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I have selected the Cache content for clients connecting from: "only local subnets" option, so it should be OK, but then again my experience with Macs to date is that a lot of things that should work don't tend to! In any case, no clients from other schools will be able to see the DNS entry on our local servers that specifies the Apple Cache public IP range to use.

I think I've managed to get the Apple Caching Service working for a SWGfL connected school, although this may not be an option for many unless like us you happen to have a backup ADSL Internet Service. I found this blog useful to start me in the right direction: Fraser Hess: Caching Server: Enterprise Edition SWGfL appear to block connection to the Apple site needed to register a caching server, so it was necessary to provide an alternative path (via our ADSL connection). Once successfully registered as a caching server and with the required DNS entry added to our local DNS servers, I was able to see the "Cache Used" start to show content building up as I downloaded updates on a Mac client. I used a SWGfL public address range of 46.60.253.1 - 46.60.253.254 and also had to specify a public address range that included the public IP of the caching server Mac going via our backup ADSL connection. This has the potential to save a lot of Internet bandwidth for us in future.

Just make sure the Invigilator dashboard is running (doesn't matter if you've logged on yet) before launching the test player on the student PCs. As long as the Invigilator PC is on the same sub-net as the students ones, then the clients should find it almost immediately.

Have you tried using a local administrator account i.e. one with a local profile? It's possible that this won't work if Group Policy has been set to define a common shared profile path (mandatory or otherwise) for all users combined with enabling "Do not log users on with temporary profiles". We've been struggling with this software for a couple of years now and at some point about a year ago Invigilator Dashboard just stopped working as a non-admin user, which is when we resorted to using the local admin account on the invigilator computer.

Using 7-Zip to extract the contents of the latest exe (Scratch-431a) I found the following command line options for the installer contained therein: "Install Scratch 2.exe" -? Available Options: -silent { -eulaAccepted ( -location ) -desktopShortcut -programMenu -allowDownload } This installed to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Scratch 2" on our 64bit systems when using the options -silent -eulaAccepted. Adobe Air was installed first using the offline AdobeAIRInstaller.exe -silent. All of this can be scripted or packaged in System Center Configuration Manager.

Are you (or anybody else) able to provide a any pointers on where to start with integrating SMS2 and pGINA for Remote Desktop Services authentication? Cheers,

I have seen a weird case once before where a small form factor desktop PC (powered by external brick) had problems with booting when connected to the Smartboard and appeared to struggle to drive it if it was plugged in after booting. The monitor used with this computer happened to have a built-in USB hub and feeding the Smartboard connection through this solved the problem. You could try putting a powered USB hub between your computer and Smartboard to see if this helps.

Have you needed to extend the USB cable run beyond 5m? This would cause you problems unless you use active USB or passive Cat 5 extenders to exceed the standard distance limits. We have had good results in a couple of awkward classroom setups with passive extenders and Cat5e ethernet cables. It is possible to buy USB cables which claim to have better shielding or to use shielded Cat 5 cables with an extender.

Thin clients can be an attractive option, but I would suggest that VDI is overkill for the vast majority of applications in School. Remote desktop sessions should be perfectly adequate and much more efficient in terms of resources required and of course cost. You could also consider Windows Multipoint Server, although it's cost effectiveness will depend on how you are licensed.

+1 for DBAN. I'm in the process of wiping a number of old servers' SCSI raid arrays at the moment. We either PXE boot into DBAN or boot from a CD-ROM, then use the default DoD Short setting (3 passes of random data). For the Dell PERC RAID controllers we've been dealing with recently the best approach appears to be to break the array and configure one array for each disk so that they appear as separate disks in the BIOS. DBAN can then wipe them in parallel.

No the performance problems we saw were specifically 2003 R2 SP2 servers with mapped drives on Windows 7 clients.

I assume you have SP2 applied, in which case this may well be the cause of performance problems seen especially with Vista/7 clients: An update to turn off default SNP features is available for Windows Server 2003-based and Small Business Server 2003-based computers

If you give staff too much personal space they will fill it with inappropriate stuff like their own photos, videos and music collections. Much better to have only a few gigabytes of personal storage and plenty of shared space for departmental resources that should be shared rather than each teacher keeping their own copy of everything. Just my 2p!

Yes! Be aware there are two slightly different widescreen ratios available (16:9 and 16:10). I was just trying to find out what aspect ratio the Promethean 387 is and think it is 16:10, whereas any full HD projector (1080P) will be 16:9. The cheaper widescreen projectors do tend to be 1280 x 800 (16:10) but this native resolution may not look very good on your 22" monitor, although using 720P mode may be a reasonable compromise to look OK on both projector and monitor images.

If you want to label a lot of cables at one go, then you can simply buy sheets of A4 Laser printer labels and use mail-merge in an office application to generate your labels. You can buy polyester based waterproof or metallic labels if you want something really permanent.