tigerstar

Aren't they just standard Trackpoint-style caps?

It's a SiS Mirage 3 graphics chip, apparently, and there is a driver on Microsoft's update catalog site. Can't provide a direct link because of the weird way the site works (it demands you run it in IE and installs an ActiveX component... grr!), but search for "mirage 3 windows 7" and you should find a bunch of drivers to try.

11.2 here - we always keep it up-to-date by deploying the MSI.

We had this issue a while back - Office 2010, Calibri font, HP printers (multiple models), usually missing out capital letters. All the computers it affected had common factors - Windows XP without supplemental language support installed (those two checkboxes for complex script and East Asian languages in the Regional and Language Options control panel), and it wasn't affecting computers running Windows 7 using the same printers. Turning these language support options on fixed the problem for us.

I wouldn't place any meaning on the presence of Chinese characters - it's just mojibake, a string of garbage being interpreted as double-byte hanzi/kanji and other characters. The error you're getting can be the result of a component of Performance Monitor getting messed up. More details and a possible solution here.

This article has links to an automated price tracker. It's for the US site Newegg, but it gives a good idea of what prices have been doing - things are recovering, but prices are still around 150-200% of what they were six months ago.

We've had a number of Smart-UPS 1000s over the years and they've all taken the RBC6 battery pack. They were all free-standing models, not rack-mounted. Does it not show the exact model number in your PowerChute software (or equivalent)? We buy our battery packs from Insight, who have good prices on them.

No, an extra 64 computers isn't going to tax a domain controller to the extent you'd need an additional one. And it sounds like your network is up to snuff too, so you're good to go.

What policy are you using to block access to Task Manager? The one in User Configuration > System > Ctrl+Alt+Del Options should lock it out via other methods too (right-clicking the clock or taskbar, etc) - it certainly works on our system anyway. Check if the policy is applying correctly with RSOP - you could have another policy that's overriding it.

Yes, confirmed - it was one of the issues fixed in SP1, along with the related glitch where backgrounds would only show on the Aero Flip view. For the record, the KB articles about them are here and here. Gave me a headache the first time too.

Yep, it's in User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Internet Explorer, and the policy name is "Prevent performance of First Run Customize settings". You'll want to enable it and set the choice to "Go directly to home page". Make sure you're using an up-to-date version of inetres.adm.

I've been to every Gadget Show Live, and it's always a blast, but it's not a good place for a shopping trip. There are plenty of commercial stands, sure, but the majority of stuff for sale there is gadgets, games and other relatively small purchases, not so much full computers and components. Scan Computers always has a stand there (they were doing liquid nitrogen-cooled overclocking one time!) but like most of the big tech companies the emphasis is on having a presence there rather than selling you stuff on the day. Keep your eyes peeled for a bargain, sure, but don't go there expecting to save a huge amount over buying stuff online.

I self-build and have done for years. It's not really a case of saving money (not any more, at least), I just enjoy tinkering and upgrading bits and pieces as I go. I still have the 3.5" floppy drive from my first self-build in my current PC - not because I need it, but just because it's been a constant throughout the years when every other part has been replaced! Heck, yes. You can comfortably buy a decent i3-based prebuilt with a 21" monitor within that budget. If there's one thing going prebuilt saves you money on, it's the cost of the Windows license.

We run our plasma display screens with low-power mini-ITX boards. They're passively cooled and boot from flash drives, so no moving parts to wear out. All but the cheapest have DVI and/or HDMI outputs now too.

Yeah, you're going about it the right way. I would avoid putting anything in the Default Domain Policy that isn't absolutely essential, so a separate GPO for your WSUS settings is the way to go. It gives you more flexibility in future if you want to adjust the settings for different OUs, groups, etc. I wouldn't worry too much about the computers going "rogue" if you remove the WSUS settings from the Default Domain Policy - just make a new GPO with your WSUS settings and apply it to the appropriate OUs. Settings in GPOs at the OU level take precedent over the Default Domain Policy, so you'll be able to tell there and then if the computers are looking to the new update source, before you even remove the obsolete settings. Anyway, yes, you are (more or less) correct that until you assign managed computers to a group within WSUS and approve updates for those groups, the computers won't download and install updates. You can approve updates for computers within the "Unassigned" group if you want, but using proper groups within WSUS is a more sensible approach.

Turning it off is just ignoring the root cause of the problem though. If it messes up in Internet Explorer, it could mess up in other software that uses DirectDraw/Direct2D too. I had a similar problem the other day where PowerPoint 2010 was bluescreening every PC in the room when running any graphics-heavy slideshow, because that also uses GPU rendering for smoother animation and effects. The fix in my case was to ditch the OEM graphics driver and use the most up-to-date driver direct from Intel (which I had to force to install through Device Manager, because the setup program just sees an OEM driver already installed and refuses to go any further). I recommend you investigate if there's a more up-to-date graphics driver than the one you have installed, and try a generic driver instead of the OEM one if it's newer. Leaving the underlying problem unfixed is asking for a nasty surprise later.

Add a software restriction policy for those users to prevent them running mmc.exe. This will lock out all ways of getting into the management console, regardless of approach.

They show up in Event Viewer under Application logs. For easy viewing, make a custom view to show events only from source "SoftwareRestrictionPolicies".

Holy... O_O That is blurry! Repeating blocky artifacts like that scream "graphics card problem" to me, and the fact that it's occurring only within the IE display area and not the surrounding interface suggests it could be a problem with DirectDraw. Try turning off graphics acceleration (Control Panel > Display > Screen Resolution > Advanced Settings > Troubleshoot tab, and move the acceleration slider to "None"), restart and see if that makes a difference.

It is the text in particular that's fuzzy? Internet Explorer enables ClearType font smoothing as of version 7 onward, independent of any system font smoothing settings. If the computer's monitor is not running at native resolution or with incorrect clock/phase (when using an analogue input), you'll get the monitor's own interpolation thrown into the mix, which will blur the text further. You can turn ClearType off in Internet Options > Advanced > Multimedia > Always use ClearType for HTML, or via a group policy (the specific policy is under User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Internet Explorer > Internet Control Panel > Advanced Page > Turn off ClearType).

You're better off locking down the laptops through group policy. You might stop one potential loophole by persuading the neighbours to secure their networks, but what's to stop a kid setting up a mobile hotspot on their smartphone and going out via 3G? You can push out a configuration via a GPO, setting all the relevant configuration options in one fell swoop. More in this article: Ultimate wireless security guide: Automatic PEAP deployment with Microsoft Active Directory GPO | TechRepublic

It's only a small file. PM'd you.

The MST generator tool is on the program CD as well, or at least it was on our copy. It's named KudlianMSTTool.exe.

We've been running dual installs in a couple of the labs here to help with the transition. It's not without its problems even after some tinkering and we plan to get rid of 2003 over the summer anyway. There are a few pitfalls to watch out for: * Install Office 2003 first, then Office 2010. * Don't install two versions of Outlook. * If you plan to run both versions of Access, you may encounter some odd errors in 2003. Running Office 2003's detect and repair procedure after installing 2010 seems to fix this. * The big pitfall with running two versions of Office is that whenever you launch one version of (most of) the programs, it will go through a partial setup where it rewrites a bunch of registry entries, and do this again every time you launch the other version, which makes switching back and forth time-consuming and irritating. To stop this, you need to add a couple of registry keys to every user: [HKEY_USERS\[user hive]\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Options] "NoReReg"=dword:00000001 [HKEY_USERS\[user hive]\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Word\Options] "NoReReg"=dword:00000001 (Yes, I know it says "Word", but it applies to other programs like Excel too.) This is easy enough if you only use mandatory profiles on those computers, but if you have roaming profiles you might want to add those entries to HKCU with a login script. * The registry trick doesn't stop Access from doing its own re-register procedure. I've not found a way to stop it, and combined with the hiccups this can cause in 2003 described above, frankly it's better if you only run one version of Access. As I say, it's still not without its problems and some update or other could come along and ruin the show. If it's only PowerPoint they need an older version of, I say run both versions of PowerPoint alone, and the 2010 versions of all the other programs. It is technically possible to save from 2010 using a macro or VBA command, but it's fiddly and doesn't work with all of 2010's features.

Have you checked your event logs, under the Application view (the source will be listed as "Application Management")? Any errors a deployed package throws up will be recorded here, so it's invaluable for troubleshooting. Adobe Reader is a bit of a tricky beast, despite having proper tools and documentation. The official documentation on Adobe's site is lengthy and applies to the full Acrobat program as well as Reader, so it can be a bit confusing. Anyway, what I do is this - download the full installer and run it with the switches -nos_o"" -nos_ne (note: don't put a space between -nos_o and the path or it will fail). You'll also need to apply the supplied .msp patch file by running the command Msiexec /a acroread.msi /p .msp, or you'll only get the unmodified point release (i.e. 10.1.0 instead of 10.1.2), which will generate a bunch of folders containing all the application files. Then use the customisation wizard to generate your transform (.mst) file, and copy the folders, acroread.msi and your .mst file to your share (you don't need to copy the setup.exe, or the large .cab file because its contents have been extracted to those folders during the patch process). Then just add the .msi to a Group Policy object, remembering to tell it to use your transform file, and there you go. It should automatically uninstall any older versions of Adobe Reader, regardless of whether they were deployed via a GPO, system image or manual installation.