New Member, needing help with CC4

[chris_clemo]

Hi all.
My name is Chris, and I have been managing a CC4 network for the last 6 months.
Hopefully you can help me with a few niggles I have.

• I have wrote a registry key in order to associate .VOB with WMP. This works fine, however the key needs to be ran/installed individually on each machine. This is quite time consuming as at the mintue I am re-building quite a lot of stations. I previously looked at using the RMMC custom registry key feature, however it just did not seem to take. Anyone any ideas with this?
• Quite often some and/or all printers are not mapping for users. I have seen that this is an issue for users who have applied update 94 and 95, however I haven't and also don't really want to as I don't want the problem to become more frequent. Any thoughts on this?
• Also, I'm not sure about my backup setup. I currently have a network hard-drive 2TB, this is setup to create a full back-up using Windows own back-up utility, every Friday, and an incremental back-up Monday - Thursday. I have recently just changed to this as the existing was only an incremental once a week. I just wanted to get some thoughts on this.
• Our server set-up is currently 2 servers, however server 1 hosts all the user data and shared area. and server 2 simply hosts RM photos and videos. This doesn't seem very balanced, I have moved all the printers to server 2. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Thank you in advance for your input

Chris_Clemo

[russdev]

Hi

Off the top of my head..

Over the reg best thing is to package up in an msi as don't think rmmc will work in that case. Over load balancing share printers over both servers and share the users over both servers.

Russ

[chris_clemo]

Hi Russ

I tried doing a package build, but the app wizard didn't notice the changes. Also one server is connected to the network at 1GB the other server is only 100MB. We don't have any spare GB ports on the switch.

Thanks Chris

[russdev]

Over package use free version of something like Free Windows Installer - MSI Installer Tool.

As for servers hmm is there no way can swap things around so that can get both servers on the 1gb switch? As on cc4 100mb switch on any server you will notice the difference.

Russ

[clareq]

The custom reg key feature in RMMC usually works well - I assume you're adding a HKEY Local machine key to the default machine policy? You can use console to move some users to the other server, but if you have one server on 100Mb I'd leave what you can on the 1Gb one!
I put updates 94 and 95 on yesterday, and have already seen an improvement with logon and logoff times. I was told that they would help with mapping problems.
With regards to backups, are you able to take a backup offsite? Otherwise, you can have the best setup in the world, but if the school burnt down, you'd have nothing to restore.

[chris_clemo]

First of all, thanks for your help,

* I cant remember if the .reg key is HKLM or otherwise, until I get back on Monday (Yes, working this week)

* There's a whole stack of Cisco switch's but no 1GB's ports unfortunately, however there are some SFF ports, I think you can get adaptors to convert these into Cat5/6? but not looked into this.

*I'm a litte apprehensive about update 94/95, would you recommend me doing it this week? and do you need to rebuild everything or can you just use "Update System packages"? having 80 Laptop's and 150 Pc's could take me some time...

As yet we have no off-site backup, however I will take the NAS home in 6 week holiday...

Thanks All
Chris

[russdev]

Isn't file extensions in class roots in which case rmmc won't work if remember right. Not done it for long time as we put file extensions as part of the msi to keep things neat.

Russ

[chris_clemo]

Isn't file extensions in class roots in which case rmmc won't work if remember right. Not done it for long time as we put file extensions as part of the msi to keep things neat.

Russ

I'm sorry this doesn't mean a lot too me...,
So whats the best way to associate .vob with Media Player?

[Chris_]

Was your CC4 network an upgrade from CC3 or was it a clean install?

We've done updates 94 and 95 and not had any problems. Just did the core updates on the workstations rather than going around rebuilding everything.. We haven't core updated all the laptops yet as teachers are prone to randomly turning them off so we're doing them as and when we have them in the office!

Occasionally get a workstation that displays no printers but logging off/on solves that.

[chris_clemo]

Was your CC4 network an upgrade from CC3 or was it a clean install?

We've done updates 94 and 95 and not had any problems. Just did the core updates on the workstations rather than going around rebuilding everything.. We haven't core updated all the laptops yet as teachers are prone to randomly turning them off so we're doing them as and when we have them in the office!

Occasionally get a workstation that displays no printers but logging off/on solves that.

No It is a clean install CC4,
Reading the Notes on RM's page it sounds very involving, for someone who's only been using RM for 6 mnths, Due to be trained in 2 mnths...

[Arthur]

Isn't file extensions in class roots

Using HKCR for file associations is considered very bad practice. File associations should be in HKLM\Software\Classes if they are machine specific and HKCU\Software\Classes if they are user specific.

I normally use VLC Media Player or MPC-HC to play VOB files, but to associate them with Windows Media Player you can do this (at least with XP)...

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\.vob]
@="MediaPlayer.VOB"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\MediaPlayer.VOB]
@="DVD Video (.VOB File)"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\MediaPlayer.VOB\DefaultIcon]
@="C:\\Program Files\\Windows Media Player\\wmplayer.exe,1"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\MediaPlayer.VOB\Shell]
@="Open"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\MediaPlayer.VOB\Shell\Open]
@="&Open"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\MediaPlayer.VOB\Shell\Open\Command]
@="C:\\Program Files\\Windows Media Player\\wmplayer.exe /Open \"%L\""

[russdev]

Using HKCR for file associations is considered very bad practice. File associations should be in HKLM\Software\Classes if they are machine specific and HKCU\Software\Classes if they are user specific.

I normally use VLC Media Player or MPC-HC to play VOB files, but to associate them with Windows Media Player you can do this (at least with XP)...

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\.vob]
@="MediaPlayer.VOB"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\MediaPlayer.VOB]
@="DVD Video (.VOB File)"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\MediaPlayer.VOB\DefaultIcon]
@="C:\\Program Files\\Windows Media Player\\wmplayer.exe,1"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\MediaPlayer.VOB\Shell]
@="Open"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\MediaPlayer.VOB\Shell\Open]
@="&Open"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\MediaPlayer.VOB\Shell\Open\Command]
@="C:\\Program Files\\Windows Media Player\\wmplayer.exe /Open \"%L\""

What I meant something says that RMMC software restrictions ignores classes even in local machine. I Would have to test it not done it in a while via rmmc.

Russ

[clareq]

We have about 1000 workstations and 400 laptops, so we will be updating the workstations gradually and rebuilding laptops ( or as many as possible) over this half term. I was told that as long as the servers were updated the workstations can be done gradually.

[ajs]

The post 94/95 printer issue is a known problem and RM are aware of it. TEC1888172 is the one to read, which I'm assuming they will update once they have a timescale for a fix. At the moment the logging on/off is the best way to fix it.