Corporate login laptop bypass

[booyaka]

Walk away. Politely advise the customer to deal with his ex-employer if he wants the laptop to be sorted for personal use. However more likely is that he simply didn't hand it back when he left.

As others have said, most contracts will state any company items must be returned when you leave/dismissed/laid off etc.

Not worth getting involved with a job like this

 

[Mujja]

Hilarious to see it mentioned to keep the legal business out of the thread.

Hilarious to see the thread being derailed. I don't see the OP asking for legal advice. There's a sub-forum for that.

 

[tom_e]

Hilarious to see the thread being derailed. I don't see the OP asking for legal advice. There's a sub-forum for that.

They asked for any ideas, the idea of leaving it well alone because it could well come back to bite them as a business is a valid one.

 

[Mujja]

any ideas for "So this is obviously some sort of bios encryption"

 

[Deleted member 77746]

any ideas for "So this is obviously some sort of bios encryption"

Yeh. Nobody on this forum will be able to bypass it. 100% sure of that.

Corporate will have put one on more than likely.

Hilarious to see the thread being derailed. I don't see the OP asking for legal advice. There's a sub-forum for that.

It's not been derailed. You do NOT know if this user is allowed to keep the laptop or not.

All company property must either be returned or go through their IT Department for clarification.

 

[Mujja]

It's obvious from the opening statement the laptop doesn't belong to smr's customer. But that's not what he's asking advice for. The OP believes it's some sort of encryption. This is a technical sub forum and I'm sharing technical advice and knowledge, which is the only thing the OP asked for.

I'm not here to judge him or make assumptions, something @BinnsY should work on.

This sub-forum used to be a great place to share technical knowledge, now most posts contain replies telling the OP what they should or shouldn't do instead of offering a solution to the issue.

 

[smr]

Thanks very much for the replies. I'm going to tell him I can't fix it, that'll be the simplest thing to do and for him to come and pick it up.

1) I could ask him if he has proof of his entitlement to keep the laptop (but this isn't very good for a business relationship between myself and the customer as it would insinuate a level of mistrust anyway)
2) Just explain that I cannot fix it as it's got this autopilot thing on (I've never heard of this before and I guess the reason why is because such laptops are returned to their respective organisations who have their own inhouse IT departments)

2 is clearly the only option.

 

[smr]

Ok so I clearly overlooked this comment from him, after I told him that despite my efforts I couldn't get this resolved he wrote "How’s that even possible, genuinely. The laptop was originally purchased by myself and I expended it"

Thing is that still takes me back to option 1 above and I don't want to have to say to my customers "prove it"

Unless anyone can think of a delicate way of asking him to prove it - obviously if he did buy the laptop and can prove it's actually his then it may well be worth getting this sorted.

But there again, if he did buy it with his own money, why would the company not remove it? Sounds a bit unfair.

 

[tom_e]

Assuming he means expensed it? So it was still bought by the company in the end.

 

[Mujja]

Ok so I clearly overlooked this comment from him, after I told him that despite my efforts I couldn't get this resolved he wrote "How’s that even possible, genuinely. The laptop was originally purchased by myself and I expended it"

Thing is that still takes me back to option 1 above and I don't want to have to say to my customers "prove it"

Unless anyone can think of a delicate way of asking him to prove it - obviously if he did buy the laptop and can prove it's actually his then it may well be worth getting this sorted.

But there again, if he did buy it with his own money, why would the company not remove it? Sounds a bit unfair.

He may have purchased it and and handed over to his company to manage and install apps. The easiest thing for him would be to share the serial number with the company and ask to remove from Autopilot. The hostname would have changed after you reinstalled Windows and the original hostname may have already been wiped from AD.

To get the serial number open a CMD window and enter "wmic bios get serialnumber"

 

[BinnsY]

It's obvious from the opening statement the laptop doesn't belong to smr's customer. But that's not what he's asking advice for. The OP believes it's some sort of encryption. This is a technical sub forum and I'm sharing technical advice and knowledge, which is the only thing the OP asked for.

I'm not here to judge him or make assumptions, something @BinnsY should work on.

This sub-forum used to be a great place to share technical knowledge, now most posts contain replies telling the OP what they should or shouldn't do instead of offering a solution to the issue.

In no way have I judged the OP of this post. I'm suggesting that he should back away from this job as his opening post indicates he didnt understand what this feature was, and my guidance is based on this. As others have replied since, unless the customer can provide proof of purchase theres simply no way he should be touching this job. It can't possibly be worth the profit a job like this would bring in and simply handing the machine back with a message along the lines of "I'm sorry but this appears to be a corporate owned device and I can't work on it unless you can provide proof of purchase" would be the safest option.

As you say, this is a forum where we should share advice and knowledge. The overwhelming amount of replies in this are sharing with the OP that this isnt worth the risk and thats exactly what this kind of forum is for. Not just blindly sharing technical steps without considering their implication. It's that that makes this a "great place" as you put it.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

It's obvious from the opening statement the laptop doesn't belong to smr's customer. But that's not what he's asking advice for. The OP believes it's some sort of encryption. This is a technical sub forum and I'm sharing technical advice and knowledge, which is the only thing the OP asked for.

I'm not here to judge him or make assumptions, something @BinnsY should work on.

This sub-forum used to be a great place to share technical knowledge, now most posts contain replies telling the OP what they should or shouldn't do instead of offering a solution to the issue.

Nobody is judging the op. They are sharing advice and opinions. Nothing wrong with that.

I still stand by what I said. OP should tell the person to take it back and ask the company to do it if it’s their device.

 

[dani555]

i left work about a year ago to start a new role somewhere else so o kept the laptop they didn't ask for it back so i got someone to fit a new hard drive and format it for me ended up with a top end laptop for free