Network Sharing Failure

[themanfromict]

Hi

I'm new here. I've just started as the lone ICT Technician at a small secondary school (40-50 pc's) in Kettering. Amazingly they don't have any servers. Everything is shared off my Vista PC. Each PC links to 3 shares at startup.

5 times in the past week I've had people telling me they can't access the Z:\ (public on my pc). If I reboot they can get on. Is this likely to be due to Vista hitting the max number of network connections? I'm trying to come up with a reason my bursar will understand to justify installing Windows Server 2008 and me using a laptop, other than we need to have server!

Cheers,

Neil

[Michael]

Is this likely to be due to Vista hitting the max number of network connections?

More than likely yes, the limit is 10 as I sure you know. I'm surprised a Secondary school (no matter how small) doesn't have a server of some kind. I won't ask how backups are performed

[Mcshammer_dj]

Are the hard drives on your system Raided?
How are you backing the data up?
How are you distrubuting software?
How are you controlling individual access againg group access?

All things that can be considered when talking about a server. It is also worth noting that prices are not high for Servers in school.

Hardware would be around £1500 for a goodish server with a backup solution.
Licenses should be around £50-70, with CALS @ £4-5

[mrtechsystems]

Check for disk space aswell

[CPLTD]

Hi

I'm new here. I've just started as the lone ICT Technician at a small secondary school (40-50 pc's) in Kettering. Amazingly they don't have any servers. Everything is shared off my Vista PC. Each PC links to 3 shares at startup.

5 times in the past week I've had people telling me they can't access the Z:\ (public on my pc). If I reboot they can get on. Is this likely to be due to Vista hitting the max number of network connections? I'm trying to come up with a reason my bursar will understand to justify installing Windows Server 2008 and me using a laptop, other than we need to have server!

Cheers,

Neil

Hiya Neil,

Great to see a fellow Kettering guy on the forums welcome aboard , out of curiosity which school are you looking after you can pm me if you dont wish to publish via this thread

[browolf]

a cheaper but not necessarily better than an actual server alternative would be a NAS linkstation. ie
Buffalo Technology - Products - LinkStation™

[themanfromict]

Backups. Eck! Apparently last guy used to backup each individual computer in the school office with a usb disk, once a week...

I'm currently syncing their computers with mine over the network, as a temporary fix. They've broken 2 linkstation's in 18 months apparently. Hoping to find a tape drive under the stacks of old pc shells I keep finding.

Every computer has 3 users, Staff, Pupil and Admin, all of which local users. Only server I've heard mentioned is the Sims server, which is at Capita. And because that's offsite they think that's all they need.

At least I won't have hundreds of old usernames and passwords to reassign...

Neil

[Jamman960]

Seriously? I don't think I've ever come accross a networked setup that bad, even the smallest school I've visited had a semi-reasonable server to support their 16 laptops & 2 admin pc's(a VERY small village primary with less than 50 pupils).

The fact that they've taken on an IT Tech should mean that they're looking to improve the situation. I'd begin by asking what their budget is for IT improvements or weather they're prepared to take on a lease to get it sorted out, at a guess I'd imagine half their workstations would need replacing and possibly their whole network infrastructure along with getting in a server etc. If they don't plan to or aren't open to improvements I'd run like the wind!