Philosophy
The [company] network under [thankfully former administrator's name] has been managed with a casually organized, user-focused approach. The top priorities are providing stable & usable services, keeping costs down, minimizing accidental or deliberate disruption, and easy maintenance; approximately in that order. Cost reduction is achieved through reusing devices, encouraging computer rotations to reduce new computer purchases, and using non-profit discounted or free software where it is feasible.
Anti-virus tools which are disruptive to the functionality of computers have been removed, and virus management is done with email filtration, user education, and software selection. Firewalls have sometimes been disabled for cabled interfaces. Users of Windows XP are given Admin privileges to the local computer to reduce maintenance requirements and give the users the ability to learn more about their computers and perform basic troubleshooting themselves.
Users are encouraged to experiment with their computer, the theory being that the problems they create during the learning process which must be repaired are an investment which will reduce the need for technical assistance in the long run.
As [company] is not able to spend the kind of money required to have full redundancy on network services, fault-tolerance is built into the primary servers in the form of smallish RAID5 arrays and sometimes backup power supplies.