gerardsweeney

Heh.. Now I just need some way where me using a saw doesn't have the appearance that I had 12 pints of cider beforehand

I hate DIY. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I despise feeling like an idiot where something as simple as sawing a couple of CM off the bottom of the door takes me about 10 goes and ends up squint. There is no undo facility in DIY.

Top man! I'll keep a copy of this safe for some R&D time. Thanks. Gerard

Sorry - did I just read "IE8" and "runs perfectly" in the same sentence?!?!!?

I've never used this before, but it's most definitely on my to-look-at list.. Our current commercial application is (to be polite) poor, so SpiceWorks sounds fantastic.

At the risk of sounding like a lazy leech, is there any chance you could make this batch file available to download? I could probably knock one together myself, but it seems daft to reinvent the wheel Kind regards, Gerard

Just be careful if you have Altiris SVS (now known as Symantec Software Virtualization) - UPHC can cause some interesting problems unless you add the registry exceptions recommended by them.

I'm afraid I don't, but I'd be very interested to find out... ICTA is - basically - shockingly bad for the fairly hefty amount of money that it cost.

Replying to myself - the virtual equivalent of how I keep my sanity at work.. I did eventually manage to get this wretched thing to install... The drivers installer would continually crash - I suspect it's clashing with our Symantec virtualisation agent, though that's a guess - it's the one background component consistent on the various PCs I tried it on. So I built myself a completely standalone XP box - no domain, AV or anything, and installed the drivers. Then I copied the created %systemroot%\System32\DRVSTORE\vmuvc_4C44DB0967B91DA831C255BCEF075EEE2067B174 folder (this will probably vary on your PC) to a pen drive. Connect the camera - sorry - microscope - to my "live PC", let it install as a USB Video device. Device Manager, Update Driver, point to the inf in the copied folder on my pen drive. It installs itself as a Digital Microsope. Then run the MicroCapture installer (NOT the DrvSetup one), and it'll install MicroCapture. Give write access to C:\Photos and C:\Videos to any non-admins who might need it. And - touch wood - it seems to install so far. If anyone wants them, PM me and I will mail you a download URL. Cheers, Gerard

If it's of interest, I'm having no end of fricking trouble getting a VMS-004 Deluxe to install on our XP 32 bit boxes. The teacher who bought the thing was told that the driver supplied is for the wrong model (?!) and downloaded the updated driver from their site. And it will not install. Unpack VMS-004 Version2.zip Run DrvSetup.exe and it crashes with a VMDRV.EXE error. Consistently. On several different models of PC here. According to a review on Amazon, it's trying to install a P2P program for Diino - not sure how accurate that is. Whatever the hell is causing it, it's making me want to Hulk out! I did find a driver which kind of works: http://www.kjell.com/filarkiv/USB/50729/50729_XP_2k.zip which comes with a fairly basic AMCAP utility - but the app that the Microscope comes with doesn't see it. All in all, I've wasted far more time on this than it's worth.

Bah - just checked.. The backup drives are EARS Green beasties so too slow for my cunning plan. If you're remotely interested, my current backup method is this: XP workstation (HP DC7900) SATA caddy : Startech 5.25 Tray-Less SATA Hot-Swap Bay - Misco.co.uk 5x 1.5Tb WD Green (bah!) drives Task Scheduler job to run FreeFileSynch to clone \\server1\c$ to D:\server1\c; \\server1\d$ d:\server1\d (etc) at 7pm Mon-Fri PC's BIOS is configured to power on at 6:50pm Mon-Fri It's laughably crude, but it works well enough for our purposes. I'd considered an external drive, but I've had issues with them randomly not mounting properly once in a blue moon (! in the Device Manager) and that was once too often for my liking. I also went with the drawerless caddy to save buying 5 lots of drawers - yep, that's how tight the budget was I used the workstation rather than housing the caddy in the server as I wasn't 100% convinced about its "hot-swap" claim and didn't fancy one of our servers BSODing when the Multimedia tech tries to swap the backup drives over.. This way he can just power down the PC to be on the safe side. There's probably infinitely better ways of doing it, but it was cheap and seems to work OK so what more do you want?! And I'm rambling. Suppose I'd better go do some work, eh? (Yes please. Gerard's Boss)

And yet - oddly - HP did not suggest this when the school purchased the server. Annoying, eh? [sound of that idea being well and truly scrapped - heh] Muchas gracias for the link to the cable, Sir. Very much appreciated. I assume you mean 3TB I suspect I'll be saving those for the school's backup PC - I currently synch the 3 member servers in the school onto a 1.5Tb drive in a workstation (1 drive for each day) kept at the other side of the school. It's far from the greatest method, but it works. And it was less heartache than trying to juggle all those blummin' tapes I get the feeling that once the depts know they have more storage, I'll need bigger drives to back 'em onto!!! Actually - I've just had a fiendish idea (or not) involving getting the school to buy the 3TB drives, use them for the backup and bung the current 1.5Tb drives into the server. Mwahahah. Or something. Thanks (again) to the assorted kind people who have replied - it's greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much for the suggestions, folks. By "reasonable", I was being polite. I mean cheap. Cheap as possible, really. School. Budget. No money. Etc. I suspect the £200 RAID card bolted onto a couple of cheapie 3.5 inch 1.5TB WD SATA drives is likely to be far more palatable to the school than the MSA160 which - performance wise - is far superior and what we should be looking at - but it costs a lot more (2500 odds if I'm looking at the right thing?). I know you get what you pay for etc. In terms of what is currently in place - the school went for the small form (2.5 inch) drive front chasis. Would I be correct in saying that I could (in theory) use bog standard 2.5 inch SATA drives instead? (Stop sniggering at the back if I'm completely wrong here).. If so, would I be correct in saying that as well as being slower than the current SAS drives, they would run slower than their 3.5" SATA equivelants if I went down the road of a additional RAID card and a couple of 3.5" drives? In terms of going down the 3.5" road - can I confirm that if I order: HP Smart Array E200/128 BBWC Contro... - 411508-B21 at Insight UK and 2 of Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 - Hard... - ST31000528AS at Insight UK along with the necessary adapter cable (which I can't find on Insight - any help, anyone?), then I'd be set? Sorry if this is childishly over-simple - I just want to present a value-for-money option to the school Regards, Gerard PS - it doesn't have to be Insight we purchase from - that was just a Google hit. Misco is our usual buyer, though I'm open to suggestions.. Keep 'em clean!!

Hello, all.. Our school has an HP Proliant ML350 G5 with a maxed out front drive array. As is the way with things, the school wants more storage added onto this beastie so I was wondering if there's something I can add which will let me use bog-standard SATA drives? I'm hoping to retain some kind of RAID for basic mirroring in case one drive goes kerplooey. The Motherboard has 2 free PCIE4X cards and 3 free PCIx133 slots. Does anyone know of any decently-priced cards which might do the business? Cheers, Gerard

Not with the Optiplex chasis, you can't.. Dell "helpfully" have it hidden behind the chasis. Unfortunately, it's not the case with the HP ones we have now. Tch...

Hello, all.. Apologies if this is the wrong place to post this - perhaps someone can move it if required? This isn't a plea for help, more of a "this seems to work for me, so perhaps it'll be useful" One of my pet hates is support calls saying that the CD/DVD drive on PC123 keeps opening, and I get there to find some little darling has crammed something (often unspeakable) in it. The record is a 30cm plastic ruler folder up. Nice to see they're dedicated to something! I digress. In 99% of my classes, the pupils have absolutely no need for the CD/DVD drive - other than to amuse themselves by breaking it. I've put together a small script which installs the Open Source CDROM-Lock (CDRom-Lock | Download CDRom-Lock software for free at SourceForge.net) as a background service using ServiceEx (ServiceEx - Run Applications as a Service) Once running, there's a system tray icon where you can enter a password to unlock a drive. Basically, it's configured to lock all CD/DVD drives - though you can always tweak it to your own requirements. Because it's a service, the door is also locked on the login screen. It's not perfect, but it's a start The script is a small AutoIt script to let you install/uninstall the service. Should anyone wish a copy of the script, let me know. Cheers, Gerard

I know this is an old thread and I'm not sure if this is quite what you were looking for, but: How to stream EVERY channel from Freeview onto your network « The Angry Technician Lets you stream freeview from a single PC (in my case a cruddy 6 year old GX280) to all PCs on your LAN running VLC

I ended up creating a "launcher" which imports quite a few settings to the per-user. I logged in as admin, exported HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\FLEXlm License Manager as 2 reg files. Then I created a small AU3 script which imports those and a few others, then launches the main program. My installer script replaces the "proper" AutoCAD/Inventor icons with ones which point to this launcher script, with the proper exe passed as a parameter. It's a total bodge, but it seems to work. I did it this way rather than having it in the main startup where everyone runs the importer. Though I suppose if that works for you, then that's equally fine. I can mail you the AU3 script if you'd like? Just don't soil yourself at the shonky coding!! PM me (and let me know here that you have), and I'll bung it somewhere for your persual/amusment (delete as applicable) Cheers, Gerard

We had this a few times on our XP boxes (without any idea what CAUSED the problem. Tch).. We imported the following reg file. If it's not XP, then you might be able to adapt it by exporting the same key from another PC with the same OS, and then import it on your broken one. Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{0000010e-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}] @="IDataObject" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{0000010e-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\NumMethods] @="12" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{0000010e-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\ProxyStubClsid32] @="{00000320-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{00000320-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}] @="oleprx32_PSFactoryBuffer" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{00000320-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\InprocServer32] @="C:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\ole32.dll" "ThreadingModel"="Both"

Hi, there.. I've no idea if this is close to what you're after, but for part of our Altiris imaging deployment, I wrote a kludgy little AutoIt script which changes the wallpaper of the logon screen (the one behind the CTRL-ALT-DEL bit) to be bright red with a warning. We run this out whenever we're installing something chunky or which needs a reboot. We run it with: LOGONWALLPAPER.EXE $REASON="Installing XP SP3" to get DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE THIS COMPUTER Installing [x] If you just run LOGONWALLPAPER.EXE without the $REASON bit, then it sets it back to our standard logon wallpaper. The coding is horrific and has only ever been written for XP, but it's served us well enough for the last 18 months. If it would be of interest, give me a shout. Alternatively, Altirigos has a posting on much the same thing (where I also plugged my shonky script heh).. Splash Screen (Configuring Computer) - Altirigos might be of particular interest, as it apparently lets you disable the keyboard and mouse. I didn't do that because I wanted to avoid a situation where something went wrong with whatever I was installing and I couldn't log into see what was up (OK, I could use RDP, but you get what I mean!!) Any of the above of any use? Regards, Gerard

Hi, there.. Sorry for the delay - I've been off for the last few days and then we've been WWW-less for most of today courtesy of a fault at our provider's end (apparently). I got a reply from GameMaker's folks saying that there has never been an MSI for any version of GameMaker from them. They suggested contacting RM or Pearson (I think it was). For what it's worth, I believe I have GM8Lite working by doing the following: * Install it on a PC * Copy %ProgramFiles%\Game Maker 8 to a share Then deploy it by creating %ProgramFiles%\Game Maker 8 and copying down the above Then create %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Documents\Softwrap\YOYOGAMES80FINAL Finally, use subinacl to give non-admins write access to this folder. I use compiled AutoIt scripts as they're neater looking than BATs and less hassle when using UNC. If anyone wants a copy of the (laughable) code, let me know. Cheers, Gerard

Hello, all.. I've had a search through the forum and haven't noticed anyone talking about this specifically, but I could be wrong (it's one of THOSE days already!!).. I'm hoping (desperately) to try to catalogue the network cabinets and hardware in our school. I currently have the following information: 1. Excel sheet of all network points across the school, listing each point and which room it's in 2. Excel sheet of all PCs/printers (inc model/serial) by network name, listing which patch point they're connected to 3. Excel sheet of all cabinets, listing Cisco switches and which patch point plugs into which switch port 4. Excel sheet of Cisco switches listing which port is configured for which VLAN Is there some clever way I can get all of this information into one easy to lookup form? I'm thinking of things like: Look up PC123 and see that it's an HP DC7600 serial number 12345 which connected to wall point A/1/12 which is connected to Cisco switch 10.130.1.12 port 11 which is on VLAN 10. Kind of idea I don't much care if it's in Excel or not - that was just the original format I typed the data into. Is there some kind of application out there which might do this for me? (before I start dabbling in code myself - never pretty!) Cheers, Gerard

*** Please don't laugh too hard at this monstrosity, though feel free to supply alternative ways of doing it! *** I'll go through roughly what I had to do. The school involved haven't actually started using 2010 yet, so I can't say for definite that it works - but at least the damn thing installed! First and foremost - if your school uses a proxy server, then either get your workstation made exempt so it can go through the proxy, or consider taking a laptop/desktop home with you (if you have broadband). The reason for this is that the admin install "builder" doesn't support proxies. Or at least it didn't for us. What happened for us was that it would go to a section where it would check for updates and it would stall for roughly 45 minutes before saying it couldn't connect to the WWW. Then we'd move to the next section and it'd do it again. So - I took the laptop home with me. How much did we pay for this product again? (Moving on) Anyway, this is roughly what I did. I say roughly because it's from memory from several months ago! ** Connect the laptop to your home broadband (or make sure you can get through to http://WWW.anything without proxy settings in your browser) *1 Copy all of the program DVDs to individual folders on your laptop/external drive (XCOPY Y:\*.* c:\ac2010\disc1 /y /e /s /r /i /c /h) (XCOPY Y:\*.* c:\ac2010\disc2 /y /e /s /r /i /c /h) (etc) *2 MERGE a COPY of the program discs into 1 folder MD c:\ac2010\all xcopy c:\ac2010\disc1\*.* c:\ac2010\all /y /e /s /r /i /c /h xcopy c:\ac2010\disc2\*.* c:\ac2010\all /y /e /s /r /i /c /h (etc) *3 Create a share to install the admin installer to MD C:\ac2010\admin (share as ac$) I'm keeping it short because the installer for components of 2010 is buggy and cops out with long filename errors. *4 Run the setup in the "all" folder, and go through the create deployment stages. Select to install it to your share (\\pcname\ac$) *5 Let it check for updates. I went with integrated (as I found the "after" bit didn't always apply the updates - handy!!) Once it's finished, you should end up with a deployment package in your ac$ share. Now you can go back to work *6 Copy your newly created deployment installer up to your server share *7 Edit the ini files inside the "AdminImage" folder replacing any references to the temporary pcname\ac$ share with the correct location. * It's at this stage that I had to resort to BAT file trickery, since we need lots of additional components pre-installed before we can install 2010. msiexec /i "\\server\AminImage\x86\support\WSE30\Microsoft WSE 3.0 Runtime.msi" /passive /norestart Rem C++Runtime 2005 - might need to download this yourself start /wait \\server\C++Runtime\2005SP1\vcredist_x86.exe /q:a /c:"VCREDI~3.EXE /q:a /c:""msiexec /i vcredist.msi /qb!"" " msiexec /i "\\server\AminImage\x86\support\VCRedist\2008SP1\vcredist_x86\vc_red.msi" /q /norestart msiexec /i "\\server\AminImage\x86\support\VBA\vba6.msi" /q /norestart "\\server\AminImage\x86\support\NLSDL\nlsdl.x86.exe" /quiet /norestart msiexec /i "\\server\AminImage\x86\acadm\en-us\AcadmLP.msi" /quiet /norestart msiexec /i "\\server\AminImage\x86\support\DWGVIEWER\DWGVIEWR.msi" /quiet /norestart rem the mst file will vary depending on what you called it at the creation stage msiexec /i "\\server\AminImage\x86\acadm\acad-AC2010-1-for-GPO.msi" /qb /l*v c:\ac2010.txt TRANSFORMS="\\server\AminImage\x86\acadm\acad-AC2010-1.mst;\\serverTools\gpo.mst" rem Inventor msiexec /i "\\server\AminImage\x86\Inventor\inventor.msi" TRANSFORMS="\\server\AminImage\x86\Inventor\inventor-AC2010-1.mst" /q /norestart msiexec /i "\\server\AminImage\x86\en-us\inventor\InventorLP.msi" /quiet /norestart rem stuff that doesn't seem to install correctly!? \\serverUtils\robocopy.exe "\\server\AminImage\x86\acadm\en-us\Acad\Program Files\Root" "C:\Program Files\AutoDesk\ACADM 2010" /W:1 /R:1 /E rem > c:\acmissing.txt \\serverUtils\robocopy.exe "\\server\AminImage\x86\acadm\en-us\Acadm\Program Files\Autodesk\Root" "C:\Program Files\AutoDesk\ACADM 2010" /W:1 /R:1 /E rem \\serverUtils\robocopy.exe "\\server\AminImage\x86\acadm\en-us\Acad\Program Files\Common Files\Autodesk Shared" "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Autodesk Shared" /W:1 /R:1 /E xcopy "\\server\AminImage\x86\acadm\en-us\Acad\Windows\System32\*.*" %systemroot%\system32 /y /r /h /c xcopy "\\server\AminImage\x86\acadm\en-us\Acad\UserDataCache\Support\*.*" "c:\Program Files\AutoDesk\ACADM 2010\UserDataCache\Support" /y /r /h /c MD "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Documents\ACADM\Translator" xcopy "\\server\AminImage\x86\acadm\en-us\Acadm\Program Files\Autodesk\Root\Acadm\TRANSLATOR\*.*" "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Documents\ACADM\Translator" /y /e /s /r /i /c /h Save that off, and this is your installer job. I can't remember if .net anything is a required component - my deployment script also calls a custom script which we use to install all manner of additional stuff including the various flavours of .net framework. Phew. There's probably a far simpler way of doing all of that - I just know that the "out-the-box" method simply would not work for me (or others, going by other discussion forums). Regards, Gerard

I don't know about the server error (temporary glitch?), but I think this download might be for the non-silent version of the installers. If you're looking to deploy the application/resources/driver, then I think this: SMART - Admin tools, is the page you need.

Excellent! Happy to help, and thanks for testing it out. Perhaps SMART will correct this for the next release of the drivers? Fingers crossed.