eejit

I don't know where that myth came from, but it seems impossible to kill.

I know that that definitely isn't right as our GC was down for a few days last year and none of the end users really noticed any problems on the network. Multiple GCs on one physical local network will cause large amounts of unnescessary traffic as the GCs keep synchronizing. You may need more GCs in a large org with many exchange servers. One GC for every 4 Exchange servers.

I had a Microsoft Engineer remote into one of our DCs last week due to a failure and he did an audible gasp when he saw that one DC held all 5 roles and was the GC too. After a bit of a chat with him about best practices, this is what he recommended: PDC - your most powerful DC Infrastructure - not the same machine as the GC other 3 roles location is not important. Must only be one GC. the whole Global Catalogue thing is one that has always puzzled me as there are some websites that tell you that another GC is important, but others say you should only have one. The MS guy said that you should only have multiple GCs if you have a different physical network at another location (london/new york offices for example)

Of course it's really good fun to knock Microsoft and for many of us it's a difficult habit to break - it's just a natural thing to do. There is no way that Vista will not be coming out in Q1 2007 though, it's going RTM on November the 8. I've been using it on my own personal machines for quite a few months now, as I'm sure a lot of you have, and it's solid as a rock and looks great. It's even surprising how dated XP looks and feels when you go back to it. While this will not be the huge jump forward that home users were hoping for and a lot of the features that Microsoft have dropped is very disappointing, for the techies out there it is part of a whole new Microsoft strategy that'll make our lives so much easier.

What's the matter with you guys? Vista is out on Jan 31st, and we need to be deploying it on Feb 1st. Have you seen the new deployment stuff? Maaaaaan! No more Ghost, no more MSIs, no more different images for different machines, gazillions of new group policies to make locking down machines much more flexible. Have a look here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2006/11/Deployment/default.aspx Can't wait. (BTW, we're on that license that allows us to use the latest version of Ms products on their release "software assurance" I think it's called, - I know that that is not applicable to a lot of schools)

Ok, Microsoft have admitted themselves totally stumped by this. They did come up with a solution though, they acknowledge that all the software is definitely legit and that we used the correct media etc., so they sent me the instructions to stop the popups happening as they've been unable to solve the actual fault. When I went to the machines to test their instructions I found that all the popups have disappeared even though all admin staff were still getting them yesterday morning. I guess there must have been an update to the windows genuine advantage software yesterday that solves this. Is anyone else getting the popups any more? I would imagine that it must be solved for everyone now.

Cheers Matt, you can actually download the tool on that site - MGADiag.exe it's called. When I run it as the administrator, then the status is "Genuine" when I run it as other users the the status is "Cryptographic Errors Detected" Lots of people are getting it judging by the hits after a google search.

Thanks Sysman, that didn't work unfortunately. The weird thing is that WGA works for the administrator. Microsoft are giving it to higher level support who will supposedly call me back. This is a major pain

We started getting this problem on our new admin network yesterday - very frustrating. After speaking to MS for 2 hours, deleting registry keys, re-registring dlls etc., etc. We found the only solution was to add the users to the local admins. This solution was perfectly adequate to the Microsoft guy. Anyway, this morning it is happening with users who are local admins too (but not the actual administrator). Just speaking to MS again. I wonder if it is something stored in the mandatory profile that gets copied to all machines.

Wow, there's the exception that proves the rule

It pains me to say it because I hate RM with every fibre in my being, but NS Optimum are the worst company in ICT. If you want an enjoyable read, then search for them in the newsgroups, there are some great stories posted that I kept for future use. Let me know if you can't find any and I'll email them to you.

I must admit that we DO have Symantec Antivirus running on the server and it examines files in real-time. I've never noticed it causing too many resource problems.

Thanks for the info - what does the webclient service actually do Mal?

Yeah, the event logs in the workstations will usually throw up an error. I find that Everyone Full control to the share and security permissions is a good way to test your deployment - you can tweak it afterwards.

Cheers for the tips guys, ordered the speakers already

Thanks for that - it's exactly what I'm looking for! Never come across CPC before, you'd recommend them?

Hi there, We have some oldish PCs that came with very handy speakers in one of the 5.25 CD bays. A couple have died though and our original supplier is having trouble sourcing replacements. Does anyone on here know where I can get any?

Is the Admin password really only that long? If so, it's not encrpted so you should turn that option to "no"

Grumbledook, I love my Microsoft mouse - never used an App£e one though.

Cheers Martin. How many folders are you synchronizing approxiamately?

I've had previous success with the old "stick it in the freezer" trick. Put it in a bag, put the bag in the freezer for a few hours. It'll often give you enough time to boot up and copy your important data before the clicking starts again.

I'm playing with DFS at the moment. It says to use the Active Directory integrated Namespace for under 5000 folders only. That's not enough for most schools I would think. Are you people finding that it uses a lot of resources?

Yes, the IP address! I didn't think of that. Thanks for the tip, I'll use that alright. Cheers!

Cheers guys, but I think all these solutions stop laptops connecting to the domain after x days. My task is the opposite - I want the laptop to not log on for those teachers when at home if they haven't connected to the domain. It's to force them to bring the laptops in once a week at least (they are obligated to bring them in every day - they are school property not theirs. They also have to leave them in the school over the Summer holidays)

It's motivated by our LEA's SIMS people who have found that laptops don't update SIMS properly if they've been away for a considerable period. The next time that they launch SIMS on the network there may have been 4 or 5 upgrades that they've missed so the updater doesn't work properly. I'll have a look for something in the registry today to see if it timestamps the last group policy replication or similar and see if I can do something with that.