https://www.edugeek.net/rss/1-edugeeknet-whole-site.xml/Whole site feedenI have inherited a number of laptops running Windows 11 Home. I was planning to buy upgrade licenses for them, but then came across this article, which explains the upgrade can be done for free for schools. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/education/guide/1-windows/upgrade-windows-11-home-windows-pro-education-k-12 This worked successfully on the first two laptops, but I can’t get it to work on the third laptop. I have tried different admin accounts in case there is a limit per account. I won’t be able to test on a different device until later in the week. The error that I receive is: The segment or domain may be ineligible for this upgrade offer. Please contact Microsoft Support for assistance. Nothing has changed in our M365 admin centre. I have followed all of the pre-requisites. I have opened a case with MS and am waiting to hear back. I have tried a fresh install on this device and applied all Windows Updates, which hasn’t resolved the issue. Has anyone had a similar issue? Any suggestions to try and resolve this?Sun, 20 Sep 2026 14:22:04 +0000I know most of you are aware of sites like the Dell Outlet, but this may be one you didn't, Sennheiser has one too, and there are some great deals to be had if you or your schools need something that is a bit more wallet friendly - https://uk.sennheiser-hearing.com/collections/outletSat, 19 Sep 2026 23:57:34 +0000A new modded server for everyone to have a go at. FTB Skies 2 Aero. This is a quest book driven skyblock pack, but with a Create Aeronautics twist. Pick your start type and start growing your existence. The pack is currently version 1.10.0. Available via the FTB Launcher or Curseforge. Whitelisting is currently manual, PM me here on on Discord and I'll get you set up.Sat, 19 Sep 2026 19:08:12 +0000We now have a cross-platform capable vanilla Minecraft server running. It is running 26.2 at present, as Paper, the server system doesn't yet have a stable 26.3 release. If connecting from a Bedrock device, use the default port. Bluemap is here. DM me to get whitelisted, as always. Or message me on Discord.Sat, 19 Sep 2026 12:49:19 +0000Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:36:35 +0000We are looking to move away from our local LEA support. Have reached out to Bromcom Direct, TurnITon and SCOMIS. Any recommendations or feedback on either. SCOMIS were brilliant with SIMs but not sure what they are like with Bromcom.Fri, 18 Sep 2026 09:11:43 +0000The trusty linkrunner I acquired from the old boss many years ago now shows intermittent cable faults that don't exist. The new ones are sooo expensive! I have an even older one that still works perfect but she's hefty and can't just sit in the tool box. So is there a non-fluke tester that is worth anything? The current one is the size of a walkie talkie, can do dhcp, ping and show cable lengths for every pin. (super duper handy), send a tone with an 3rd party sniffer and it can check cables. (1" mono lcd job, not touch screen) Also it uses AA batteries can be left for months and just work!Fri, 18 Sep 2026 08:31:01 +0000We use our Smoothwall appliance (Maiden-38) to filter BYOD devices. At the moment, we do not ask students to install the Smoothwall cert onto their personal devices due to the support overhead, so effectively just do DNS based filtering. With iOS devices, we "instruct" devices that support iCloud Private Relay (which a user gets if they pay for iCloud storage, and effectively bypasses DNS based filtering) that our network is incompatible with the feature. This is done with our internal DNS returning an NXDOMAIN for mask.icloud.com and mask-h2.icloud.com. The user gets a friendly notification via iOS that iCloud Private Relay is not compatible with this network and prompts them to turn it off for the SSID. So far so good, however iOS 27 seems to have added a new wrinkle to this. It now includes a feature called "Connectivity Assist" that can be enabled/disabled per SSID, but that is at the users discretion. From our research and testing, when this is turned on (as it is by default) the DNS server provided by the Wi-Fi network will be ignored and the DNS server that connectivity assist uses will be enforced instead. This means the phone never gets the "instruction" from our own DNS server to bypass iCloud Private Relay and the user can browse the internet unfiltered. The Smoothwall web filter log shows the user browsing to the restricted site (shows red highlighting in the log, but not denied). If we turn off connectivity assist, filtering works as expected - not sure our students are going to be willing to comply with that request though... Is anyone else observing this behaviour in their environment (appreciate it's early days for iOS 27!)Thu, 17 Sep 2026 14:07:27 +0000We've just had a panel fail on us due to a backlight issue, and it was only just in warranty. Replacing it would mean purchasing a new panel at a cost of £2k+. I'm currently putting together a case for using https://panelwise4education.com/ and was wondering if anyone has experience with other repair providers, or is everyone simply opting to replace non failed panels to have them be in warranty?Thu, 17 Sep 2026 13:48:37 +0000Hi all, We've recently noticed an issue during our filtering checks where Microsoft Edge is no longer automatically signing users in on first launch. As a result, our Smoothwall Cloud Filter is unable to identify the user and records their activity as "unknown-user." All relevant Edge policies are configured via Intune and appear to be applying correctly on the client. "BrowserSignin": 1, "ImplicitSignInEnabled": true, "ForceSync": true, "NonRemovableProfileEnabled": true, "ProactiveAuthWorkflowEnabled": true, "HideFirstRunExperience": true What we're seeing is that when a user signs into a device for the first time and opens Edge, the browser launches with "Profile 1" and displays their account ready to be signed in, but it doesn't complete the sign-in automatically. If the user closes Edge and reopens it, the browser immediately signs them in without any issues. Has anyone else experienced this recently, or found a cause or fix for it?Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:52:36 +0000Is anyone successfully using the inbuilt Microsoft Outlook email encryption with an Office 365 A1 subscription? I can see various guides on enabling Microsoft Purview Message Encryption, but these all seem to rely on Azure Rights Management. From what I can find, Office 361 A1 includes a basic edition of Purview Message Encryption, but not Azure Rights Management, which Purview Message Encryption needs to function?! This seems kinda contradictory. I'm pretty sure from the guides I've seen I could just enabled Azure Rights Management, but I'm just trying to stay within my current agreement. Microsoft licensing, once again, clear as mud 😂 Tbh it's a bit of an academic question, as we have Egress Switch for when we really want encryption. But someone said the other day that they were requested to use it by one of their contacts, so it would be good to give her a firm Yes or No.Thu, 17 Sep 2026 10:32:20 +0000Thu, 17 Sep 2026 10:16:45 +0000Starting to look at Wi-Fi access for our school field. We do not have any outbuildings etc I can run directly to, so it will need to be installed on the main site. Does anyone else have a similar setup? looking at the U7 outdoor specifically, as it has a directional antenna. Anyone have any feedback on this model? TIA.Thu, 17 Sep 2026 07:49:35 +0000When opening Google admin there is a notice that says Is this something new? Most of the apps we don't use anyway but there are a few apps we do use, namely CS First, Chrome Web Store, Google Play and Google Maps. Being a primary I'm not too sure how to go forward with this. Any advice?Wed, 16 Sep 2026 12:20:38 +0000Has anyone every reflashed a Lenovo tablet with its Android OS? It's locked to a MDM from a company that no longer exists, question is if I reflash it will it work or will it some how connect back to the MDM?Wed, 16 Sep 2026 10:18:27 +0000Got a strange one that I cannot get to the bottom of. Outlook 365 classic, fully up to date on a Windows 10 machine (yes I know, it is what it is) when printing certain emails Outlook crashes. Nothing that I can see similar on the affected emails, have to crash out of Outlook but will still not print. Have recreated Outlook profile and it still does it, read various articles about trying virtual printers, deleteting certain files, no joy. I'm at a bit of a loss, any suggestions?Wed, 16 Sep 2026 10:17:19 +0000Morning, just reaching out to see if anyone else is experiencing this issue. We have a bizarre scenario where you may have a device, for example a laptop... user logs on everything is great and then randomly they will get in Edge and Chrome a message that says "Hmmmm your internet access is blocked"... But if you open up firefox you can browse the internet no problem... but then the device almost slowly dies and looses all connectivity. A reboot sorts it and the issue might go away, but then randomly happen again in a couple of days... or even a week later. Our set up is Windows 11, Panda 360, Lightspeed, and the basics, nothing fancy. Mainly Asus laptops, although the same issue happens on desktops, surface devices, lenovos dells etc We have performed Driver updates, bios updates, firmware updates, rebuilt devices.... just when you think ... looks like we cracked it, it pops its head up again. It was just a long shot but just wondered if anyone else has had any issues like this...Wed, 16 Sep 2026 09:34:51 +0000Hello, First time posting, so apologies if I get some stuff wrong. We've been getting increase reports from our teachers when moving between classrooms they lose all USB peripheral access (mainly mouse and keyboard). Currently the only sure fix has been a restart, but this irks some of them. We have played around with the USB selective suspend settings, and this has had a positive effect for some but not others. Has anyone had an experience like this or any thoughts? Campus wide we are using HP Elitebook 840 G6 with 2013 HP ultraslim dock, all are on Win 11 25H2 and were refreshed over the summer break.Wed, 16 Sep 2026 09:24:09 +0000Having a bit of a panic attack while trying to sort this one. Renamed a user who either got married or divorced over the summer, and it's something I've done numerous times without issue but this time after the rename, they can't access their OneDrive and I get "Error trying to get OneDrive settings" if I try to access it via 365 admin. I've gone into SharePoint admin and verified that their personal folder still exists as far as that tells me but if I try to access the personal folder, I get "404 FILE NOT FOUND". I've tried renaming the user back but it's not changing the account name or personal site URL back and I've tried removing the OneDrive licence and adding it back in. Reason for the panic attack? We have no backups of any of our 365 tenant anymore. We did have Barracuda until January of this year where the trust stopped paying for it because it was deemed "too expensive" and there hasn't been any budget to buy any sort of replacement for it. We did also have access to our backup archive until yesterday when they'd sent an email informing us that we'd be losing it all. So you can imagine how I might be feeling right around now. 😢Wed, 16 Sep 2026 09:09:16 +0000Due to the recent iPad price rises, that were already slightly out of our reach before the increase (and a potential 1:1 device deployment across primary and secondary schools), we started looking at Android tablets (1/2 price of an iPad). Not an easy decision, as we already have 500+ Intune managed iPads, but schools can't afford them moving forward. Intune Android management with the Microsoft Managed Home Screen app seems to be working well. It's easy to lock down devices, supports Microsoft 365 account authentication, and offers single sign-on, although that can be a bit hit and miss. Not really an issue on 1:1 devices, but it can be more problematic in a shared device setup. We chose Lenovo Tab K11 Gen 2 model because the specification and price is reasonable and it supports palm rejection. Is anyone using Android tablets at a larger scale? How have you found them? Is anyone using the Lenovo Tab K11 Gen 2? What is the battery life like after few months of usage? Experience with Lenovo devices lifespan and reliability? ThanksWed, 16 Sep 2026 09:06:25 +0000Is anyone else getting block pages on Arbor today, or had them previously? The error says the content "has been blocked because it does not comply with the acceptable usage policy"; see screenshot above. It looks like a Smoothwall issue, but it is generated within Arbor!Wed, 16 Sep 2026 09:04:14 +0000Work for a state funded cooperative that works with schools throughout my state (NJ) We have a service where we manage the social media accounts for these schools. Right now the school gives each person assigned access with that persons personal FB account I hate this. I researched and it looks like FB business manager is the way to go. The lead of the team that runs this service has said that they looked into it and the districts would need to recreate their pages and we would have to own them. This seems opposite of everything I have read about business manager Anyone using it to manage multiple schools?Wed, 16 Sep 2026 01:45:23 +0000Tue, 15 Sep 2026 17:37:43 +0000Hi all, Hope you are well. We have recently moved all of our devices to intune, how do others handle exams on school devices please? We have exam write pad which is installed and working. ThanksTue, 15 Sep 2026 16:00:18 +0000I know that for sometime now, you could throw quite a bit of work at CoPilot, ChatGPT, Claude etc. both on free and lower-end subscription tiers and it would pretty much get on with it. Today however, I have experienced several of these now limiting their use in several ways. Today, both ChatGPT and Claude both halted whist doing some image work telling me I'd ran out of credits\free usage time, even though these were quite simple tasks, and I haven't used them in several days, and I know that ZeroHour uses these quite heavily and it seems very random in how much you can or cannot get out of it at any given time. I think the AI industry needs some kind of standard by which tokens can be measured to allow users to better manage their usage (and billing!). Back to Photoshop I go!Tue, 15 Sep 2026 14:16:53 +0000