🖥️ Workstation Setup & Automation (Python)

A lightweight IT Support project that automates common workstation setup steps and produces a structured log for documentation.

What it does

• Collects system info (OS, CPU cores, RAM, disk size)
• Simulates app installs (Chrome, Zoom, Slack, VS Code, Office 365)
• Applies basic network/security steps (simulated)
• Creates a user account entry (simulated)
• Writes a timestamped UTF-8 log: workstation_setup_log.txt

Why this is useful

This mirrors real first/second‑level IT support: consistent setup, repeatable steps, and clean documentation for audits and handovers.

Quick start

# 1) Optional: create & activate a venv
python -m venv .venv
# PowerShell (Windows)
.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

# 2) Install dependency
pip install -r requirements.txt

# 3) Run
python workstation_setup.py

If you previously saw an encoding error on Windows, this script opens the log file with encoding='utf-8' and reconfigures stdout accordingly.

Example output (console)

[2025-09-13 20:45:11] ===== Workstation Setup Script Started =====
Collecting system information...
OS: Windows 11
CPU Cores: 8
RAM: 16 GB
Disk: 500 GB
Starting application installation...
Installing Google Chrome... Done ✅
Installing Zoom... Done ✅
Installing Slack... Done ✅
Installing VS Code... Done ✅
Installing Office 365... Done ✅
All applications installed successfully.
Configuring Wi-Fi and network access...
Applied default security policies and firewall rules.
Creating user account: student_user
Assigned standard permissions for student_user.
===== Setup Completed Successfully =====

Project structure

WorkstationSetup/
├─ workstation_setup.py
├─ requirements.txt
├─ README.md
└─ sample_logs/
   └─ workstation_setup_log.txt

Notes

• The install and account steps are simulated (safe to run anywhere).
• You can replace the app list in applications = [...] with your company stack.
• For an ASCII‑only log, remove the emoji in the install line.