Jamo

Yup everything our end is KMS. No requirement for MAK, thats just one more thing for us to learn

Something I keep noticing with current applications and my 24 inch screen is.... WHY IS EVERYTHING SO GOD DAMN BIG!!! fin.

MS really don't make things easy do they!!

Get cacti monitoring your broadcast traffic, do it for a decent period of time ie 2 weeks to see what your traffic is like, then Wireshark your primary vlan broadcast traffic to see where it is coming from. It may not be as bad as you think! I monitor our Core switch with Cacti for this type of thing, it ensures that we have decent baseline data to compare on before we make changes, that way you know if they have been a success or failure!! If you are getting excessive broadcasts its in someways better to find, and deal with, the source of these broadcasts rather than VLAN them off. We have a network of 700 workstations (inc 250 laptops in a dif vlan). Cacti shows around 10 broadcasts per second with all units on. Not sure if thats good or bad compared to others mind!

I always love the volume licencing part: So I buy Windows as an OEM licence, can I install the VL version? Ah no you have to buy the Volume Licence version of Windows to do that for each of your clients. Oh ok, so can I not buy the OEM and just buy the VL version. No sorry the VL version is an 'upgrade'. I know M$ have the best enterprise client OS by a mile, but it is sooo frustrating!!! Virtual Desktop licencing is also a COMPLETE nightmare! Basically making it totally un-affordable to even consider!

http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/2/F/A2FEA354-22B8-40AE-AD4A-B18E546CED28/Windows%20Server%202008%20R2%20Licensing%20Datasheet.pdf See the above link. Standard allows 1 Physical and 1 virtual, but not two virtuals, and the physical box could only be used to 'manage and service' the virtual machine. As for having to buy 6 licences per host? I have never heard of this, standard is licenced per server ie per VM?? So you would need 6 overall???

We spoke to a chap from Insight UK about server licencing, have to say he was brilliant and worked out the cost comparison between the different licence models for us. The datacenter licence for us was the best value, as it means we can create servers at will on our two ESXi boxes. I didn't realise that standard licences had to be 'allocated' to a host?? I thought that standard licences were just per VM regardless of which host the VMs were running on, so for 6 VMs between 2 hosts you would still only need 6 licences, as you will never be running more than 6 VMs at one time, between the two hosts. However this is Microsoft Licencing...

I think this is the route that was taken. I have called our LA and we are behind on the SIMSInfrastructureSetup version compared to their setup dir. Not sure how all this updates?? We cannot go down any SOLUS3 route as our updates come from an upstream SOLUS2 install, and I am guessing from the reactions here that it is as stable as NOVA-T after 72 hours of use...... Can anyone here confirm that they have Options working using the silent installer? From what I can see SIMSInfrastructureSetup if run manually also complains about date formats?? Despite ALL the dates being the correct format!!

doh We aren't really in control of what we get as SOLUS is controlled upstream through our LEA. Just raised a call to see if we are on the correct version

Oops sorry SIMSInfrastructureSetup.exe is: File Version: 4.0.100.1190 Product Version: 1.10 Was reading the wrong file......

Hmm, well I was only guessing it was the BDE that was missing :s we don't actually need FMS as we don't use it. I will start from the beginning Basically our silent install works for SIMS but when running options we get presented with a list (Implementation Manager) which says that: Warning: Cannot read from 17 implementations Installing SIMS manually the list comes up OK with no problems, I can see from the stations which have used the silent install that BDE isn't there so was just a hunch I had! :s SIMSInfrastructureSetup is version 1.560.4.0 (from the details pane of explorer, is that the one you mean?)

Hi all!! Got a slight issue installing SIMS silently. The main install works fine, it seems to affect only Options I have noticed so far. Basically it doesn't seem to install the BDE despite using the script I found on Edugeek Anyone else using SIMS silent install and Options together? Many thanks James @echo off REM CREATE LOG FILE echo ...Log Started... >> c:\SIMSINSTALL.log net use S: \\SIMS\Network /PERSISTENT:NO >> c:\SIMSINSTALL.log REM Set these for your environment set SETUPS=S:\SIMS\Setups set CONFIGFILE=s:\SIMSPC.ini set CONNECTFILE=s:\SIMS\Connect.ini REM These should probably be left as default set SIMSDIRECTORY=s:\SIMS\ set SIMSDOTNETDIRECTORY=C:\Program Files\SIMS\SIMS .net set FMSDIRECTORY=C:\Program Files\SIMS\FMSSQL echo Environment Vars set >> c:\SIMSINSTALL.log echo Installing SIMS and FMS infrastructure... >> c:\SIMSINSTALL.log start /wait %SETUPS%\SIMSInfrastructureSetup.EXE -a /S {QuietMode} {SIMSWorkstation} >> c:\SIMSINSTALL.log echo %ERRORLEVEL% >> c:\SIMSINSTALL.log echo. echo Installing SIMS.net Applications... >> c:\SIMSINSTALL.log start /wait %SETUPS%\SIMSApplicationSetup.exe /S {QuietMode} [sIMSDirectory]="%SIMSDIRECTORY%" [sIMSDotNetDirectory]="%SIMSDOTNETDIRECTORY%" >> c:\SIMSINSTALL.log echo %ERRORLEVEL% >> c:\SIMSINSTALL.log echo. echo Installing SIMS manuals... >> c:\SIMSINSTALL.log start /wait %SETUPS%\SIMSManualSetup.exe /S {QuietMode} [sIMSDirectory]="%SIMSDIRECTORY%" [sIMSDotNetDirectory]="%SIMSDOTNETDIRECTORY%" >> c:\SIMSINSTALL.log echo %ERRORLEVEL% >> c:\SIMSINSTALL.log echo. echo Installing SIMS AMPARK... >> c:\SIMSINSTALL.log start /wait %SETUPS%\SIMSAMPARKSetup.exe /S {QuietMode} [sIMSDirectory]="%SIMSDIRECTORY%" [sIMSDotNetDirectory]="%SIMSDOTNETDIRECTORY%" >> c:\SIMSINSTALL.log echo %ERRORLEVEL% >> c:\SIMSINSTALL.log echo. if exist %CONFIGFILE% ( echo Copying configuration file into Windows directory... start /wait xcopy "%CONFIGFILE%" "%WINDIR%\SIMS.ini" /y ) else ( echo Configuration file could not be found. ) if exist %CONNECTFILE% ( echo Copying Connect.ini file into SIMS .net directory... start /wait xcopy "%CONNECTFILE%" "%SIMSDOTNETDIRECTORY%" /y ) else ( echo Connect.ini file could not be found. ) echo. :END echo Installation is complete

The US version has been on the cards for ages, it looks ok, its basically cus we have seen the jokes before that they seem weird!!

I wrote an application called RSLogonLimit which does this. Tis free and requires no client installtion. RSLogonLimit | RS Applications

Any logging on the Cisco or edge switches? show logging

>30GB I haven't found one yet, would be a useful feature though. Does it work ok with user areas that big? How big is your back end storage!!! Lol

And for its inability to render pages like a normal browser. Currently it doesn't display certain videos through our proxy..... IE8 does, IE7 does, IE9? Na... got to wait 2 mins for a strange timeout before it renders...

Who pays for the device when they get broken or break down? If it becomes a 'requirement' to complete their lessons does it become the schools responsibility to pay for the staff's devices? Do they not mind typing on a screen? I find it really annoying, but I suppose I have grown up with keyboards and am able to touch type, which seems impossible on a screen.

Right... Had a look last night and you have a couple of options: Use the Run Command Line task in a task sequence for each of the stages of your VBS script. (This will allow you to run as a different user, its a section in the task sequence editor not the application editor sorry my bad!) Allow Authenticated Users/Everyone as read only to your shares with installers on, and use an MDT application to install just passing the full unc path to the MSI. And hidden option C: Split the batch files up and install them as single MDT applications, this gives you a better chance of catching errors whilst still allowing you to use batch files to install I personally can't stand VB Script for simple installs, the syntax is awful for just calling command lines. Hope that helps somewhat!

Yes I'm surprised that the DISM online upgrade didn't work, I know it does for servers but not tried before on a desktop OS. As for KMS vs MAK I would strongly suggest looking into the KMS server it is so easy once its running! Good luck!

Doh!! I can only see ultimate on my one at home and haven't got a key so can't test here lol The mak keys just confuse me, I went KMS once and haven't looked back! You MAK keys will only work on a fresh install of Windows 7 for the version they were intended for.

Isn't it per device per year? How do your staff write reports on their iPads? How do they create media, or the MANY MANY powerpoints, on their iPads? Do they need laptops/desktop to complement the iPads? I see it as iPads are a complement to existing services, they can no way replace what is already there. It is an extension though, and they are good at what they do.

I think they are all in there, dism /online works on the 'online' image whereas /image works on the WIM itself. Certainly works with all the server versions, upgraded all standard to datacenter using that.

Hmmm lol Firstly I would set up KMS, it makes your life a LOT easier!!!! (After it has been set up that is!!) With KMS you don't need licence keys on your station, you just press next with no licence key installed, or just no key in sysprep/unattend.xml. The stations activate themselves against your server. Basically if you have a Windows 7 or server 2008r2 machine activate the KMS service and save a LOT of hastle!

Do you still need all the WIM Mounting to upgrade? DISM /online should be ok to do it without reinstalling