "SUBSCRIBE TO UPDATES" button.
3. Enter your UW email address
4. Beside Components, click "Select none"
5. Select that you want to subscribe to: Other Systems / Emergency Notifications - Regroup
6. Click "SAVE".
7. You'll then receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription.

Once that's done, you'll then receive email notifications from noreply@statuspage.io and at the bottom of each email you'll also see a link to "Manage your subscription".

Reboots

• Nexus stations are set up to reboot automatically each morning at 6:00am if no one is logged in.
• On Thursdays at 6:00am, machines are configured for a required reboot. If someone is logged in overnight, a dialog will appear allowing you to delay the the reboot for up to 12 hours or reboot immediately. If you are running something which needs more time to complete email PsychIT@uwaterloo.ca.
• You might also see a prompt to reboot a machine if you were logged in overnight and a reboot is needed to complete a system or application update. Again, if you are running something which needs more time to complete email PsychIT@uwaterloo.ca.

If you are running something over the weekend which might take several days to complete, email PsychIT@uwaterloo.ca during the work week so that we are aware as there are steps we need to take to delay the reboot for more than 12 hours..

If necessary, we can also set up specific machines to force a reboot daily. This can be useful if you or people in your lab areas regularly forget to logout before leaving each day.

Why Nexus?

• OneDrive Filespace - allows you to access your files on any Nexus machine on campus (yes, including lecture rooms) which you login to.

• Backups - happen automatically.

• Security - it's much, much, much more difficult to shoot yourself in the foot and infect your machine with viruses or malware - these could also affect other users of the system in the same lab. Nexus uses the LUA principle for individual user accounts. Security updates happen automatically overnight.

• System Management - we're able to manage machines throughout the department remotely which has many obvious advantages. Systems are not updated while someone is logged on to the machine which avoid issues with data collection, etc. Updates only happen when the machine is rebooted which happens automatically around 6:00am each morning. Or, if you have requested additional software for your machine and we've set things up for the machine to receive the software, you can reboot the machine yourself at your convenience in order to receive the package sooner rather than later. Updates go out to all Nexus stations at the same time so you also don't need to worry about different versions of applications on different machines. Anyway, you don't need to worry about keeping your machine up to speed and can concentrate on real work.

General Notes

• Rather than sending email as tidbits come up, I'll often just post things in the top right corner of the beeHive. Most people in the department use this as their browser home page and I would encourage you to check it at least once a day. To make the beeHive your start page, start your browser and go to https://beehive.uwaterloo.ca/. Once you have the beeHive as your current page:
  • If you use IE, click Tools/Internet Options/Use Current
  • If you use Firefox, click Edit/Preferences/General/Use Current Page
  Quit and restart and the beeHive should be your start/home page.

• Software installs/upgrades are done automagically in the wee hours when a reboot is forced. Nothing will be updated on a machine while someone is logged in which ensures your data collection timing won't be interfrred with. If we've set up a machine to receive a new package, you can reboot a machine yourself during the day so the package gets installed sooner rather than later. If you see software being added or removed when a machine is rebooted, please let it finish without clicking the 'restart' button.

• Nexus stations should be powered on 24/7. System monitoring, cleansing, software updates and backups happen in the wee hours. If a machine is off, these things won't happen. A full antimalware scan runs 2:00am Saturdayss, and a quick scan daily at 1:00am. If your machine is off at those times, it will run next time the machine is turned on which can take some time and chew on your CPU.

• People were having a bit of grief with other users not logging off before they left. If you need to force a logoff, don't power off the machine - you can force a logoff by pressing Shift-F12. But, if an individual intentially locked the workstation, SHift-F12 won't work and you should really contact the individual since they probably chose to lock it for a reason.

• Here's a few additional links to other Nexus documentation on campus:
  • ACO Waterloo Nexus notes
  • Waterloo Nexus Network users Guide from Eng

Quick Fixes

1. If your default app preferences are lost... You can get into Settings in one of two ways:
   1. Click Start / Settings (the gear icon) / Apps / Default Apps (if this appears locked, try the next one)
   2. Click the notifications icon to the right of the clock in the taskbar, select All Settings / Default Apps
   Preferences you probably want to change are:
   1. default browser:
      • go to "Settings / Apps / Default apps / Web browser" and take your pick.
   2. Email:
      • go to "Settings / Apps / Default apps / Mail" and take select "Outlook".
   3. PDFs:
      • Locate a PDF file in File Explorer
      • Right-click the file, select "Open with" / "Choose another app"
      • From the dialog box, choose “Adobe Acrobat DC”
      • Check "Always use this app to open .pdf files" --- *** don’t miss this step ***
      • Click "OK"
      or
      • Go to "Settings / Apps / Default apps"
      • Click "Choose default apps by file type"
      • Look for .pdf in the list and change to "Adobe Acrobat DC"
   To set the beeHive as your Start Page:
   • Chrome: got to Settings (the 3 vertical dots in the top-right), select Settings and change the "Appearance / Show home button" to https://beehive.uwaterloo.ca and also select "On startup / Open a specific page".
   • Internet Explorer: select "Tools / Internet Options", and set the Home page to https://beehive.uwaterloo.ca
   • Firefox: select Settings (the hamburger icon in the top right), then Options, and set the Home Page to https://beehive.uwaterloo.ca

2. If MS Teams isn't showing up for you, double-click "C:\Program Files (x86)\Teams Installer\Teams.exe" to allow it to install. If that’s not available, open Start / Microsoft COnfiguration Manager / Software Center, and click Download Teams (on the left). I think the script will generate some warnings but you can just click “Yes” each time a pop-up appears and it'll work.

3. To have windows autoraise without a mouse-click as you hover over them:
   1. Press: [Windows Key] + x
   2. click: Control Panel
   3. click: Ease of Access Center
   4. click: Make the mouse easier to use
   5. select: Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse
   6. click: Apply / OK

4. To add your favourite Chrome add-ons to your Nexus account, do this:
   1. Right click NEXUS desktop, New, Shortcut.
   2. For the location, enter in the following text (quotes and everything), and then click next.

      "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir="N:\chrome"

   3. Name it 'My Nexus Chrome' or whatever to distinguish it from the default Chrome profile, then click finish.

5. If you see "weird characters" when typing, you may have somehow enabled the French or Multilingual keyboard. You can disable the French and Multilingual keyboard by going into the Control Panel and selecting "Region and Language", then the "Keyboards and Language" tab, then "Change Keyboards" and remove the Canadian French and also the Canadian Multilingual Standard keyboards (typically people will only have the US keyboard enabled). You may need to quit and restart the application you are working in for the change to take effect (i.e., quit and restart Word), or worst case, just logout and login again. Alternatively, if you want to keep those keyboard, you can usually change the keyboard selection in various applications. Pressing and holding the "Left Ctrl" and the "Right Shift" keys at the same time for 2-5s may also alternate between keyboards.

6. If you are not getting sound on Windows machines, it may be a user configuration under your personal profile which needs to be changed:
   1. Start / Control Panel / Sounds and Audio Devices.
   2. click the Audio tab.
   3. Change the "Sound Playback"/"Default Device" to whatever is the other option.

7. If the Start Menu doesn't appear when you click the Start button, open File Explorer, browse to and double-click on:

   C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.StartMenuExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\StartMenuExperienceHost.exe

8. If Firefox complains that it needs an update applied, you can make this go away by unselecting and reselecting an option... Go into the Firefox hamburger menu (the 3 horizontal line icon near the top-right) and then go into the Options menu. Uncheck "Use a background service to install updates", quit and restart Firefox. Go back in and check "Use a background service to install updates". Then in the hamburger menu, go into the "Help / About Firefox" page and it should indicate that you can restart Firefox to use the latest version.

9. If you want quick access to a "psych-lab-*" share, browse to the share in File Explorer, and in the folders panel on the left of the window, right-click on Favorites and select "Add current location to Favorites". After doing this, while in Word, Excel, etc, and doing a File Open or Save, you can click on this Favourite to quickly get to the folder.

10. If you are doing data collection on Nexux machines, we can set up two desktop icons - one called "Network Off" and the other "Network On" - to allow you to disable the network card if you are concerned about network traffic affecting time sensitive data collection. In most cases with newer machines it's probably not needed, but if you'd like to remove any potential concerns, just send a note with the name of the machine (the yellow sticker on the top) and we can pop things in place.

11. E-Prime requires a graphics card supporting DirectX 11. To confirm your graphics card is suitable for running E-Prime, check https://support.pstnet.com/hc/en-us/articles/229358787-INFO-E-Prime-2-0-SP1-SP2-requires-specific-DirectX-11-settings-19550-.

12. You may need configure codecs to play meadia files in E-Prime. Run the Codec Config steps mentioned at https://support.pstnet.com/hc/en-us/articles/229362867.

13. E-Prime doesn't behave very well when working in a network location. When using E-Prime, ensure all the files you are working with are in a folder under D:\users (the local hard disk).

14. If you are doing data collection on Nexux machines, use D:\users or D:\users-nobackup as your working folder. This will avoid any latencies associated with network locations. As well, some programs may not understand UNC paths and require a drive letter in the path (i.e., D:\).

15. We had one person mention an odd issue were the E-Prime start-up screen came up blank. Doing the following solved the issue:
    1. Close E-Prime
    2. Delete folder c:\users\l2street\appdata\local\pst
    3. Delete folder if it exists c:\users\l2street\appdata\roaming\pst
    4. Click start and type regedit and hit enter
    5. Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Psychology Software Tools
    6. Select E-Prime on the left, right click and left click delete
    7. Yes you want to delete this key and all subkeys
    8. Close the registry editor
    9. Open E-Prime and all should be good

16. IST typically updates R/RStudio between terms. Here's a workaround if you start RStudio and attempt to run a new Rmd file, but get a message that "Creating R Markdown documents requires updated versions of the following packages:...":
    1. Create a new "notepad" file in the folder you wish for the Rmd file to be in;
    2. Rename the file extension to .rmd;
    3. Open accordingly, choosing RStudio as the desired program.

17. There's a known bug in R/RStudio in that it's not able to save to network locations (surprisingly it's been around since 2015, but they haven't fixed it) - https://github.com/rstudio/rmarkdown/issues/1268. You might also want to do this:
    1. Ensure RStudio is not running and delete or rename the R folder in your "N:\My Documents" folder as well as the .Rhistory file (maybe anything else that looks like it's associated with R settings), then start RStudio
    2. Go into Session / Set Working Directory and set to: C:\users\YOURUSERID\Documents
    3. Go into Tools / Global Options and change the “Default working directory” to: C:\users\YOURUSERID\Documents
    4. In C:\users\YOURUSERID\Documents create a file called .Rprofile containing a single line: .libPaths("C:\users\YOURUSERID\Documents\R\win-library\4.1")
    5. Quit and restart RStudio to test.

18. For some reason Word might pop up a login for the Refworks Write-N-Cite plug-in. If you don't have an account and would like to disable the add-in in Word, do this:
    1. start Word and click File / Options / Add-ins
    2. at the bottom beside Manage, ensure "COM Add-ins" is selected and click "Go..."
    3. uncheck Write-N-Cite and OK
    If you decide to use Write-N-Cite in the future, simply follow the same steps, but place a check beside Write-N-Cite in step #3.

19. If you want to burn an ISO file to DVD and the option to "Burn disc image" isn't showing up when right-clicking on the ISO file (the default might be 7-Zip which allows you to only view the contents of the ISO), do this:
    1. go to Settings / Apps / Default apps / Choose default apps by file type.
    2. change the default for ".iso" to "Windows Explorer".
    3. right-click on the ISO file, select "Burn disc image" and it should work as expected.

20. Here's a solution that might work if Magnifier appears as a black windows.

21. Not really a Nexus thing, but folks with Connect accounts using Outlook should confirm the following setting in Outlook... In Outlook, select "Home -- Junk -- Junk E-mail Options" and ensure the "level of junk e-mail protection" has "No Automatic Filtering" selected - Nexus stations will have this set up by default, but people can change it (which you don't want to do). Check home machines and laptops especially. As well, if you don't see messages older than 1 year in Outlook , Open Outlook, click "File / Account Settings / Account Settings…", select your email account and click "Change", then use your mouse to drag the slider for “Download email for the past” to “All” at the right side of the slider, click "Next / OK / Finish", then close and re-open Outlook. It will then start downloading and re-indexing older messages which might take a while depending on the amount of saved messages you have so be patient. BTW, avoid using Outlook on Nexus stations outside of your office as the Outlook PST will get stored on a network drive which causes various problems (they can get large and take a while to be created which will also slow things down for you when they first get created). Since the the PST files can get large, if a number of people with large mailboxes run Outlook on a single machine, it can fill up the C: drive.

22. Not really a Nexus thing, bu in Teams, you might notice some files/folders being owned by !!j2mathes. Nothing to be concerned about - IST has some scripts running to monitor usage and for some reason it that appears in some places.

If you are having problems, please let us know by sending an email to our Psychology IT Request Tracker queue at PsychIT@uwaterloo.ca

• Bill Eickmeier, bee@uwaterloo.ca, PAS 4008, x46638
• Michael Wagoner, mwagoner@uwaterloo.ca, PAS 4006, x45669
• Gordon Boerke, gboerke@uwaterloo.ca, PAS 3023, x42457
• IT coops, PsychIT@uwaterloo.ca, PAS 4001

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Last Updated: by bee@uwaterloo.ca