Teachers laptops

[witch]

Recently the teachers laptops have been changed from being on a workgroup to being either full on the network or working locally. When they work locally they have no internet access because if they did they would never log on properly to the network and therefore would not pick up the antivirus updates from the server.
I am getting a lot of grief because they are creating lessons at home, with things from the internet, and then when they come to school they have to log on to the network to get the internet which means that they can only see their area on the network (not the C drive of the laptop) and can no longer access the lesson plans they did at home. Is there any way around this?
If I get moaned at one more time I think I may do something I may or may not regret! :x

[plexer]

Offline files they log onto their laptops as if they were still on the domain and everything is still saved in my documents.

When they plug back into the network all changes are copied back to the server.

Ben

[localzuk]

Or you could give them a shortcut to the local my documents folder for the other account?

[witch]

The network management software (schoolcare) doesnt let me do a shortcut to the local drive
The powers that be didnt want them to "log on" offline as this really limits their use of the laptop, apparently. Not my choice but there you go

[Norphy]

Give them some USB flash drives?

[witch]

Yes, you'd think so but that is SO difficult.
I thnk I need to sort out a group policy for the group 'staff laptops'
Bit dodgy on this -if I mess it up there isnt anyone here to help!!!
Any ideas?

[Jake]

We had similar issues, staff wanted to be able to save stuff locally on the laptops (often upon investigation this actually turned out to be games for their young relatives, and in one case, porn) , when we took away their rights to save on the laptop drive and issued them with usb sticks they kicked up a right stink about it.

Saying the laptops were useless etc etc, that the usb sticks kept breaking, which was amazing considering that I have had usb sticks for years and years without one breaking. God knows what they were doing to them to get them snapped.

In the end we, just this week, implemented disk quotas on the laptops, giving them a quota of 200mb on the hard drive in which they could store their "work". Large enough to fit alot of documents, small enough to prevent games being installed.

Still amazes me the stuff they put on the laptops, for some reason they think that when they are issued with a laptop, that it ceases to be the schools property and is "theirs"

[maniac]

We use offline files so staff can use their laptop as if they were at work while at home. Staff logon using their normal login credentials even when away from the network, the only thing they get is a warning that their network profile wasn't loaded correctly and that they will be logged on with their cached profile.

They have their complete my documents folder cached on the laptops hard drive, they also have the normal network restrictions so they can't install software, but we made them all local power users so they can install a local printer at home if they need to, and connect to a home network as well. Works well for us, very few problems.

Mike.

[witch]

....they they also have the normal network restrictions so they can't install software, but we made them all local power users so they can install a local printer at home if they need to, and connect to a home network as well. Works well for us, very few problems.
Mike.

And there is the problem. The boss doesnt want to disallow software installation - he seems to think that the laptops 'belong' to the teachers and they are basically allowed to do anything they like on them.
How did you allow them some space, Jake?

[Jake]

We created a seperate partition on the harddrive and enabled Quota Management on the partition, then we set it to an agreed amount, after talking to some staff about how much space they need to use. They settled on 200mb as a workspace.

[maniac]

if you make them local administrators insted of local power users, it will allow this. sorry, didn't read your post properly.

We have both options available, but 90% of staff are only local power users, ICT staff and selected other staff have local administrtor rights to their laptop, which does allow them to install software.

Mike

[plexer]

You need an aup to cover the usage and ownership of laptops.

The laptops are school property and should be treated as such.

I'm now giving mine a local logon that enables them to install software/printers on the laptop but they then need to logoff and logon as if on the network to access their documents etc...

Ben

[djm968]

I totally agree with plexer, your boss needs to implement an AUP for staff laptops ASAP. What if, god forbid a laptop came back for repair with “inappropriate images” on it, where are the guidelines for acceptable use…. “I leant the laptop to friend…. “

Someone also needs to take overall responsibility and a decision made for local document storage, preferably someone with technical knowledge. I like the idea of a separate HD partition but this will not be possible unless you rebuild or re-image all the laptops. Offline files is the next best option but they can be a little tricky to configure correctly the first time.

[witch]

plexor: that is exactly what we have got at the moment.
We have got an AUP but it just tells them to look after the machines and that they are responsible for any software they put on. It isn't great but when I got here there was nothing at all so it is an improvement

Jake - are you talking about the laptop hard drive - the problem is that they can't see it at all due to the management software

[Jake]

Yeah the laptop drive. Does the management software allow the creation of partitions? And would it then hide the new partitions too?

Our laptops restrict the staff from seeing/using the C drive, which is why we created a new partition and have the quota space on the new partition. Of course, if your management software hides that too, that would be a bit of a snag