andyturpie

This is what I was about to recommend to check...

I will looking for new appliances when my kitchen is modernized in February, I've never owned a tumble dryer, but with my bijou kitchen I could only fit a washer/dryer in though some tell me they aren't as good as separate units - anyone advise?

Afternoon, For weeks we have had flaky issues with VSphere client, but to access our servers we just RDPed into a specific server, now on further inspection we cannot ping one of our ESXi hosts, everything looks fine on the surface - all data lights to core switch are flickering etc. We have had no complaints of loss of service, but I am at a loss as what to check for next? Any pointers would be gratefully received

RL supplies in Watford

Afternoon, We had a school building audit uploaded in 2012 to a portal called K2 which I presume was a DofE requirement. The company that performed the audit uploaded the data to the portal, but the school was never given a copy of the audit itself. Now we are putting in a bid for repairs and we would like to get our hands on the audit as it ticks a few boxes for the EFA bid application, however this K2 portal (Tribal?) no longer seems to exist. No one left at our school was privvy to any details at the time apart for the residing business manager (no email or archived files point to this). We are trying to track what happened to the K2 portal and where we can now find or request the data from our audit? Sorry if this sounds vague, hoping someone on here had actually been through the same process and can shed some light?

And did you find slipstreaming them worked?

Just had a look at this, might do the trick - I used Nlite for slipstreaming XP/service packs and drivers ages ago, but it never had WIM support back then. Also another Brucey bonus is that I can add some stubborn drivers into the WIM IE Intel VGA which I have to get packaged up as an installer on the network - a right ballache to do. Thanks for responding!

Aruba controller-less system, works a treat.

Morning, Is there anyway of bulk injecting windows updates into a WIM file? DISM seems a bit long winded and was wondering if there was a more autonomous way (possibly GUI) Our Win 7 images for our CC4 estate are still asking for in excess of 120+ windows updates after build completion. I would like to find a quick way of slipstreaming these into the main WIM to drastically reduce the build times if poss?

Afternoon, Just wondered if your workplace uses Spiceworks for non tech assets especially those managed by site and facilities teams? I know that there are companies that provide a service at a premium cost, but can you modify spiceworks in a way to host stuff like ride on lawnmowers, mini buses etc and generate reports on them etc? Also what about a barcode reader for a portable device for auditing etc? Let me know how you have modified spiceworks or reports to suit non IT related assets Thanks in advance chaps and chapesses!

Hi guys, cheers for the responses - It's our third line support and have quoted 5 days which I have had no problems (as in my mind thinking through the process as it would be about that duration) with took the scope of work to SLT and was agreed, now it has come up to the date next week, I'm now starting to be questioned about "why does it take this long?" "Can we do x,y or z whilst this work goes on?", "when will it be up", "I have spoken to other schools and they tell me that they have had the same work done without any network disruption" etc etc (biting my tongue at the moment lol) We had P2V'ed our network 24 months ago exactly with zero downtime (apart from out of hours server restarts once a week) - I don't think asking for 3.75% of the total up time until the next anticipated OS upgrade is asking too much, might be now having more rock solid stability we have spoiled people and making a rod for our own backs Maybe this post should have been in behind the red door

If you were tasked to perform an upgrade of 4 CC4 servers (VMs) from 2008 to 2012r2 plus back up software (BUE2014) , taking a full back up beforehand how long would you assume that the network would not be accessible to staff for taking into account through testing before allowing access back onto the network again? How many days would you insist to complete the work?

Thanks ShaunHargreaves - I take it this is a client setting as well. We checked and that box was ticked which we are now in the process of checking each client. The problem lies as to how can we flush the accrued data of the hard drives locally, it seems like it is registered under "other", but searching high and low we cannot find where this stuff actually is located?

Morning all, As the title suggests the hard drives on our Mac suite are filling up rapidly, and we have seen that there are copies being saved locally to each station (cache?). We somehow cannot delete the files and was wondering if there is a way to a) delete them and b) configure the macs not to save any user files locally or if there is a way to clear them at log off each time?

Never had any issues with CC4 and our mid range i3s, we have always managed log in times around the 1 min mark with SSDs.

Thanks for the offer Rad, we have more trolleys than laptops here at the moment too. I am going to cobble together with the help of my technician, a switch with cabling inside an existing one. We lease our kit and renew every three years, with us being nearly at our halfway mark before the next refresh. My aim to get (If laptops or other mobile devices are sought) to get new trolleys with the management built built in next time....

Hi Guys, cheers for the advice - One of our current trolleys is kept in our room, the other is in the art department. Laptops are booked out and in general returned to us to put away. I have tested using a switch and some temp cabling and if you turn them on and perform a shutdown across the network, they do wake up again. I think what we will do this time around is to attach a 2m Ethernet extender to each divider of our laptop trolley patched back to a switch and then just patch in the laptops every night with 30cm cables into each extender female socket. With a bit of clever cable management this should do rather than spending big bucks reinventing the wheel... The only caveat is getting staff and pupils to keep the laptops on until they are returned to us...

Just wondering if anyone uses a laptop charging trolley with CAT5 connections and superb cable management? At the moment we have to keep removing laptops,powering them on to get WSUS and AV updates at the moment over our wifi, I would love to be able to use WOL to wake them up, apply updates and shutdown with minimal effort. Has anyone any recommendations on where to look for these trolleys? Cheers in advance, AJT

Ha ha - I think I might have just put the frighteners up all Hertfordshire techs, I will tell them to stand down :D

Fiza has this been confirmed, I cannot find any statement on the HGfL website?

I would say this is more likely. Our iMacs were off over the summer as the room was getting refurbished. Some of the machines times were completely out of line with the rest of the network. Logged in with local admin user, adjusted date and time and restarted. All was well again.

Do you keep PAT testing records on each device you "give away"? , what would happen if you were accused of supplying faulty electrical goods which burnt a member of staff's home? Someone raised this question, which we immediately stopped giving kit away to staff.

I went for two 4tb WD Mycloud NAS boxes - does the trick and smartware ensures both drives are mirrored at 3am every morning.

Thanks all - Cheers Guys, dotting the "i"s and crossing the "t"s regarding the complete renovation project this week, so will let you know how I get on. If I do go ahead with the CAT6, I will upload some shots of the comms unit etc..

Cheers Guys, dotting the "i"s and crossing the "t"s regarding the complete renovation project this week, so will let you know how I get on.