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undeadcow: Any thoughts would be appreciated.
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JMich: My advice would be to ask the IT guys themselves. Most of them do have bigger worries than "Is employee X playing games", but if there is a compay policy that forbids you from playing, they do have to check, since it would be their job on the line as well.
If you can give them a good enough reason why you have the time to play, and show them what you will be playing, it is possible that they'll allow you, or at least turn a blind eye towards you.

That of course assumes that you are on speaking terms with the IT guys, and that you are a jovial enough fellow to be able to convince them of your good intentions.

P.S. You could probably ask them to install Master of Orion 3, it is a spreadsheet simulator after all (j/k).
Would be pretty ironic and quite funny that he showed him he´s gonna play THIS
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jjsimp: And of course we got the netnanny that won't let me view content with some arbitrary limit of key words. Sometimes, a few GOG forum posts are blocked from viewing because of the f-bombs used.
I have remember to use less s-words then (I just edited one of my later messages to replace it with "things"). A friend of mine working for the (Finnish) army once complained he had hard time visiting many forums as the pages would be blocked if there was even one dirty word. I seriously don't get that... Are we kids or something?

One thing though, our employer's antivirus software seems to be very strict, but incoherent, about what pages it considers potentially harmful. For example, it claims that e.g. replacementdocs site is a harmful site, and blocks it. Yet, pirate torrent sites seem to be fine?

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jjsimp: And 75% of my gog forum time is done at work. What else is there to do, work?
Same here. I am quite often in the mode anyway that my work and leisure time are interleaved. I quite often continue work at home after the workday, like today. I read a work email, reply to it, go check some fault report, read a couple of GOG forum messages and write one myself, while in the background I am waiting for some work related processing to finish... Only when I have to do something where I really have to concentrate, I do only that one thing. Then I don't even read my email either (and I get angry calls because I don't reply to them instantly).

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timppu: But he didn't comment anything on it.
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Titanium: Probably too disgusted at your choice of an inferior virtual image software.
Well, it was good enough for my purpose, and free. :)
Post edited August 07, 2013 by timppu
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Stevedog13: I wouldn't do it. I've known some really cool IT guys who wouldn't care so long as nobody called them on it. On the other hand I have worked with some real dirtbags who would read through peoples emails and sometimes use remote access software to connect to certain peoples machines and watch their desktop just to see what that person was doing.
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timppu: I've sometimes thought about that. Not sure if it would be legal here (I don't think reading one's (work or other) mail is). I know there is a remote assistance capability where the IT guy can ask to be able to connect to my PC, but I don't know if they can (legally) watch anything I do, without me knowing it.

Yet, the few times I've played games at my workplace, I actually disconnected myself from the company network for that time. I guess that is enough to stop them tracking me at least in realtime. :)
But not enough for them to send off a recon team to investigate the SLC(sudden loss of contact) with one of the office terminals ;P
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Charon121: I do read some forums and Wikipedia every now and then between bursts of hard work. Nothing illicit about that.
About as much could be said for me. I need to cool off my head from all those numbers and parallel lines when I work hard on Acad to finish a .dwg by the end of the shift.
If they want and you use their system the can see everything, probably even your passwords.

What you could do is rather simple:

Bootable OS on an USB Stick with installed games on it.
If you like some risk involved you could get "portable" games that don't require systemfiles and can run from the USB stick
Other than that I suppose you could just ask, as others have already mentioned.
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jjsimp: And of course we got the netnanny that won't let me view content with some arbitrary limit of key words. Sometimes, a few GOG forum posts are blocked from viewing because of the f-bombs used.
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timppu: I have remember to use less s-words then (I just edited one of my later messages to replace it with "things"). A friend of mine working for the (Finnish) army once complained he had hard time visiting many forums as the pages would be blocked if there was even one dirty word. I seriously don't get that... Are we kids or something?

One thing though, our employer's antivirus software seems to be very strict, but incoherent, about what pages it considers potentially harmful. For example, it claims that e.g. replacementdocs site is a harmful site, and blocks it. Yet, pirate torrent sites seem to be fine?
Usually when I get blocked, I just tether my smartphone and read the offending page of posts. It's more of a nuisance. I don't think it's curse words, but the descriptive nature of those curse words. Mostly the ones that keep people from viewing the porn sites.
Post edited August 07, 2013 by jjsimp
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timppu: One thing though, our employer's antivirus software seems to be very strict, but incoherent, about what pages it considers potentially harmful. For example, it claims that e.g. replacementdocs site is a harmful site, and blocks it. Yet, pirate torrent sites seem to be fine?
As far as I remember replacementdocs was hacked and there was malware, that's maybe the reason why it's still on the blacklist. Torrent-sites on the other hand only show links and so don't look riskful to a virus scanner in the first place.

About the topic: Beside the fact that I would not recommend to install/play games on your working system while it seems not allowed, some portable looking games still create files in the AppData folder and take use of the registry. Also you don't know if there is a tracker in the background which logs what programs you run at which time, especially when your employee take a lot of work to remove anything from the system that distracts you from work. .

Edit Yep, I remembered correctly about replacementdocs: http://www.replacementdocs.com/news.php?extend.189
Post edited August 07, 2013 by DukeNukemForever
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DukeNukemForever: Edit Yep, I remembered correctly about replacementdocs: http://www.replacementdocs.com/news.php?extend.189
Well what do you know, now I seem to be able to connect to that web site also with my work PC. :) So apparently the virus scanner is smarter than I thought.
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undeadcow: Any thoughts would be appreciated.
I have one: YOU'RE FIRED!

Clean out your desk and turn in your standard-issue assault rifle.
Post edited August 07, 2013 by Shaolin_sKunk
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tinyE: I don't know the specifics of your job but I for one would tend to feel a lot safer if air traffic controllers, nuclear power plant engineers, and NORAD radar techs would keep from playing games while on the clock.
It is fine. We just get Matthew Broderick in to fix things when the computer goes nuts! He could really use the work...
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undeadcow: Any thoughts would be appreciated.
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Shaolin_sKunk: I have one: YOU'RE FIRED!

Clean out your desk and turn in your standard-issue assault rifle.
Actually, I think YOU'RE FIRED!

and to the OP - I cant really comment as my boss makes me drink and play games at work all the time.
Post edited August 07, 2013 by Sachys
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Shaolin_sKunk: I have one: YOU'RE FIRED!

Clean out your desk and turn in your standard-issue assault rifle.
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Sachys: Actually, I think YOU'RE FIRED!

and to the OP - I cant really comment as my boss makes me drink and play games at work all the time.
Where do you work? Playboy Mansion? Can you get me a job there, in ever sense of the term "job".
In the current environment I would only say it is not worth getting fired over games.

On a anecdotal note, from about a year back.
Where I work I am banned from taking in my 3DS because I wanted to download something, so I 'broke' their pitiful excuse for network protection to connect it, using just the 3DS and a paper clip. (The IT department still had no idea how it was done unless they bother to read this).
Anyway they now ban me from taking my 3DS to work, and wanted proof that my tablet could gain access to the internet by itself before they would let me take that back into work.
So instead I installed Worms 2, a chess game and a copy of Pong I made myself in GameMaker onto one of the warehouse machines for use during our lunch hours.
They are hidden in a hidden folder in the Windows directory, and have an invisible shortcut which is placed well away from any 'legit' program shortcuts. No one will ever find it unless I tell them where it is as the folder has one of those stupid $FK34593gd*Be647HE like names.

Anyway apparently what I do is wrong whilst others in upper management are allowed to connect to Facebook when they arrive and spend the entire day playing Farmville.
I have in fact been told to go away by our stock controller because they are busy, but when I wander past her, she is playing Farmville during work hours.
Our IT department is a little over their head with most issues that cannot be fixed by phoning support, so I guess that is only to be expected.
Unless someone in the IT department is a real BOFH then they'd likely only care if you were compromising system/network configuration or security policies. If you have to circumvent any measures they've taken to lock down the system then don't do it, since they'll probably notice that and won't be too pleased. Also, if the game tries to phone home for any reason then they'll likely notice the hits on the company firewall and come asking you questions about it. Aside from that, the far more likely scenario of you getting "caught" is your boss walking by and noticing you playing games instead of working. If you think they'd be cool with that then you probably don't have much to worry about, if not then save your gaming for your own time.
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DarrkPhoenix: Unless someone in the IT department is a real BOFH then they'd likely only care if you were compromising system/network configuration or security policies. If you have to circumvent any measures they've taken to lock down the system then don't do it, since they'll probably notice that and won't be too pleased. Also, if the game tries to phone home for any reason then they'll likely notice the hits on the company firewall and come asking you questions about it. Aside from that, the far more likely scenario of you getting "caught" is your boss walking by and noticing you playing games instead of working. If you think they'd be cool with that then you probably don't have much to worry about, if not then save your gaming for your own time.
Your post reminds me of "Office Space" and the Tetris 'I'm gonna have to ask you to come back another time' scene.