mrwoberts

I would uninstall all Sophos components (temporarily) to rule out that little rascal - I'm no longer a fan of Sophos. Following a reboot, if the symptoms persists, update/rollback NIC driver. If you are still experiencing problems... grab yourself another cuppa, this is gonna be a long day ;-)

Is that failing VM on a different disk/disk group to the other VMs?? I ask because I saw similar strange behaviour on a Dell T110 right before it decided to start rebuilding one of the disks in the array, which we swapped out to be on the safe side.

Ouch! Makes my handful of schools seem more bearable Any ideas of a way forward... A GPO scheduled task for downloading, deploying?

Has this 2008 R2 FileServer had any updates applied recently, or any other changes, however unrelated... If the other VMs (using the same NICs) do not have a problem, could this be a NIC driver issue - is the Host using the specified driver from the Dell website? Ensure you've got an up-to-date backup of that VM before making any changes.

I've been mulling over that point for some time - the idea of using the central store for setups, then a script to download/deploy SIMS with my specific requirements. Thing is, there seems to be loads of folks who never have a problem with their Solus 3 DS; me thinks their whole setup is more reliable than mine.

I think she wanted to - the Solus agent kept popping up on her desktop.

Hmm, I'll have to keep an eye on that then. It was the head's PC. She hasn't said anything yet, but Fridays are full of meetings so she may not have noticed if the little blue man had turned purple.

Yep. Had that yesterday, but only on a specific machine. Odd! A quick uninstall/reinstall fixed the problem.

@timbo343 How about the scheduled task running as the catchall 'USERS' group, or LOCAL SERVICE; I have that set on a task for one workstation and it triggers as expected. This isn't on a domain though, so that may be the difference.

It isn't quite the instant fail-over, but I always keep a spare PSU that can be installed without delay. For the redundancy, I at least have RAID 1, plus an extra disk in the chassis that will essentially only be at most a 3 hour window behind the main Samsung disks. I hear the calls for a 2nd DC, and that is something I will be introducing, just not straight away - quite possibly reusing the old hardware into the backup DC, as folks have suggested. Regarding the refurbs, I'm just not totally sold on it - that might be just me being a bit naive, but since these server parts are coming in at under £1,400, that meets our budget and I get my chosen components.

Ah, sorry, I meant 1 physical server as the Hyper-V host, with 2 VMs (VM1 = DC, with AD, DHCP, and DNS; VM2 = SIMS + SOLUS) I'd have to try to factor in a lower spec PC to be the second DC. Perhaps to be added once the dust has settled and this changeover has been successful. I'm assuming adding the second DC as fail-over is relatively straightforward? @Michael I'll definitely raise the note about SIMS; there are definitely more options nowadays.

So you've got me thinking... Server 1 : Micro Server - i3 Processor, 4 GB RAM, consumer SSD, This will be the DC, with AD, DHCP, and DNS - Server 2016 physical Server 2 : Manly Server - Xeon Processor, 32 GB RAM, Dual enterprise SSDs in RAID 1 - This will be for SQL Server 2012 (SIMS), and Solus 3 Deployment - Server 2012 R2 physical or 1 Physical Server (spec as OP), with 2 VMs (as above)

Apologies, I should have been more clear. They have an MS OVS agreement, which includes Sever + CALs, but I thought that only covers 2 'installs' of Server OS. I'll double check. @Kiest26 Nice idea about the separate T20 - I'll see crunch some numbers to see if that will work out. Or, as @richbrowncardiff suggests, possibly a refurb for part of this setup, but I really want something new and shiny - they actually were sold a refurb previously and it just wasn't properly specc'd so they've been a bit burnt there. Hence the paranoia over this setup :-)

Yeah, we've just not got the budget for that, plus I think it would be too complicated and OTT for us. I read that it was considered bad practise to virtualise a DC, in the sense that you then have no physical DC. Is that a valid point?

Thanks for your honesty. I'd read about SIMS, and that was in the back of my mind, but a few mentions on here that it works, but that's something I'll now reconsider.There is currently a restriction on the MS licensing, in that the school can only have 2 licenses (2 VMS, or 1 Host and 1 VM). Plus, the budget is tight, hence the DIY build.

We're an infant school. Users, there are approx. 20 in the AD - plus office staff, plus SLT. Total device usage/connections, you're talking 40-50.

Interesting. Would you say then that it makes sense to create a Hyper-V host for these roles (SQL, Solus, VPN)? The domain suggestion was related to how difficult it is to migrate - I've not had to do it before. Not sure of the process... Also, the current domain is 'admin.school' whereas going forward we want this to now serve the whole school - originally a single server for the office/admin.

Thanks for asking. Just a standalone - not Hyper-V.

I'm just needing a kick in the right direction and a slap around the face to tell me everything is gonna be okay, or not Researched a new server from Dell, Broadberry, and HP, but in the end I've decided I'm going to build one - I get exactly the spec I want, without the 'own brand' issues, I hope {gulp} Server will run Windows Server 2016 Roles - AD, DHCP, DNS, VPN, SQL Server 2012 (SIMS), Solus 3 Deployment, PDQ Deploy & Inventory, and possibly Papercut! Here come the many questions... 1. Am I daft for putting all that demand on the Windows Server? Our ailing 2008 server is trying so very hard to do this at the moment, and not doing an awful job. 2. How on earth do I safely and reliably migrate from Windows 2008 (not R2) to Windows Server 2016? This is the most nervous bit for me. I can start all over again, even creating a totally new domain, users, policies, but I'm wondering if that way is actually the harder/troublesome way? 3. Is this server spec okay? MOBO - Supermicro X11SSH-LN4F _CPU - Xeon E3-1240 v5 _RAM - 32 GB DDR4 (Kit 4 x 8GB) STOR - 2x Samsung SM863a Enterprise SSD 480GB (RAID 1) STOR - WD BLACK 1TB (internal twice daily, extra to the NAS backup) I'm buying a separate, dedicated server for file and backup - Synology DS916+ 8GB RAM, 16TB of disks. Edit: Not currently planning on Hyper-V, unless it makes sense to do so...

Thanks for a link to that article. I've didn't know that either.

I think it comes down to - who owns the file, and who you are running the scripts as in order to change the owner. Looking back at that thread you listed, tsears says the following (post #42) Is that worth a try? First change the owner to the administistrators group... then a second command [chained] to overwrite it.

Hi @NB9457 Would you mind sharing your proxy pac. This is on my project list so I might aswell get started seeing how it works... Did you say you apply your pac through a Chrome policy, or do you use a GPP?

Had a demo of iBoss today. Wow! This is a feature rich product if ever I've seen one. The basic package has all the web filtering, reporting and 'monitoring' that we need. There are add-ons, should you wish, such as Advanced Threat Detection, and Anti-Malware... I'm also looking at Iceni and will be requesting a demo next week. Smoothwall et al just seem 'out of it' in terms of pricing for Primary schools. They may well be all-singing-all-dancing, but seeing iBoss today I can't imagine anything better than that.

Join.me (https://www.join.me/) Free and Paid options A school I support uses it for just such a reason as you request.

I've personally not had a great experience with Sandisk SSDs - one failure out of a possible four. I stuck to Samsung EVO drives after that.