In windows there are security settings that have to be set correctly to get the camera and microphone to work with zoom and other web apps. You'll have to google it.
I worked as IT help desk support for a small biz for 18 years alongside many other job titles, so I don't really need the "google it" level of advice... but thanks anyway. I did try to set the settings correctly, but it didn't do what it was supposed to and I didn't have a lot of time to figure it out pre-meeting (and I haven't needed it since). I'll give it another shot at some point before actually spending money on something.
Knowing me, I probably unchecked the option to include a webcam when I ordered it to save $7... :-P Who knew we'd all be spending our lives in video conferences in 2020.
Reminds me of all the DOD contractor laptops i've seen where they paid someone to take the camera out... I wonder if they had to pay someone to put some of them back in this year...
Nope. The commo team just gets a lot of grief for not having a stockpile of webcams on the shelf a week after Teams was authorized and half the building is ordered to telework.
Also, I'm trying to buy about $1 million worth of new laptops that have very specific traits. The product description states that there's no wireless three times in the same paragraph.
As a former nuclear power contract worker, I can sympathize.
I once had to
_beg_ our cell phone provider to ensure that NO CAMERA was installed in my phone.
At the time, nuclear power plants were pretty paranoid about any cameras (special tag on camera, high-level permission etc).
Same with our laptops, which we though was great, since we had them in our hotel rooms also. No one wants the possibility of seeing a nuke worker in less than underwear.
Underwear is a common thing at some nuke plants, especially non-US countries. -- this gives me the idea for a thread "What is the weirdest thing that you had to do at work."
Turned up to 11, when our IT guy had to physically remove the wifi radio from my laptop to go to a Department of Energy reactor.
Why? In the second sub-basement where we were set up, there was a "computer room" that we _might_ have picked up some signals from a computer from the EBCDIC (60's) era (my supposition).
No one examined the laptop on entry....