altecsole

Thanks — platform longevity is something I’ve considered, but I don’t think the position is quite as definite as that. The 2034 discussion concerns terrestrial DTT/Freeview, whereas the Manhattan S4-R is a Freesat satellite recorder and doesn’t use terrestrial broadcasting. Even for Freeview, 2034 is currently the end of the protected period and a decision point, rather than a confirmed switch-off date. Continuing some form of terrestrial service into the 2040s is still one of the possibilities being discussed. The Astra 2E/2F/2G satellites are admittedly getting older: their nominal design lives run out around 2027–30. However, that isn’t necessarily their actual retirement date, and it doesn’t establish that Freesat will close when they reach it. SES and Sky extended their Astra 28.2°E capacity agreement until 2029, and I can’t find any announced date for closing Freesat or UK satellite broadcasting. I agree that television is moving towards IP and I wouldn’t assume a new Freesat box will necessarily have a ten- or fifteen-year useful life. In my case, though, I specifically want proper local recording, series links and unrestricted fast-forwarding, which the current internet-based alternatives don’t reproduce particularly well. At £300, compared with the £72 a month I’m currently paying Sky, it would pay for itself in about six months. Even if satellite broadcasting eventually changes around the end of the decade, it should still have been worthwhile.

I've been looking at leaving Sky and it looks like we will purchase a Manhattan satellite recorder - https://manhattan-tv.com/freesat/manhattan-s4r-tv-recorder, probably the 2TB version. It's £299, but our current Sky cost is £72. We already have a Roku box, which we'll use for streaming services.

That is concerning, although Broadcom appears to have changed direction very recently. At VMware Explore last week, Broadcom acknowledged that it had placed too much emphasis on pushing customers towards VMware Cloud Foundation and said that the sales incentives responsible had now been corrected. It also confirmed that an updated version of vSphere Standard is being developed, with more information expected at VMware Explore Frankfurt in October: https://www.theregister.com/2026/09/02/vmware_swings_its_focus_back_to_lowend_server_virt_promises_vsphere_standard_upgrade/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/09/trust-not-features-is-the-real-deficit-vmware-tries-to-appease-smbs/ That seems to conflict with the information that VCF will be the only option after October. It may be that the reseller was working from Broadcom’s previous position, or that the existing vSphere Standard 8 SKU will be withdrawn and replaced by the newly announced Standard product.

Recording is required, I'm afraid - if only to be able to skip through adverts.

Ideally, I don't want to get an aerial installed, but thanks for the recommendation.

I think we'd still want to series link and record programmes, so the Manhattan Freesat box looks like the best option. We have B4RN 1GB broadband, so I don't want to change that either.

Our Sky TV subscription is finishing in January and I'm considering cancelling and replacing with a Manhattan S4-R recorder. Most of the stuff we watch, and record, is terrestrial free to air channels, but we find that we spend more and more time watching catch up and streaming services. We have Netflix, which I'd have to pay slightly more for, as we currently pay through Sky. We also have Amazon Prime, obviously paid separately. We do get Disney+, Paramount+, and HBOMax free with Sky, but we don't watch them very often, usually only for the odd series, like Pitt. We tend to binge watch, so paying for a month's subscription, to watch a particular series, wouldn't be an issue. Has anybody else gone down this road and can feedback?

It's not my script, just one I came across that I thought might be useful at some point. Maybe put some Publisher files in a folder, and then specify the folder, rather than choosing the whole of the c:\ drive?

Try this - https://mediumseagreen-seal-177480.hostingersite.com/

We allow external email but use Barracuda Email Gateway Defense alongside their Impersonation Protection and Incident Response products. Their Cloud Archiving Services is also included. In my experience, school email is the last service that students will choose to use but, if they do, we have a full audit trail of all communications.

I think I'll wait for the fix to be implemented, rather than chasing. With our Impero server internet access restricted, and the License files restored, it's now working for us. Staff are happy, so I don't want to jeopardise that.

Same here. I hope they sort this quickly!

Access control changes on your wireless network? Different firewall settings for wired and wireless devices?

Hi all, For those using Locker for AD automation, can I ask what level of permissions you have assigned to the Locker AD account? We are currently reviewing privileged accounts and trying to reduce standing Domain Admin membership where possible. As part of that, I asked Locker support whether their account could run with delegated permissions rather than Domain Admin. Their response was that, in their experience, Domain Admin is required for reliable operation, particularly because many school environments have inherited or explicit permissions on OUs, users and folders which can cause delegated models to fail in inconsistent ways. That explanation does make sense, especially in older AD environments, but I’d be interested to hear what others are doing in practice. Are you running the Locker account as: Domain Admin A delegated account with specific OU permissions Something else entirely If you are using delegated permissions successfully, I’d be interested to know roughly what permissions you’ve assigned and whether there are any Locker functions that don’t work as expected. I’m not looking to criticise Locker here — just trying to understand what is realistic and what other schools have settled on from a security/practicality point of view. Thanks for taking the time to read, and reply.

Agreed. I also used this to migrate from a Windows 2016 file server, to Windows 2025. Worked flawlessly.

I can highly recommend ViceVersaPro - https://www.tgrmn.com/

We redirect AppData to a server share.

OneNote for draft and then dedicated SharePoint site for final documentation - mostly SharePoint pages, as easy to view on a mobile device. We also use the Document library on the site, along with a Microsoft Planner.

I doubt that Microsoft are going to change their approach. Having used ConfigMgr for a number of years, I'll likely look to setup co-management and use ConfigMgr for app deployment and Intune for identigy/security.

In my experience, web browser access will work on Android with SSL inspection, but Apps are a different matter. We use Securly as our web filter and BYOD devices use the Securly Guest network that doesn't do any SSL inspection. Categories still work for blocking, but no recording of search terms. It's not ideal, but the alternative is students using VPN services to bypass the filter completely. We'd rather keep them on our network, with some level of filtering.

I feel your pain. This situation is what's stopping us from embracing Intune more fully. We use it for laptops, which just have Office and Sophos installed, but I don't feel we can comfortably move our other stuff over. We use PDQ Deploy & Inventory, so app installation and automatic update is really easy. We could look at PDQ Connect, but the price increase is a barrier.

If anyone else is having this issue, I've identified that itvpnp.live.ott.irdeto.com was being detected as Network misuse and was being blocked. Once I added as a Global Settings Allow, all working again.

Hi, We are having an issue where ITVX - itv.com isn't working via our Securly Guest Network. The page loads without a problem, but Live and Streamed content do not work. Streamed content seems to work, as the ads run, but it then stops when trying to show the actual programme content. Strangely, it does work via our Securly curriculum network policies. Please could anyone who has a Securly setup test this for me? ITV say that the error message (10-06) indicates that ITVX is unable to retrieve the required playback streams after the initial advert segment. This typically occurs when one or more of the content delivery or digital rights management endpoints are being blocked, redirected, or modified by a filtering or security device on the network. I've added Itv.com to the DNS allow list in Settings, but still the same. I've an open ticket with Securly, but it would be useful to know if this is just a problem for us. Many thanks.

We don't seem to be experiencing any issue as the moment - touch wood!

Here's ours - if it's any help: <Configuration> <Add OfficeClientEdition="64" Channel="PerpetualVL2021" SourcePath="UPDATE_SOURCE" AllowCdnFallback="TRUE"> <Product ID="ProPlus2021Volume" PIDKEY="**************"> <Language ID="en-gb" /> <ExcludeApp ID="Lync" /> <ExcludeApp ID="Teams" /> </Product> </Add> <Updates Enabled="TRUE" /> <Remove All="True" /> <RemoveMSI All="True" /> <AppSettings> <Setup Name="Company" Value="***********" /> <User Key="software\microsoft\office\16.0\excel\options" Name="defaultformat" Value="51" Type="REG_DWORD" App="excel16" Id="L_SaveExcelfilesas" /> <User Key="software\microsoft\office\16.0\powerpoint\options" Name="defaultformat" Value="27" Type="REG_DWORD" App="ppt16" Id="L_SavePowerPointfilesas" /> <User Key="software\microsoft\office\16.0\word\options" Name="defaultformat" Value="" Type="REG_SZ" App="word16" Id="L_SaveWordfilesas" /> </AppSettings> <Display Level="None" AcceptEULA="TRUE" /> <Property Name="AUTOACTIVATE" Value="1" /> </Configuration>