Moving from RM CC4 to Windows Network

[Jamo]

This thread is getting off topic though. The OP asked for advice on which tools to replace the ones currently provided by RM, not to ask for reasons on why he should stick with RM or go Vanilla.

 

The discussion that this is turning into has been had many times before, and it's always the same conclusion that is drawn from it. I just wish people wouldn't automatically link a "we're going vanilla" thread into an "RM bashing thread".

 

Back to OP: We're heading vanilla this year, and so far the only tool we have bought as a replacement is Impero. Other than that, we haven't really hit any "WE MUST HAVE THAT" bits that RM used to provide yet (and for you RM lovelies, please note I said "yet" - who's to say we might roll out in the summer and realise we'd completely forgot something).

 

+1 Impero is brilliant for a replacement for RM tutor, it also has loads of other features like remote event viewer and remote command prompt etc. V useful for remote debugging as the command prompt is totally transparent to the user and they will have no idea you are using their pc (Unless you use shutdown.exe!)

[SYNACK]

Papercut is great for printlogging, charging and limiting also which is another facility which you may need. PaperCut - print management software used by 30,000 organizations to control and quota printing they are also a forum sponser according to their banner ad.

[Hightower]

Papercut is great for printlogging, charging and limiting also which is another facility which you may need. PaperCut - print management software used by 30,000 organizations to control and quota printing they are also a forum sponser according to their banner ad.

 

Impero does this too. I'm not trying to push Impero by the way hehe, just thought I'd mention it because we were going to initially invest in Papercut, but when we got Impero we realised we didn't need to.

[SYNACK]

Impero does this too. I'm not trying to push Impero by the way hehe, just thought I'd mention it because we were going to initially invest in Papercut, but when we got Impero we realised we didn't need to.

 

Cool wasn't sure if it did or not hence the additional suggestion.

[bossman]

RM was fine when I used it but only thing I m going to say about people 'who regret it moving Vanilla' must have not got the skills.

 

I may have misinterpreted this sentence as it is a little hard to read grammatically (Not implying anything) so as you can see it maybe that I have seen the "must not have the skills" I perceived this to be what you actually meant.

 

My reply was not meant to antagonise but to give people another viewpoint.

[bossman]

Woah, Computers and networks do not make kids pass exams, learning does and that is a product of many things including teaching, environment and resources. Yes computers can be important and useful but drawing this kind of comparision is like me saying the global economy crashed because I forgot to pay my credit card bill.

 

Both solutions can be valid, hell if Macs can be a valid solution there is a very deep pool of possibilities but lets leave out the outlandish claims. I for one know that I never got my Unicorn despite my calls to customer service .

 

If you see the words teaching then this is what is meant by the post but without a solid communications system to allow not only the teaching staff but all members of staff to "communicate" this has helped the staff whole school to plan better lessons and teach better lessons therefore empowering the students to learn more and achieve better results and the proof of the concept is in just that "Results".

 

I do not believe in any way shape or form that it is the network which has performed the teaching miracles but has had a really positive effect on the teaching and learning environment at our school to which the SLT would add their seal of approval.

 

As for your analogy using a credit card non payment my be how you operate in your school but believe me without the smooth operations of a communications system which allows full and integrated services for everyone to use 24/7/365 then the teaching and learning in today's schools would be archaic to say the least.

 

A poorly prepared teacher cannot and will not survive in today's schools and the biggest let down to our students are teachers who do not plan and use the communications systems to teach the students.

 

The students learn through being taught but it is the tools with which they are taught with which gives them the confidence and skills to move into a bigger world away from school.

 

What you are saying in your way is that students would learn from teachers if there were no communication systems via chalkboards and the like or would you have the students using a wax tablet or slate?

 

Networks are as important to schools as they are to business and this has been proven many times over.

 

How many of us use the internet (Youtube) to learn from, the same goes for students, they don't need teachers in a lot of cases only for the fundamentals like reading and writing with possibly maths as the third option but for creative learning there is nothing like the internet and a communications device of sort i.e. computer, mobile phone etc.

 

Example: my son had never shown any leaning towards a musical instrument of any kind but 4 months ago he decided he would like to play the guitar, using his laptop and youtube he has taught himself to play and not only that he is now in 2 bands, one a rock band and another which is an Indie band. he plays Bass guitar in the rock band and lead or rythmn in the other.

Both groups now play around the clubs and pubs and are doing very well for new groups but I digress so back to the point of teachers teaching students and networks they all go hand in hand I feel.

 

This reply is not to inflame anyone but to put across what has happened at our school and why our SLT revere us as a much needed team and this is why the post took on that form.

[irsprint84]

I may have misinterpreted this sentence as it is a little hard to read grammatically (Not implying anything) so as you can see it maybe that I have seen the "must not have the skills" I perceived this to be what you actually meant.

 

My reply was not meant to antagonise but to give people another viewpoint.

 

I m trying to read back what I said! My grammar is quite poor I ment people who moved to vanilla from CC3 saying they regret it and want to move back and it means they didnt plan properly not sure why I said skills I just brain dump as you can see

[SYNACK]

@bossman - I'm not suggesting no coms systems or even that your implementation has not helped to improve outcomes in your school. I was just objecting to the grandious statment and tieing that to a single way of doing things. Not sure you got the intended meaning of the credit card bit, I was meaning that a change (small or large) in one area in a complex system will not automaticlly mean a change and that it takes many components. Insinuting stuff about my schools was kind of uncool too. As you will see from the end of my post I was suggesting that there are many valid solutions which I beleive backs up what you have been saying.

[bossman]

@SYNACK:

 

I do feel we could be on the same lines here but at cross purposes as we may have perceived things a little different to what we actually mean.

 

I was in no way insinuating anything about your school in particular and it was by no means meant to inflame as I stated in my post, the credit card analogy was a little diverse but I understood what you were trying to say.

 

I have no axe to grind with teachers or their methods of teaching but was merely trying draw attention to the fact that it is not always about the teachers or the teaching but the learning process and how it can be used effectively within a good network and communications infrastructure.

 

I was in no way being grandiose and would like to state that for the record, I have always tried to be of help in any way to others on this forum and yes sometimes things that I say are sometimes taken the wrong way or perceived differently by other people and then turned against me.

 

I may not know all the answers but respect everyone on this forum for their point of view and always try to see things from this angle.

 

Its always hard to put over the context of what one is trying to portray especially on such a forum whereupon other members have such a high degree of knowledge.

 

On this note it is always a pleasure to debate sensibly and adultly things which are in the forefront of our lives.

 

all the best

[sparkeh]

@OP If you want something comparable to measure against, take a look at SCCM which will take care OS deployment and software deployment amongst many other things. Once you get it working correctly its pretty awesome.

 

You can get a pretty long free trial so setting up a test lab is a good way to see if it fits your needs.

[bossman]

@irsprint84:

 

As @Hightower has mentioned (not too many times in this thread) value for money with going vanilla is to use a product called Impero which I have had the opportunity to see in action.

 

It covers a lot of the management tasks which you have in RMMC but without the cost.

 

@Hightower When something works well you have to sing its praises and for us RM management software has for the past 9 years and the experience we have had of CC4 so far means we should be able to enjoy running a successful network for the next 9 years.

 

I do hope your shift to a Vanilla system goes well and that it works for your school as well as RM has for ours (sincerely)

[morganw]

You might want to check out WPKG which is very similar to RM package management. I think eventually I'll aim for SCCM but the initial setup seems rather epic. It's probably a wise long term goal though, especially if you are on a Microsoft licensing agreement as they are pretty much giving it away compared to the commercial pricing.

 

For Windows 7 deployment with MDT2010, this guide will show you everything you need to know. I've not used CC4 but I imagine it's based on some kind of WDS/MDT setup for OS deployment.

 

I do miss the RM Management Console when it comes to setting up new users (creating home folders, setting permissions, settings AD user properties). In the end I wrote a script to do it. If you can use Group Policy Preferences then everything else is pretty straight forward without any scripting.

 

The biggest change will be what you decide on for support, none, some (maybe even on an adhoc basis), or full setup and support by a third party. The last option would probably be similar to using an RM solution, if you don't use their GPOs and scripts you will probably invalidate your support (to some degree).

[morganw]

I'll also say that we use LanSchool as a replacement for RM Tutor. I chose it based on the user interface (very self explanatory) and easy deployment (very easy to automate installation and setup). I also bought the SpecOps Remote Admin tool which is an easy way to quickly do basic management tasks from ADUC.

[russdev]

@maark , @Hightower, @Jamo and @bossman

 

Thank you for your kind comments on Impero...

[Hightower]

I do hope your shift to a Vanilla system goes well and that it works for your school as well as RM has for ours (sincerely)

 

I know you do mate and cheers

[Jose]

This is a old debate really thats been done to death on here, most of the people who believe that a RM system offer value for money do so under the false belief that a vanilla system is difficult to install and configure. Configuring GPOs and login scripts/batch files is a bread and butter job that any decent tech should be able to do. WDS to image computers and abtutor or italc to control.

A good way to compare the RM tools with the standard and free admin tools available is to forget the cost and just compare the functions, I think most most Techs would still prefer the vanilla options even if RM tools were free.

Bulk password control/AD bulk modify = free ,

NTFS fix = free ,

[TechMonkey]

This is a old debate really thats been done to death on here, most of the people who believe that a RM system offer value for money do so under the false belief that a vanilla system is difficult to install and configure. Configuring GPOs and login scripts/batch files is a bread and butter job that any decent tech should be able to do. WDS to image computers and abtutor or italc to control.

A good way to compare the RM tools with the standard and free admin tools available is to forget the cost and just compare the functions, I think most most Techs would still prefer the vanilla options even if RM tools were free.

Bulk password control/AD bulk modify = free ,

NTFS fix = free ,

 

Not wanting to go over it again (& again & again & again & again) but that isn't just where the value is seen. Having a system there so you are up and running from day 1 & you can build from there is the value. When we were looking at going from Win98 to XP we thought about vanilla and CC3. Originally we were against it but after weighing it up the value of having all the AD done, the users ready and machines ready to build from day 1, against us having to play with scripts, build the AD & learn it as we went and work out the best way to image machines we went with CC3. It saved us Dev time, tech time & fiddling, bodging and hacking time. The latter three being what I love but not useful to the school.

 

Saying RM admins & techs imagine that configuring a vanilla system is difficult is once again saying they are less skilled or inferior. It isn't just skills or perception of skills, it is man power, time and resources. That is why it is a school by school decision.

[sparkeh]

This is a old debate really thats been done to death on here

So you decide to fuel it some more? Cheers.

most of the people who believe that a RM system offer value for money do so under the false belief that a vanilla system is difficult to install and configure.

Grossly incorrect blanket statement without any evidence to support it.

Configuring GPOs and login scripts/batch files is a bread and butter job that any decent tech should be able to do.

Who is saying that techs who run CCx systems aren't able to do it?

 

Trolling anti-RM nonsense was old years ago and it hasn't got any fresher since.

[Jose]

Not wanting to go over it again (& again & again & again & again) but that isn't just where the value is seen. Having a system there so you are up and running from day 1 & you can build from there is the value. When we were looking at going from Win98 to XP we thought about vanilla and CC3. Originally we were against it but after weighing it up the value of having all the AD done, the users ready and machines ready to build from day 1, against us having to play with scripts, build the AD & learn it as we went and work out the best way to image machines we went with CC3. It saved us Dev time, tech time & fiddling, bodging and hacking time. The latter three being what I love but not useful to the school.

 

Saying RM admins & techs imagine that configuring a vanilla system is difficult is once again saying they are less skilled or inferior. It isn't just skills or perception of skills, it is man power, time and resources. That is why it is a school by school decision.

 

This is what I meant, I think a lot of RM techs think it takes a lot of man power and time to build and configure a vanilla network, now these things are all a matter of personal opinion, I think I and most techs could install and configure a vanilla system with GPOs etc in a day, using just the free tools mentioned above. If you keep it simple and neat and tidy then 2003 server and above are a doddle.

I am currently preparing for our first room of Windows 7 client machines, I installed the admin tools on a windows 7 machine and configured the GPOs, it took about 2 hours but now when the 30 machines turn up next month they will deploy easily and be ready to use.

[Jose]

So you decide to fuel it some more? Cheers.

 

Grossly incorrect blanket statement without any evidence to support it.

 

Who is saying that techs who run CCx systems aren't able to do it?

 

Trolling anti-RM nonsense was old years ago and it hasn't got any fresher since.

 

no where in my previous post did I mention RM techs not having the skills needed, infact I used the term any decent tech, a generic term regardless of system used.

Instead of trying to argue with me maybe you could help the original poster by pointing out what RM tools do that vanilla and free tools can't. We are all here to help each other and opinions will vary, which is why on a thread like this its probably more useful to the original poster to discuss the tools and functions rather than prices and manpower as they will vary from school to school.

[sparkeh]

Instead of trying to argue with me maybe you could help the original poster by pointing out what RM tools do that vanilla and free tools can't.

Well at least this we can agree on, which is why I made a suggestion earlier on the in the thread (perhaps you didn't read it), why your anti RM comments were unnecessary and why I will refrain from any further debate.

 

Anyway to get back on track : @OP further to my previous suggestion its worth taking a look at LanView 4, it might not be supported any longer but I still find it very useful.

[Boredguy]

Been quite a few replies on this thread, and I will admit to not reading all of them.

 

We are going to set up a test environment in the school with a laptop trolley. Could this be achieved by setting up a seperate OU on the server and having the laptops running to that?

 

Yes this is perfectly possible to do, and is infact the option we ourselves have gone down for our migration (why replace the DC and add the extra workload of re-creating users and passwords!)

We currently have 380 CC3 clients, 120 vanilla XP clients and 6 vanilla Windows 7 clients all running on our RM CC3 network and happily working together.

 

Add a new OU, ideally outside of the RM's "Establishment" tree, and set no inheritance to the OU. You can then create new GPO's for windows 7 stations within this OU, and as long as your stations reside within it you will be ok.

 

If you want to have roaming profiles, you will need to adjust the security permissions on the servers Profile shares. If you set the RMStudentProfiles to have "XXX Students" with write access, then the users .v2 folders will automatically be created when they first use a Windows 7 station.

 

Some replacement applications have been mentioned, such as WPKG for package deployment, which works very nicely, and if you use the WPKG-GP addon, it shows a basic software deployment prior to the logon screen similar to the RM AppAgent.

 

Classroom mangement (aka RM Tutor) has several options available, from Imperio to NetSupport and lots of others inbetween. It depends on your budget and what features you want.

 

Windows deployment can easily be done via WDS these days if you want a basic solution, all the way up to MS SCCM. For a nice middle ground, we went with using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010, which creates a litetouch WIM file for deploying via WDS, but also adds in installation tasks similar to SCCM, so you can target specific computers to have a full 1 visit PC imaging solution, that once configured is so simple you can get a trained tea-maker to boot the PC into PXE and select the Litetouch then go back to getting your beverage of choice ready for you.

 

Oh also forgot, if your servers are still Windows 2003 (and not R2) you will want to perform the AD Schema upgrade to 2003 R2 if you want to be able to deploy printers via the GPO. We updated our network at Easter and have had no issues with any of the RM componants.

Edited June 3, 2011 by Boredguy

[irsprint84]

Well at least this we can agree on, which is why I made a suggestion earlier on the in the thread (perhaps you didn't read it), why your anti RM comments were unnecessary and why I will refrain from any further debate.

 

Anyway to get back on track : @OP further to my previous suggestion its worth taking a look at LanView 4, it might not be supported any longer but I still find it very useful.

 

Do you use Lan view by any chance? I do like it but is there a easy way like other classroom management software to view multiple screens?