<rant>
Don't use Viglen, they tie YOUR machines, so when you come to cancelling the contract, you have to nuke the machines, and they charge you for the "tech" support to tell you, that they refuse to help you, if you're moving off their Classlink network!!!!!
</rant>
Stewart Knight
Network Manager
Appleby Grammar School
You will be using them again soon then Stewart? :P
Our system used to be a Viglen Classlink system. What a mess it was. NT4 and Windows 95 machines running off a hashed together network.
I did ask them to requote for a new server giving them a budget etc., and they STILL came back only with an offer of a whole new install of server and clients for well over four times our quoted budget.
I've never bothered looking them up since.
Been there, done that. I was a network manager at a high school in 2000 who had been sold classlink. What a pile of junk. We ditched them and purchased the component parts (Net Support Manger and Imagecast) direct from the manufacturersand saved a fortune.
I'm the same as you Dos_box, the ICT teacher had bought Viglen Classlink years ago, and they we're quoting a huge amount to update the network.
In September they employed me (1st ever technician in the school!!!), and I told them where to shove it!
Important IT decisions should not be left to teachers, especially ICT teachers!
That was my situation. The Head of ICT at the time of the Viglen purchase was an English teacher. I was employed after the previous technician (an 18 year old lad well out of his depth) quit due to the head of ICT being a 'Bitch Queen From Hell'.
I suffered 5 months of Viglen 'service' then arranged through the bursar to spend a bit of money of upgrading to AD and 2K server and Win 2K where possible on the desktops.
Oh! And the Viglen hardware sucks!!
Your fave subject Chris!!!
against my [sound] advice, a school i no longer work in [thankfully] went for viglen classlink win95 clients - absolute dross, complete waste of money [close to 50k]. funny peculiar me thinks: as an IT engineer you dole out your advice ['don't go for viglen']; the school rebuts your advice; school regrets not having taken your advice after wasting 50K; IT engineer gets the blame; head and IT co-ordinator who both initially praised the system get away with murder. funny? no. peculiar? yes.
oh to be a teacher and do nothing all day...what fun.
*just to add when i say they went for win 95 clients, this was over 8rs ago.
Strangely enough, one of our departments has just bought three standalone Viglen systems. First I know of it is when I see three Viglen boxes & associated monitors sitting in reception with the department's name on it. I really hope they're not expecting me to support them. Especially as it's our Council's policy that schools must buy from our Managed Service providor in order to ensure that the machines can be connected to the network if required...
My old school got 95 clients in 99!!Originally Posted by free4440273
In the summer of 2003 we went from Netware 6 (I hate it, such a bad product - so many file system updates and lots of file corruption), and Windows 98SE clients to Windows Server 2003 and all XP clients. Took some fiddling to get sims (old version) running on 2003 as some installers didn't work, but I pinched the reg keys from the old NT4 server. Dumped sophos at the same timeMy old school got 95 clients in 99!!
I can't understand why people have such problems with Sophos. In Lancashire we've got it nailed down to a tee.
there is nothing wrong with sophos per se - but it is over-rated and there are better ant-virus installs out there: essest's nod32 in particular is outstanding (i use it in all of my schools).
Because the lea bought a license that didn't give us enterprise manager at the time, so when I wanted to scan all the machines they had to be ON. With symantec, it will perform the scan next boot if its turned off.
I also got fed up with it when I had a laptop with blaster, it continually told me about the virus, but refused to do anything about it.
My last set of laptops has the groups error which makes me glad I got rid of it, not to mention one of the new versions slowly grinds servers to a halt.
Thats just my personal experience though. If it works for anyone else, thats fine, it didn't work for me
To be fair to companies such as RM and Viglen, if your school bought a network 'system' that provides services such as user admin and software deploy, it might not be 'right' for your school when a newer network manager with more experience is employed.
I had an RM connect network, and for many years it provided the school with exactly what they wanted. However shortly after I had been employed I decided that I could provide a more advanced network for probably less money than was being spent on the RM system. I could also provide a better support service, as i was onsite 5 days a week.
However, this doesn't mean that all of a sudden the RM connect system is a load of rubbish. Its still a great product, and there are many happy customers. If it was a load of rubbish, RM wouldn't still be selling it because there would be no customers. Basic Market Economics.
I understand that sometimes it's very frustrating if you want to do something on your network that you are prevented from doing because the system doesn't let you, but the point of a network system from RM or Viglen is that its a known system. If anyone could do anything to the system, it would be very difficult to support and maintain. By its very nature its quite rigid in design and use.
Once you have matured beyond the need for this type of system, maybe its time you implemented a 'vanilla' network more suited to the needs of your school.
-Kev
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