Staff Laptops

[bwestlake]

Hi all,

 

Currently our staff laptops are on xp, and off the domain, a batch file connects their drives and adds in the proxy ect.

 

We are looking to move them to windows 7,

we would like them to be on the domain but staff still need to be able to access their documents from home and also remove the proxy with ease.

dont like the idea of local profiles as it may confuse some members of staff.

 

anyone have any suggestions?

 

Many Thanks

[Joanne]

with Windows 7 laptops that I have set up, staff log onto them just like they are in school, except they don't have shared drives. When they come back into school documents get sync'ed. Tell them not to put things on the desktop and you should be dandy!

 

You may have to set up syncronisation, which is just in folder options I believe.

 

Oh I should add I am doing all this with 2008 R2.

Edited June 13, 2012 by Joanne

[bwestlake]

our dcs are a range of the server editions eg. dc1 - server 2008 r2 ... dc2 - server 2008 ... dc3 - server 2003r2

 

have you found a way which is easy for staff memebers to remove the proxy?

[pete]

We use offline files and cached profiles (much better in Win 7 than it was in XP).

 

We also use Chrome corporate edition, with a Chrome @ Home shortcut that appends

-proxy-server=

telling Chrome to ignore proxy settings.

 

You could use a proxy.pac (or wpad.dat) with something like:

 

// Turn on case-insensitivity
var lhost = host.toLowerCase();
host = lhost; 

// If we can't find the proxy, we just go direct.
// This can take ~minute to time out on mobile devices (depends on implementation)
function FindProxyForURL(url,host) { return "PROXY proxy.whatever.internal:8080; DIRECT"; }

Edited June 13, 2012 by pete

[FN-GM]

We have it setup like you want it. They all use offline files and have ability to change the proxy.

[Joanne]

and I had staff removing the proxy manually :-P

[Steve21]

Offline cached profiles, with a little custom program for switching proxies at home/school

 

Steve

[sted]

offline files and a couple of reg files on teh desktop (replaced whenever they bootup on corp network) one that puts proxy in one that takes it out

 

as to win7 offline files being better than xp im not so sure it can do some wierd stuff sometimes like turn it off via a gpo it stays on but you cant manually turn it off the buttons greyed out lol

[FN-GM]

You should use a .pac file. If they then use the laptop from home there is no need to fiddle with proxy settings. It will just work.

[HarryMonkey]

+1 for a .pac file but if you did want a quick and easy software solution then Onyxbox Proxy Switcher is a useful little application and it's free ...

 

http://www.onyxbox.co.uk/software/downloads/ps.htm

[FN-GM]

Removing the proxy manually requires a lot of work!

 

Rubbish i takes a few seconds

[X-13]

Removing the proxy manually requires a lot of work!

 

Rubbish i takes a few seconds

 

Getting staff to remove the proxy manually requires a lot of work.

[witch]

I use offline files etc as above. There are lots of little progs out there to remove and replace proxy. I use proxy pal - the staff have to wait for the page to fail but they can recognise the icon and like the little message it gives you to let you know if the proxy is on or off

[themightymrp]

We have a local "staff" login account created on staff laptops that they can use at home. It has no proxy settings configured and a folder called 'Work' on the All Users desktop. We tell them to save any documents which they want to be able to work on from home into that folder, then they can access them on either login. As for any docs still on the school network drive, thats what their VLE login is for!

[Blue_Cookeh]

I started rolling Win7 out to staff this year (one or two even asked for it, which surprised me!) and went down the offline files and domain account route... they have roaming profiles, with all profile directories (apart from Music and Video) redirected to directories on our servers. They have local administrator rights and I just have a VBS file on their desktop they run whenever they switch location.

 

It's so much nicer finally having their machines on the domain in terms of management!

[Pete10141748]

Roaming profile in Windows 7 for all staff here.

 

A mapped drive to U:\ for their My Docs folder (points to \\server\Staff Work\[username] )

Change the "My Documents" folder location to "U:\"

 

Change the Pictures, Music, Video and other folders from the default "C:\users\[name]\" location to "U:\My Music" "U:\My Pictures" etc

 

Change the Desktop folder location to "U:\Desktop"

 

Make the U:\ drive available offline, this includes the desktop now too so they can access all of that at home, they can log on to any machine and get all of their

Edited June 15, 2012 by Pete10141748

[Fazza]

Removing the proxy manually requires a lot of work!

 

Automate it then. On a domain you can have logoff scripts as well as logon scripts. Create a script that runs when they logoff their laptop to disable the proxy settings and have a logon script that enables it when they're back on the domain.