craigw Posted November 4, 2014 Posted November 4, 2014 Hi there I have had a request to see if we can enable something similar to the old windows 7 widgets to appear on the student desktops that would show some information from either a text or excel file held centrally on the network. In this case it would be a running total of the house points in the school. Ignoring the merit of this or otherwise - it has me intrigued as to how this can be done. I have tried some options and got part of the way but most solutions I come up with will not read from network drive or require some user intervention - ideally we would like it to be automated so that the kids do not need to configure a widget etc. Yes we can publish the data on the home page of VLE etc - but the request has been specific about the desktop as I mentioned. Anyone done anything similar or know of a 3rd party tool to do the same? Cheers Wally
Ecalpemos2000 Posted November 4, 2014 Posted November 4, 2014 I have done this before but in xp. I used bginfo with a script to look up the excel file. You also had to copy the file from the server to local machine on pupil logon and then delete from machine on log off. Not sure if that helps you. I can look through old hard drive for how I did it if you want.
craigw Posted November 4, 2014 Author Posted November 4, 2014 Sounds interesting and promising - will take a look at bginfo but if there is anything you can dig up then that would be much appreciated. Cheers Wally
Ecalpemos2000 Posted November 4, 2014 Posted November 4, 2014 I will look today and get back to you. As a side note we used it so every pupil could see there target grade and current grade for every subject they took. Ofsted loves the fact that they were constantly being reminded of achievement etc.
Ecalpemos2000 Posted November 4, 2014 Posted November 4, 2014 Hi wally. I have found the scripta etc that I was on about. Can you pm me your email and I will share on onedrive with you. You will need to tweak it all but it gives you an idea etc. Tony 1
craigw Posted February 26, 2015 Author Posted February 26, 2015 This is long overdue - but thanks - big thanks!! I now have this working from a logon script that calls the bginfo program which reads from a text file on the network. The only thing I had to do to make this stable was make sure bginfo.exe was called from the local machines - but deployed this with GPO and then no issues. On logon the desktop now shows the house points as per the text file which the teacher manages!! Also added in the machine name at the top of the list (we already rename my computer to the machine name but some users find this hard to read...) so this has helped when remote supporting staff.. All round - excellent little utility.. Cheers Wally
fairm010 Posted February 26, 2015 Posted February 26, 2015 I'd like to do this but it requires giving users privileges to change the wallpaper, obviously the kids love that one.
Ecalpemos2000 Posted February 26, 2015 Posted February 26, 2015 No you can do it without giving them that privilege.
Ecalpemos2000 Posted February 26, 2015 Posted February 26, 2015 Message Wally, craigw, I am sure he will help. I don't work in the area anymore so can't talk you through it but I am sure he will.
fairm010 Posted February 26, 2015 Posted February 26, 2015 No you can do it without giving them that privilege. Care to elaborate on how? Whenever I have tested this with the "Do not allow users to change desktop wallpaper" GPO enabled has prevented it working. As soon as I disable that GPO it works.
Ecalpemos2000 Posted February 26, 2015 Posted February 26, 2015 Ok from what I remember, and I am not a network manager, I just wrote the bginfo part, what we did was this...
Ecalpemos2000 Posted February 26, 2015 Posted February 26, 2015 The excel file that bginfo linked too was placed in a secured area on the network(a master document) the NM then wrote a logon script that copied the excel to the c drive of the machine, which was also locked from pupils. The bginfo linked to this doc, on the c drive, onlogon the wall paper change was allowed to show the bginfo data, it was then restricted again after logon was complete. On logoff another script was run to reset the background and to delete the local version of the excel file. Thus on next logon if any changes has been made to master doc they would be reflected. The whole process of which data to bring back was based on the AD username.
Ecalpemos2000 Posted February 26, 2015 Posted February 26, 2015 As the wallpaper is allowed to be changed for only the logon process, the pupils were unable to change it after the logon had completed and they are also unable to do it during the logon process. As I said Wally seems to have it working, and I am unable to test what I say as I no longer work in a school or have access to the whole system or scripts, I only have the bginfo part.
fairm010 Posted February 26, 2015 Posted February 26, 2015 How specifically did you stop the changing of the wallpaper after? Script? Reg edit?
Ecalpemos2000 Posted February 26, 2015 Posted February 26, 2015 I have no idea. I will email my old NM and ask him how he did it. It might take a couple of days.
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