OverWorked

So Windows 7 is due out soon. This is another reason not to bother with Vista.

I think I've narrowed it down. The print spooler service on the client is probably stopping because of a driver that is incompatible with Vista. I'll have to go through all the printers on the network, getting Vista to connect to each to find it. I'll leave it until Monday. I may be talking to myself here. Comes from spending a week locked in a school alone with just me and Vista. Edugeek has been my only friend... Must go home... See outside world...

Thanks. I think this might work. I'll just edit the default user profile in netlogon, rather than creating images. It's really frustrating that something as basic as this doesn't have a GPO control. Why do MS have to hide the printers?

It didn't! Sorry, it had no effect on the problem. There must be another cause. Thanks anyway!

I've found that with GP I can deploy printers to the computer no problem, but if I use GP (either the new Vista method or a vbs script) it's a disaster. Either they can't logon or they just get no printers (just occassionally they do get them, though). I've also found that in Vista, Admins can esaily add their own printers. But, if non-admins try to do anything with printers they get a dialogue box saying "the local spool service is not running". This gets worse. I wanted to get this sorted before everyone get back on Monday.

You look fine in that. Appropriate for the job. I once went for an interview whilst on away holiday. All I had was Jeans and T-shirt (gave them a good iron first). The agency phoned the interviewer and explained beforehand, and I got the job.

It's one of things that *should* be there, but isn't. I can't find it, if it is.

Is there a GP setting to force the start menu to show the Printers link, like the XP start menu does? I know Vista users can right click the start menu, select properties, etc... to show it, but is there a way to force this in GP? I've googled but can't find anything. Thanks.

I'll have a look at that too. Thanks.

Thanks. The problem came back, so it wasn't what I thought it was. I'm still working on it, building a new GPO from scratch and testing frequently to try and find the cause.

I went through teacher training 12 years ago and then the starting salary then was just 12k. Plus, teacher training was the most miserable time of my life. There was no way I was going to be a teacher, so I went back to my old job for a while then trained to become the tech I am now. I was surprised to read here that teaching now starts at 20k. I no longer feel sorry for them. I think that's ample reward for what is, from my experience, a hard job. Teaching does demand a lot of personal time, evenings and possibly a couple of weeks in the hols, but 20k starting salary more than makes up for it.

Just tried it again, and the users now get the dialogue box asking them if they want to install the printer driver. I couldn't get it to work for the past two days, now it is - it must have been something else causing the problem.

I need a method of deploying printers to users that will work for both XP and Vista. I have vbs user logon scripts that work for XP to connect them to printers. The trouble is, if these scripts run when the users logs onto Vista, all they see is a blank screen with no way out of it. I found out that if I log on as local admin and run the script manually (to see what's happening) a dialogue box appears asking the user if they want to install the printer driver. This is what's happening for the users (I think), except they don't get to see the dialogue box. Is there a way of automatically accepting the driver installation for them so the script runs to connect their printers? At the moment I'm investigating the Deployed Printers section in the new Vista GPOs, but not having much success. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Despite working here 6 years and being promoted to ICT Manager, I still don't get to manage a budget. I have to ask the SMT for everything I need and have no idea of where the money comes from or how much there is left. Having said that though, it's not often my requests are turned down. :-)

All this depends on the availability of XP drivers for your new shiny computer. A few months ago, two teachers came to me with laptops they'd bought themselves (there was a long thread about it at the time). I tried to downgrade to XP but couldn't because there were no drivers available. They've had to wait until I'm ready to support Vista. Don't assume that because you've got the license it's technically possible! In the next 6-12 months it'll be increasingly difficult to find XP compatible new computers especially laptops.

Had me going for a split second when I saw it this morning on Breakfast. It was OK when they just glided for a couple of feet but I laughed when they took off.

Now that's a good idea! I might try that.

Yes... The client (2000, XP or Vista) gets the registry settings set by the GPO, regardless of whether the GPO is using .adm or .admx files. The new .admx files are a superset of the settings contained in the old adm files. ie the .admx files contain everything the .adm files do plus more. But, to administer Vista you need SP1 with RSAT, which is backward compatible with the XP GPMC. So, if you have Vista on the domain, start administering it (all your GPOs, whether they're for Vista or earlier OSs) from Vista running RSAT, and forget about the earlier versions of GPMC. I really recommend the Vista Resource Kit. Even though it's already a bit out of date since SP1 came out.

I undertand that on email addresses it must not be possible to work out the name, age or gender of the child. I think I read that on becta somewhere. We previously had no password policy, even blank were allowed. I was horrified to find that a teacher had a blank password - he just couldn't see the point of setting one. It hadn't occurred to me that staff might have no password. When I did set a policy following this incident (and notified the whole school a month in advance) I got some nasty ear ache off the staff (none from the kids) about it for months afterwards. I dug my heels in and now they just accept it and get on with it when they're forced to change them.

The elective doesn't have to be a Microsoft exam - they recognise some CompTIA qualifications as well. I did the CompTIA A+ and Network+ which together count as the elective. I got the MCSA 3 years ago. MS are changing their qualifications now (I can't give details because I'm not clear on it myself), and it may be worth looking into the new certs instead.

I've read the relevant part of the Resource Kit, and expermiented and it works. The RSAT can be used to create and edit GPOs for XP, it doesn't break them. The clients don't see the ADM / ADMX files, they just get the resulting registry settings, so it doesn't matter to XP what the GPO uses. Obvious, really, I just couldn't see it earlier. Once you have Vista on the domain, you should use the Vista running SP1 and RSAT to administer it, and ditch the Windows Server 2003 Admin Tools.

Thanks for the help, Michael. You appear to be as confused as I am. It's as clear as mud (the info from MS I mean, not your post). I've got a copy of the book MS Vista Resource Kit, from MS Press. Chapter 13 looks like it may have some useful info. It'll take a while to read, though. I'll let you know if it says anything interesting.

Thanks, Michael. This is a real headache. I have a domain of Server 2003 + XP. I'm is the process of adding a few Vista clients. I'm not upgrading the servers to 2008. I know about the new .ADMX templates, and that XP won't be able to read them - this is what worries me. Before I go any further I need to know:- I need to use the new Vista RSAT tool for creating GPOs for the new Vista clients, but what will that do to the existing GPOs I have for XP? If I use the new Vista tools for editing / creating GPOs, will those GPOs be readable by the XP clients? If I accidentally use RSAT to edit a XP GPO, will it break it?

Hang on... does that just mean that I need to use Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 Administration Tools Pack for administering GPOs that control XP clients, or just that I need to use that if I'm using an XP client for my administrative machine? Can the new Vista tool (RSAT for Vista SP1) be used to edit GPOs that control XP clients? I read somewhere on MS that once Vista on the domain, administrators should use the GPMC included with Vista to administer GPOs from then on, and not the gpmc available for Server 2003. With the release of Vista SP1 and RSAT, I suppose that this has been superceded. I previously used XP for my administration, but as I'm having to incoporate a couple of Vista clients, I've set up Vista running on a VM just for server and AD administration.

I'm downloading it now. Just to save me the labour of searching through technet: can this administer Server 2003? Is it a complete replacement for adminpak.msi? Edit:- Sorry. Just reread what Diello said. It looks like it is.