sidewinder

This is probably fairly simple but I will ask anyway When you use group policy to deply MSI's. it installs, and then on subsequent reboots, it detects that the product is already installed, and skips it But why, when I have taken an image after software is installed, and then gone through sysprep, does the software reinstall over the top of itself? Yes the PC name and SID are different but why can it not detect the exact same software is already installed? What does it look at to detirmine if a machine needs the software? And is there a way to stop this happening? I could take images without any MSI packages I suppose but theres a chance a GPO could get removed from an OU and when a machine was imaged it would be missing software

We don't use Ranger no (thank god ) We do use Netsupport but not in any of the locations we are having problems...

Stupid, yes, but I would hope if someone with enough experiance submitted a CV, it wouldnt just be binned because they didnt have a degree. That is of course, using the dangerous assumption that common sense would be used

bloody hell, fair bit higher salary than I get and its not as if I can afford a house here anyway, london would be no different almost tempting just because its in london

Im getting pretty down about this now. Even got one teacher directly complaining to SMT despite me telling her multiple times that it isnt just her, we are trying our best, and it will take time due to the amount of things it could be. Updated Flash and Shockwave schoolwide. Disabled Google toolbar from starting anywhere. Still happening Now seems to be a slightly different error, its now Explorer rather than IE Event Type: Error Event Source: Application Error Event Category: None Event ID: 1000 Date: 03/12/2007 Time: 13:39:23 User: N/A Computer: Description: Faulting application explorer.exe, version 6.0.2900.3156, faulting module gdi32.dll, version 5.1.2600.3159, fault address 0x00008039. Event Type: Error Event Source: Application Error Event Category: (100) Event ID: 1000 Date: 03/12/2007 Time: 13:39:42 User: N/A Computer: Description: Faulting application drwtsn32.exe, version 5.1.2600.0, faulting module dbghelp.dll, version 5.1.2600.2180, fault address 0x0001295d. Those are the common ones today, although the iexplore.exe ones still happen too Theres no correlation, various types of computer and motherboard, different versions of IE, wildly different software on each machine One thing I have now realised is that this has started to become more of a problem since I deployed Smartboard 9.7 to all teacher machines, and the majority of these problems are occurring on teacher machines Also, most, if not all event logs with 9.7 installed have this error too: Event Type: Information Event Source: SMART Web Server Event Category: None Event ID: 1 Date: 03/12/2007 Time: 13:43:10 User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM Computer: DT-S11-TEACHER Description: The description for Event ID ( 1 ) in Source ( SMART Web Server ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: SMART Web Server. Which isnt much use if it cant find the description. But what the hell is SMART web server? Ive also noticed a CIEDownload Object add in in IE, published by SMART. Dont know if this is related? Im going to try and set the Smart web Server service to always be disabled, but I cant work out where in the registry to find the IE add-in - because I believe I need the CLSID of the object to disable it through a GPO. Anyone know where its hidden? Or anyone got any other ideas

The only difference in technet subscriptions is that you can host the Technet library on a server for multiple users rather than just for one. It does NOT cover the full version software, that is still single user only Not entirely sure what you mean by the second question so will leave that for someone else For download is Office 2003 and 2007. Not VLK, they need to be activated, activations used to be limited to 10 activations per key, I assume its still th same

Wow, we dont have any of that. We have CCTV but only outside All doors are open to anyone Its stupidly easy for someone to come on site unnoticed at our place

Its getting worse and worse Even IE6 is affected now More than unknown modules, now getting loads of ws2_32.dll and gdi32.dll as the faulting modules Ive tried updating Flash and Shockwave on one machine and since then it hasnt crashed. Its a teachers machine though so with all the problems she was having, she just might not have used it since then. Its difficult to even update them, Ive always had problems with the MSI's from Adobe...will have to try them though

Same, always used classic here, gave a consistant interface when we were migrating from 2000 and there is just no need to change it. The Xp start menu adds nothing of value in a school environment

Unsure. I just block zipped files as well

I know I replied to this already but seriously what is the point of smashing them up? What a waste We just do a basic wipe and leave them in the PC's, that way when we donate the PCs to a local primary school or something they can actually use them! There is nothing sensitive on local hard drives, the chances of anything being recovered are so minute

Thanks Michael, will probably try and disable that then we really think it might be Google toolbar causing the problems One of the ICT teachers has disabled it and have said the problems have stopped so far. What has probably happened when certain images have been created is that during the installation of flash/shockwave/java/whatever, someone has forgotten to untick the installation of it, which would explain why only some rooms are experiancing problems I need to test the theory out though - does anyone know an app that will try and install google toolbar? Neither flash or shockwave do anymore, and the actual Toolbar install site is blocked by the LEA - as soon as you click install we get a Websense page

Tried it for a while, it was OK, I did like the way it merged all storage together, but it was frustrating how little control there was over some things I think it would be ok for the average user though Main thing that stopped me using it was it hanging quite often when I was copying data to it. Now back to Server 2003 and its rock solid again

^ thanks, systems are pretty much fully patched so should be ok but will check tomorrow from a quick look on the net it seems some have had probs with google toolbar, but although its on some machines at work, its not on them all, and it cant even be installed anymore - LEA have blocked the install page I'll have a try with it with no add-ons tomorrow. Maybe it is shockwave or flash

Only add-ons we use are java, flash and shockwave Had a closer look at some of the logs, while most say 'unknown module', some say 'gdi32.dll' which is graphics related isnt it? Faulting app is still iexplore every time

Getting numerous reports the last few weeks from most rooms that have been re-imaged during and since the summer, that IE7 is continually crashing, with no pattern or reason. All that happens is the Dr Watson debugger comes up and IE is closed. Event logs just record 'application hang: iexplore.exe. faulting module unknown' Its one of those problems that make me hate IT, there is no reason for it and no clear way to solve it because theres no evidence of whats causing it, yet staff want it fixed NOW We cant even recreate it, we all use IE7 in our office and never find any problems The only recent thing Ive done is started configuring the IE7 ADM, but surely that couldnt cause them to crash?

Geoff do you know off the top of your head a reasonably priced (£200 or less) SATA RAID card that is compatible with FreeNAS or Openfiler? Im assuming using software RAID would give pretty awful performance?

Looking for a NAS device such as a Terastation, needs to be capable of RAID-5 but still have a 1Tb (or so) capacity. So the 1Tb terastation fails there, as RAID-5 will reduce it to 750GB I've also heard that performance on them with raid5 is very, very poor? I know a few people on here have them, so is that the case? Is there any other similar devices? Or would it be worth using something like FreeNAS and sticking some big disks in an old computer? This would be my preferred solution for home, but for school it just gives me anothe thing to support I feel. Budget is probably about £500

Tried it, worked ok but then there were other things (probably GP settings) that were causing more problems. So then I tried GP loopback so that when students logged onto those machines they would get minimum GP settings So then I created some generic network accounts (eg year7music) with virtually no GP settings applied apart from a few to stop them fiddling with the network settings, but still no luck What it seems to be according to the music technician is that presets and samples in Cubase dissapear using a domain account (yet he reckons its fine for him - with his domain account) Perhaps this is to do with them going ahead and buying standalone versions of cubase rather than network ones, I dont know, but basically this whole issue has been dragging on for over a year and I just want an easy solution What I might do then, if mapping a drive on a domain server is going to be an issue, I might set up a quick NAS box using an old machine down there

Scenario: Music department want local logons because domain logons are causing strange problems with some of their software, probably because students are non-admins. Fine with me They also want to be able to access a shared folder from each machine, obviously so students dont have to save work on one single machine. Again, not a problem I thought. First of all, permissions - I was under the impression that if NTFS permissions were set to 'everybody' then you wouldnt need to authenticate to connect, even on a non domain account? Apparantly you do. So then I took a similar approach to how it works in peer to peer networks - you have an identical username with the same password on each machine. So on AD I created matching accounts to the local ones and gave them full control of the folder. But it STILL asks for a username & password! Why?? Second problem - mapping the drives. I tried adding them as the local admin, worked fine but only added them for that single user. So logged on as the student local account (again local admin) and tried to map then. But whenever I try to map the share through explorer I get the error The mapped network drive could not be created because the following error has occurred: An extended error has occurred Nothing logged in the event log. Makes no sense at all. It is a user that is a member of the local admins group and has the same rights as the built in local admin account. Looked on google but what little mention of it there was seemed to be where someone is trying to map a share on a different domain to the one the PC was a member of, which is not the case here. Also, I set up a test share on my desktop PC, which is still a member of the domain, and I could connect to that fine! But on a DC it doesnt seem to like it I also tried to map it with net use via the command prompt, and got: The user is not allowed to log on from this workstation Finally, I tried using a startup script (since a login script would be no good as they are logging in locally) and while it added the drives, they appear with no names by them, just 'disconnected network drive' and another permissions error if you try to access them This is driving me mad, I thought local accounts would be an easy way round this but it seems not

Im intrigued by this story. So has he just left it because he doesnt want to take it apart? do people not need to access said server??

I think there probably will still be computers around in 30 years but I just cant see them being as widespread and probably what will be around will be old equipment that has been kept going And as for the internet, I cant see it really dissapearing as all the infrastructure is already there, but as energy becomes more expensive and we are forced to switch, energy for heating etc will be more essential than energy for servers and routers. But I can see some form of it carrying on because there will be areas with good potential for renewable energy After the age of oil I cant see how plastics could ever be produced in anything like the quantities they are now. Yes you can produce them from natural plants probably, but again in the future I can see land being prioritised for the growth of food rather than for fuel or chemicals Its worrying but its something we have to accept. Of course there will always be people who believe everything can go on growing forever, but it isnt possible. Within our lifetimes we will have to significantly simplify the way we live And those reasons are why things like 3 year replacement cycles annoy the hell out of me. Yes there economic benefits in replacing equipment but there shouldnt be. If the industry had any common sense we would be reusing and maintaining, and only upgrading when it was absolutly essential, not binning perfectly good equipment every few years

Thought so, thanks, just needed it confirmed Might try with the MAC filtering

What new literature? - the stuff I have got states that it is better for the projector if it is left on and switching off shortens the life of the bulb I'd be grateful for any info I could use!! Sorry I meant literature that we give them - they get a short booklet on how to do certain things on the network and we've put a large part about IWB's and projectors in there. Ive also added sections about it to documents we have up on pin boards in the staff computer room And finally I am considering printing out a notice to put by each IWB reminding them to turn the thing off...but I can see some of them moaning about that

I know the only real way of not having AP's overloaded is with a managed solution, and I think we are looking towards that next year, but for the time being we are stuck with unmanaged Cisco Aironet 1100's A department was complaining that after the first 8 or so laptops log on, it becomes almost impossible to get any more on, which makes sense if they are all trying to connect to the same AP There are multiple ones, one in each room, and from a quick roam around that room when you get to the outer edges, it does what you expect and connects to the next room However the tables arnt like that, all the kids sit fairly central so it makes sense as to why they are all hitting the same AP. I cant put a connection limit on them, because while it works a treat and doesnt let anyone else connect, there is no intelligence to pass the connection request onto another WAP, the laptop just sits there trying to connect and constantly getting rufused So my question is, is there any simple way to improve this a bit? My idea, which may be awful, is that if I put 2 WAP's in the same room, at an equal distance apart, with the same SSID and on the same channel, would both be available or would it just cause havoc? I cant really have multiple ones on different channels in the same room, because it would interfere with surrounding rooms. Is my idea ridiculous or not? It was suggested to me a while ago by someone doing a quick network audit, when we said about all the problems we have with wireless Or is there any way of decreasing the amount of data transfer that happens during logon? I already use a tiny mandatory profile, I try and keep starup scripts etc to a minimum on laptops, but still it takes ages