Is it just me, or is Windows no longer suitable for Education?

[DrCheese]

People in Silicon Valley and similar areas - ie themselves.

 

and therein lies why the "Modern" Intune Windows shared PC experience is so awful to manage. Microsoft & Silicon valley just do 1:1 for everyone so anyone not doing this model utterly confuses them. Which is a shame, as it's not just schools that have shared devices.

[Koldov]

So this is a kind of on-topic-side-step... but bear with me...

 

In a previous post I echoed what a few others mention here about how the core OS (talking specifically about Windows) is less important as other OS vendors start upping their game. Especially as more and more software is run within a browser....

 

This isn't what we do here, I am not really 'with the times' and I'm not with the movers and shakers of the I.T. world, so very little of our core functionality is run 'in the cloud'... Sure we have 'O365' based email and more 'learning platforms' for the children than we used to have, but the I.T. suites still have loads of software on them, MS Office is still a manual 'per machine' install, SIMS is sitting on a big old physical beast in the server room, as are the file servers with all the teacher's work on them etc.

 

So what happens to all these 'cloud' based schools when the internet goes down or as what appears to have happened today, Azure gets nuked (today it's MS related but say tomorrow it's Google)...?

[sigma]

So this is a kind of on-topic-side-step... but bear with me...

 

In a previous post I echoed what a few others mention here about how the core OS (talking specifically about Windows) is less important as other OS vendors start upping their game. Especially as more and more software is run within a browser....

 

This isn't what we do here, I am not really 'with the times' and I'm not with the movers and shakers of the I.T. world, so very little of our core functionality is run 'in the cloud'... Sure we have 'O365' based email and more 'learning platforms' for the children than we used to have, but the I.T. suites still have loads of software on them, MS Office is still a manual 'per machine' install, SIMS is sitting on a big old physical beast in the server room, as are the file servers with all the teacher's work on them etc.

 

So what happens to all these 'cloud' based schools when the internet goes down or as what appears to have happened today, Azure gets nuked (today it's MS related but say tomorrow it's Google)...?

 

As I understand it, unless a cloud based school also backs up it's cloud to a different cloud with a cloudy backup service - it's toast?

[Koldov]

Todays forecast.... not a (Microsoft) cloud in the sky...

 

Or is it 'Cloudy with a chance of... toast'...?

[ThatBoringBloke]

 

So what happens to all these 'cloud' based schools when the internet goes down or as what appears to have happened today, Azure gets nuked (today it's MS related but say tomorrow it's Google)...?

 

Redundant Internet connection. Also if Google or MS go down its waaaaaaay above my paygrade to resolve.

[Dos_Box]

There is a very nice chart here - https://peakup.org/blog/windows-10-edition-comparison/ - comparing Windows 10 versions and what surpised me, is that the Edu version is pretty much the most fully featured.

What has happened though (as has been commented on earlier in the thread) is that Windows now comes with serious bloat, not in regards to necessary facilities, but random features such as games etc. And I'm not sure Cortana would ever be useful in a school.

I think this started to set in with Windows XP, but more obvious from Windows 7 (Windows 2000, you still have a special place in my heart) and I'm pretty sure many in industry would also like a 'bare-bones' version of Windows they can easily manage and deploy that they can put everything else they need onto afterwards.

[DrCheese]

So what happens to all these 'cloud' based schools when the internet goes down or as what appears to have happened today, Azure gets nuked (today it's MS related but say tomorrow it's Google)...?

 

You have to weight this all up against the risks of onsite stuff failing & having the staff onsite who can deal with it. For example, back in the Exchange days, our exchange server died. It meant we potentially had to find capital to replace failing hardware & I had to spend my entire night restoring backups/fixing it. It was a lot of stress all placed on one person & if I had eventually fallen over due to lack of sleep, the downtime would have been longer.

 

When 365 goes down, there are *thousands* of people working to fix it, all of who are highly specialised & work when I sleep.

 

Schools just need to build these sorts of issues into their DR Plans - Just as they would/do if the power goes out, or the water fails.

[DrCheese]

There is a very nice chart here - https://peakup.org/blog/windows-10-edition-comparison/ - comparing Windows 10 versions and what surpised me, is that the Edu version is pretty much the most fully featured.

What has happened though (as has been commented on earlier in the thread) is that Windows now comes with serious bloat, not in regards to necessary facilities, but random features such as games etc. And I'm not sure Cortana would ever be useful in a school.

I think this started to set in with Windows XP, but more obvious from Windows 7 (Windows 2000, you still have a special place in my heart) and I'm pretty sure many in industry would also like a 'bare-bones' version of Windows they can easily manage and deploy that they can put everything else they need onto afterwards.

 

and it blows my mind why Microsoft keep trying to do the same thing over and over again, which is to try and "Cutdown Windows" but they do it in such a half baked fashion. Windows 11SE should really be a straight forward, browser based setup like ChromeOS is - With exactly the same updating setup as ChromeOS (Eg update in the background in a seperate partition then just reboot into the new one) but it's not, it's still the full bloated Windows with massive update windows & just can't run on the hardware it ships with.

 

The Surface 11SE provides an utterly rubbish experience compared to Chromebook at the same cost.

 

Our chromebooks are basically "windows" books anyway, as they logon using Azure AD & we've hidden most of the google stuff/replaced it with 365 - Just copy this microsoft!!

[localzuk]

So what happens to all these 'cloud' based schools when the internet goes down or as what appears to have happened today, Azure gets nuked (today it's MS related but say tomorrow it's Google)...?

Honestly, the downtime of onsite kit is considerably higher than the downtime of cloud based services. We have a fraction of the budget to provide enterprise class services, and the expectation of staff these days is that we provide them 24/7 always on access to files and services. Combine this with the huge security risks of running internet facing services from your servers (schools being a regular target of hackers and ne'er-do-wells), and it is fast becoming unfeasible for a school to run all its own on-prem infrastructure.

 

Like all tech, you should have contingencies and redundancies, disaster recovery and backups.

 

Azure may go down occasionally, but MS aren't going to go killing off the service that now provides the largest chunk of its income now.

[Alis_Klar]

Our chromebooks are basically "windows" books anyway, as they logon using Azure AD & we've hidden most of the google stuff/replaced it with 365 - Just copy this microsoft!!

 

Sorry off topic but please share how you did that as we deployed 1:1 Chromebooks during lockdown and still have O365 but want them to work better together with some type of SSO arrangement.

[_techie_]

Sorry off topic but please share how you did that as we deployed 1:1 Chromebooks during lockdown and still have O365 but want them to work better together with some type of SSO arrangement.

 

If you have access to the Google Admin console, you can set them up to use SAML sign in, and points to Azure/O365.

Its under the security main tab on the LHS - you can set it there.

you will need someway of provisioning users from AD to G-Suite (I found this best using the active directory GCDS Java tool best) although you can do it cloud to cloud, you just don't have the fine grained control over OU mapping (yet).

2 guides for you:

 

https://blog.theserverlessschool.net/2018/04/sso-from-chromebooks-to-azure-ad.html

 

https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6060880?hl=en

 

Hope this helps

[FN-GM]

So what happens to all these 'cloud' based schools when the internet goes down

 

Redundant internet connections. You probably have 2 power supplies and RAID in your server, same principle applies.

[georgeescott]

Looking in to going full Intune ourselves, but based on the comments here, Windows 11 SE isn't going to be a Chromebook-killer! Nor good for shared devices.

 

Hybrid might be the way forward..

Edited January 26, 2023 by georgeescott

[Arthur]

Windows 11SE should really be a straight forward, browser based setup like ChromeOS is - With exactly the same updating setup as ChromeOS (Eg update in the background in a seperate partition then just reboot into the new one) but it's not, it's still the full bloated Windows with massive update windows & just can't run on the hardware it ships with.

Annoyingly Windows 10X had a Chrome OS-style seamless update feature, but Microsoft decided to cancel the OS before it shipped and release Windows 11SE instead. 🤦

 

www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-10x-a-closer-look-at-microsofts-new-operating-system

 

Windows 10X is capable of applying updates in less than 90 seconds by saving the update package in a different partition. Once done, the update data is moved to another partition and it is replaced during the reboot.

[DrCheese]

Annoyingly Windows 10X had a Chrome OS-style seamless update feature, but Microsoft decided to cancel the OS before it shipped and release Windows 11SE instead. 🤦

 

www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-10x-a-closer-look-at-microsofts-new-operating-system

 

Yup & I was really excited about 10x because of it. I'd traditionally fought off Chromebooks because I'm a big fan of Windows/365, but after using Windows 11 (& 11SE) on low end shared hardware I've now stopped fighting it. Converted 200 odd shared laptops to ChromeOS as the difference is night and day. They're quick & updating is so painless no one ever notices it. Installing & enrolling takes about 5 minutes, instead of the pain factor that is autopilot.

 

Windows 11se is a joke & that Microsoft don't see that is painful.

[PotNoodleTech]

Yup & I was really excited about 10x because of it. I'd traditionally fought off Chromebooks because I'm a big fan of Windows/365, but after using Windows 11 (& 11SE) on low end shared hardware I've now stopped fighting it. Converted 200 odd shared laptops to ChromeOS as the difference is night and day. They're quick & updating is so painless no one ever notices it. Installing & enrolling takes about 5 minutes, instead of the pain factor that is autopilot.

 

Windows 11se is a joke & that Microsoft don't see that is painful.

 

It's a shame you cut off your nose to spite your face for so long lol. Microsoft has been going down hill big time for education since Windows 10 (You will do what Windows 10 wants not what your group policys want)

 

Welcome to the world of having a device delivered and getting it unpacked powered up enrolled managed and out to the pupil in 15 minutes

[dmj]

Welcome to the world of having a device delivered and getting it unpacked powered up enrolled managed and out to the pupil in 15 minutes

 

And the kids can re-image the things themselves in 2min! That's such a win in my book.

[DrCheese]

heh My dislike of them previously was more down to not want having students to use Gsuite, as we don't have it active & our infrastructure is all Office365. But once you get down into it, it's not that difficult to hide it all & replace all the shortcuts with Office anyway.

[FN-GM]

Not in education but we was discussing how EdgeOS would be good for us. We have a lot of kiosk, and digital signage screens and shared computers in public spaces. They would be ideal for ChromeBoxes.

[IKWeb]

Some valid points - yes intune isn't a fast as having an onsite DC - it was never advertised to be and never will be. Devices have a check-in rotation, unless you kick off a sync then they won't sync unless the console knows the device has a change which is Q'ed and then you just get dumped in a Q for a sync. We use both 121 and shared devices. Both work fine if you know what settings to apply to the devices. Without doing it correctly (and sometimes all it needs is for one set to be missed) and the whole shared experience is a whole mess.

 

Packages - this is a whole minefield - basically - don't use store apps. get the Windows installer and make your own package using something like PSATK and then you will have nothing but apps that install and uninstall with 100% success. doing it any other way - I have found just gives you huge issues.

 

Finally - Yes Microsoft is listening - but the days of an IT guy in a school with zero official qualifications and his or her whole knowledge self-taught from Youtube videos, or reading materials have long gone - heck back in the day with Server NT, Windows 2000 when things were simple and you could do it with no official qualifications. IMO those days have long gone and I think education is going to suffer as most schools hire the typical tech who has always been self taught, and wings everything. Now that said and before anyone says - their is always going to be the exception to the rule - but in most cases this fits the bill.

[PotNoodleTech]

Finally - Yes Microsoft is listening - but the days of an IT guy in a school with zero official qualifications and his or her whole knowledge self-taught from Youtube videos, or reading materials have long gone - heck back in the day with Server NT, Windows 2000 when things were simple and you could do it with no official qualifications. IMO those days have long gone and I think education is going to suffer as most schools hire the typical tech who has always been self taught, and wings everything. Now that said and before anyone says - their is always going to be the exception to the rule - but in most cases this fits the bill.

 

Thanks for insulting half the people on edugeek!

[DrCheese]

Thanks for insulting half the people on edugeek!

 

Yeah this is a pretty awful statement to make. We don't "wing" it just because we don't all have formal qualifications (That go out of date extremely quickly)

[paulkerton]

but the days of an IT guy in a school with zero official qualifications and his or her whole knowledge self-taught from Youtube videos, or reading materials have long gone

 

No, they really haven't.

 

Especially whilst the wages of a school IT Tech in 2003 are still considered the going rate for the same jobs in 2023. Until education realises that it needs to compete, then education IT will have plenty of room for self-taught, retiree enthusiasts and trainees because it's all it's willing to afford.

[midweek]

Until my school decide to pony up for a fully qualified M365 specialist, a cyber security specialist, a network engineer, a data protection lawyer, a data manager and whatever else they decide is "IT", then they are stuck with me "winging it" from youtube clips and Google.

[Dos_Box]

I'll add something to this. I know more than a few companies (some quite large) who would much prefer someone with 10-20 years experience at the coalface over qualifications.

This is mainly down to their experince giving them a much broader overview of how differing systems, products etc. interact with each other and can create problems that a certification in a specific area doesn't cover. This experience allows them to see problems from the view of multiple factors rather than just a single issue (I hope this makes sense).

And they are far less likely to be diving in and creating more issues, as that kind of time served professionalism gives you a much more wider view when it comes to problem solving.

That is not to say that quals are not important, but we do seem to have become a nation of industries that have become qualification focussed rather than ability focussed. I blame HR departments