Removing Classlink

[brownfc]

Hi,

We currently use Classlink 2000 on our 2 Windows 2000 Servers. We will replace these Servers over the summer and are looking to remove Classlink, in its place we will use Group Policies on the new Windows 2008 Servers. Has anyone had any experience in removing Classlink 2000 and are there any problems I should be aware of? We will also reimage all the PCs in the School.

thanks.

[maniac]

You're in luck, as classlink doesn't fiddle too much with a standard network, all it is basically only a fancy web interface for managing the system with with the actual clients still controlled by group policies - there's no fancy software involved like you get with RM networks as far as I can remember (although it is about 4 years since I've worked with a viglen network)

If you're re-imaging all your PCs you won't have any problems anyway, as any potential traces of viglen will be wiped out by the re-imaging process.

Mike.

[StewartKnight]

I tried to remove Classlink....

It proved as frustrating as Viglen support!

Viglen Support "Why are you removing classlink"
Repeat until blue in the face
Me "Because we're not using your software anymore"
Viglen Support "Then we can't help because you need to pay for support"
Me "But they belong to the school, we just want to get rid of your software"
End Repeat

In the end they wouldn't tell me so I had to reinstall the OS and the software on EVERY computer.... then.....
Very large bill for 2 hours telephone "support"!!!

[maniac]

Must be a different version to the one that I was using. The version of classlink (which I think was classlink 2000) that I used about 4 or 5 years ago didn't install anything on the clients, if you moved them out of the classlink OU within active directory, they simply behaved as a normal workstation all the changes were done through group policies.

[glennda]

Hi,

We currently use Classlink 2000 on our 2 Windows 2000 Servers. We will replace these Servers over the summer and are looking to remove Classlink, in its place we will use Group Policies on the new Windows 2008 Servers. Has anyone had any experience in removing Classlink 2000 and are there any problems I should be aware of? We will also reimage all the PCs in the School.

thanks.

We started from scratch again! someone before us had tried to fiddle with the stuff, and setting all the viglen stuff up as vms, in the end was taking the students 45 mins to log in! now after starting again all works fine, takes the students less then 50 seconds to log in

[Michael]

If you're going to install new servers, it will make things a lot easier. Firstly you'll need to upgrade the Windows 2000 Schema from 13 to 44. If you don't do this you will get lots of problems!

Join the 2008 Servers to the domain, then promote one (to start with) as a domain controller. You should at this stage have a standard Active Directory setup. I also like to force replication manually (initially) to make sure all objects are replicated and secondly to double check DNS is in order which can stop replication working properly.

Once you get to this stage (as you're working through the holidays) you can migrate user data and also re-image workstations. Then you can complete the migration by moving DHCP Server and FSMO roles. Then you can demote the 2000 Servers to member servers and eventually remove them from the domain altogether.

I know these guidelines are sketchy, but this is how I would tackle things. You could actually apply this method to any third party administration systems