OverWorked

It could be - the same thing happened to floppy disks. I've had floppies from the 1980's with my old degree projects on, still readable. Floppies bought in recent years (though it's been a while since I've had to use one) have been terrible. Write once, read once, and that's it. The drive for low price sacrifices reliability.

I know this doesn't answer your request for free software, but I can recommend Data Doctor Recovery - Pen Drive. I had to use it recently.

Thanks for this. I may look into it later, but this is just becoming too much work for what should be a trivial task.

I've just spent a couple of hours trying to create an admx and adml file as decribed in the MS KB918238. I've followed it to the letter, but the Vista SP1 GPMC gives a syntax error each time I add my new admx to sysvol. It expects a semicolon in the middle of the URL. I tried to create an adm file as well, but that just had no effect. It appeared in GMPC editor, but did not change the settings on the client. I give up. I'm going to just hide the search box.

Thanks everyone. I'll probably go with either authsmtp.com or smtp.com. They look the most professional. Gmail looks good but you're limited to one domain per gmail account, which would make it complex to manage several domains from the same email client. I've also seen an old report that they replace your from: address with the gmail address - I don't know if they still do this though. I'm wary of the free ones like Hotmail. I want proper support who can help. (Mind you, yahoo wasn't free and their support is hopeless! - it takes two weeks to get an irrelevant response.)

That's just the sort of thing I want. It looks like the business plans allow for multiple addresses, limited by the number of outgoing relays - is that right?

Can anyone recommend a good SMTP provider for personal use? I currently use Yahoo.co.uk with Thunderbird, for handling my mail to and from several domains I own. Service is getting pretty bad in last 6 months. Intermittantly can't send via SMTP (haven't been able to send at all for two weeks now). Sometimes can't connect either to Yahoo's SMTP or webmail. Their support isn't much help. I'm not convinced I'm even communicating with a real person - the answers aren't relevant to my questions. I used Yahoo because they're only £11.99 a year, but would willingly pay a little more for something reliable. Any suggestions? Thanks.

If you do discover that the cause is beyond your control, then at least that's something. Our sister school can't use wireless because they're next to the transmitter for the local radio station - lucky things! I wish I couldn't use wireless - it's a pain in the bot. My purchase req for a Wi-Spy and is now sitting on the Head's desk for signing.

I had this prob before I updated the drivers. It would work occasionally. I wrote scripts to connect printers one at a time, rebooting between each one. It may be just one printer causing the problem. Two of the printers are supposed to have drivers built-in to Vista, but they still have problems, so I've made sure these printers will never be connected to Vista by deploying them to computers, not users. This approach worked for me.

I'm seriously thinking of getting one of these since I saw Rupert Goodwins with one on ZDNet's Dialogue Box. Have those who have one found it useful in finding the cause of wireless problems? The wireless in part of our school is very dodgy - sometimes 100%, then just nothing for an hour or so.

They're also available on the Tesco Computers for Schools scheme. 2GB SSD, 256MB RAM = 6,800 vouchers 4GB SSD, 512MB RAM = 8,000 vouchers (or £80,000 worth of groceries!) I think I'll get one to try out. I'm thinking of using it for ePortal access for wireless registration.

You definitely should be on more. I manage a bit less than you, and my pay has just been increased to £20k, full time. Previously it was much lower (£14k), and I was quietly on the verge of leaving when we got a new Head who promptly raised my pay without me even asking! There are some decent Heads out there.

I've done some experimentation just now and it's not as simple as that. I think it selects the default printer from the printers initially deployed to the user. Deploying more printers afterwards doesn't change the default printer. It's up to the user to manually change it. I've got a test user account whose default printer is the MS XPS Document Writer, because that was there first. Changing the default is recorded in the user's profile, so it roams with them; but there's no way to set it in GP. I'm sticking with scripts as well. Another annoyance: I've got two printers I can't get to work with Vista, despite the manufacturer's stating that the native drivers are included in Vista: Epson AcuLaser 900c and HP Deskjet 1220c. If the Epson gets deployed to a user on Vista it completely stuffs up the print spooler service, preventing any printing. I've got to be careful about who it gets deployed to.

This is not good. However, if a user manaually selects their default printer, does it stay as default for the next session, or does it get reset? This would only be beneficial for the admin staff who don't move around. For the rest I want to set their default printer to the cheapest printer in their room every session. I might just stick to using scripts for this reason. BTW, I've worked it out now, but this is a good page from Jeremy Moskowitz.

That's not a bad idea, especially if you're more familiar with 2003 and are not upgrading your servers to 2008 yet anyway. I wasn't clear enough earlier about what certification is available - it depends on what product you're interested in. Old MCP/MCSA/MCSE are for Server 2003 and XP (and are still available) New MCTS/MCITP are for Server 2008 and Vista (have been available for a few months). This is how I understand it anyway.

Thanks, Michael. I posted on Friday, but no response yet. It's now buried a long way down the newsgroup, so it's unlikely I'll get a response.

I think they've been running for a while now. I don't know when they started. At the moment, MS are running both schemes together.

I agree. I failed it the first time, then the second time I thought I'd done much better, only to find at the end that I'd got exactly the pass mark of 700 - just scraped it. They weren't running the second shot promo at the time, so I had to pay again. The 70-290 was an absolute doddle though, which gave me too much confidence for the 70-291. @booman: I haven't seen the books for the new certs, but I doubt the MCP books will cover them as they're for different products.

See here for the current certification levels. MCP => MCTS (MS Certified Techology Specialist) the basic qualification MCSA/MCSE => MCITP (MS Certified IT Professional, (I think)) MCTS exams build up to make MCITP certs, like the MCP certs used to make up MCSA/MCSE certs. Also see Certification Paths at a Glance. I think MS produced this doc originally but I can't find it on their site. It looks complicated, but it's OK when you read through it.

I've just had a reason to manage Office 2003 through GP, so I thought: "Great - I'll do it the new Vista way. Download the Office 2003 ADM files, convert them to ADMX, copy them to the Central Store and use Vista to manage them" Noooo.... The FullArmor ADMX converter converted them, and I copied them to the central store, but the Vista Group Policy Editor Just gave loads of syntax errors, mainly with the ADML files. I spent half an hour trying to edit them,, but just gave up and instead went back to the old way. I used Server 2003 to create a GPO with the ADM files. I'm sure it's not supposed to work like this. We're repeatedly told by MS to move over to ADMX files and forget about ADMs. The worrying thing is that if I'd had Server 2008 and not 2003, I might not have been able to do it the old XP way - I'd have been stuck. Rant over.

Thanks button_ripple. It didn't work though. It's a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Li 1718. The driver is installed and Vista reports that it's working. The trouble is, it needs the FSC Launch Manager to switch it on. Uninstalling this just switches off the adapter but leaves it installed. There's an option to switch on the wireless adapter by default in the BIOS, but it seems to have no effect - the adapter is always off until the user manually switches it on. I give up. I'm probably wasting my time with this. I'll just return it to the teacher with a patch lead.

Right, here's my next hurdle in setting up Vista on a laptop:- The wireless adapter won't operate until after the user logs on. I don't know if this is a Vista issue, or just peculier to the laptop. In XP, there's a check box in the wireless connection properties that says "Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings". Checking this switches on the wireless connection during boot, so users can use wireless to log on to the domain. I can't find a similar check box in Vista. Is it gone? moved? (Although the wireless adapter driver is installed, the adapter isn't switched on until the Fujitsu-Siemens Launch Manager loads after logon, so I'm probably stuffed anyway. This laptop was bought by a teacher BTW, not by me).

I've found that he general rule with dual-booting MS OSs is to install them in order or release. i.e. Win95, win98, 2000, XP, Vista. It's easier that way, because the newer ones can detect the older ones. It's possible the other way, but a little bit harder.

Thanks. I hadn't read about it in too much detail! I'll note it for when I do get round to doing it.

It was the drivers. I had old drivers on our networked Toshiba copier/scanner/printer. I've upgraded our print server to use the new Print Management console (available from Server 2003 R2), and upgraded the drivers on there. At the moment most of our machines are XP. I've read about installing PushPrinterConnections.exe on XP clients to make them read the Vista GPOs for deployed printers. I'll look at that later; but for now, scripts work. Thanks everyone!