gerardsweeney

I tried it myself - Windows 7 laptop, USB keyspan adapter, MSI with legacy option enabled. Doesn't even detect the board. I go into the control panel, I can see COM3 (the Intel virtual COM port) and COM4 (the keyspan). Select Com4, click Connect, the GUI jumps back to COM3. Select "Automatic", and repeat the above Com4/connect - the GUI jumps back to COM3 with "Automatic" de-selected. Not particularly encouraging... Looks like we'd better hope 5.7 works on Windows 10!

Thanks for getting back to me. Just a couple of extra points, please? 1. Does it correct the issue we had with USB<>COM adapter (like keyspan). Specifically, does it correctly auto-connect? Previously, although the driver supported COM and keyspan options, users had to manually go in and select CONNECT each time. 5.7 was the last version which worked correctly. 2. With the MSI, do I need any additional switches to silently install the COM option? Regards, Gerard

At the risk of resurrecting an old thread... Has the driver - after 2 years of asking - been updated with this fix in place? We're looking at rolling out Windows 10 64 bit, and schools are now looking at the smaller Mini type PCs without COM port. I'm unsure if Windows 10 64bit will happily support the rather old 5.7 driver. Replacing the COM cables isn't an option - they're buried behind wallmounts, so we'd need to pay the building FM a substantial amount of money to undo this. Replacing the boards isn't an option - the existing ones are still working perfectly well. Cheers, Gerard

Hello, all.. A post here from a few years back: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/educational-software/130141-naturalreader-only-runs-admin.html mentioned NaturalReader only running as Admin. I ran into a similar issue with v13 today (the school here tried 14, and it ran terribly, so were advised to try 13 by CALL as they also said 14 wasn't much cop). The MSI has a couple of properties set which copy the settings to the APPDATA folder for the user installing it, and to set the registry in HKLM\Software\NaturalReaderFree to use that path. Result being - only admin level users can run it, because they're the only ones who can access this folder. I've put together an MST file (using ORCA), which redirects these 2 values to instead use the ALLUSERS appdata folder. There's probably some easy way to get it to use the install folder, but I'm not an MSI editing guru So far, it seems to work. It's still very much in the experimental stage. If anyone would like a copy, then get in touch. I don't get PM notifications, for some reason, so email me at gerardsweeneyATyah00DOTc0DOTuk (replace zero with O, and obviously AT and DOT with the correct values - my feeble attempts at anti-spam) Cheers, Gerard

Splendid.. I vaguely recalled seeing the consultant have a running PC pull down the PE boot disk without going anywhere near PXE. Which - coming from Altiris DS 6 - looked like sorcery This sounds like it might be how he did it.. I shall investigate ASAP, and get back to you.

All.. SCCM noobie here! I've been tasked with creating imaging jobs for our recently installed SCCM. I've created a Task sequence that installs Windows, injects drivers etc - all good. Our main PXE deployment setup has a password to prevent anyone being able to run anything untoward. So we hit F8, boot disk downloads and you get prompted for a password. However.. I'm now trying to roll out the image deployment jobs to PCs (eg at midnight). That obviously presents a problem, as it just boots to boot disk and sits asking for a password. How can I have my boot disk/Task Sequence setup so that I get the best of both worlds? Cheers, Gerard

Oh, man - you're joking, right?!!? I couldn't see a download for the pre-compiled versions on the page - just the source. I've never used github before, so assumed you had to compile it yourself.. Don't I feel stupid Thanks for the link - greatly appreciated!! Gerard

Ditto for Irfanview - you can use command line to batch process as well, if you want to schedule it or have it process different folders etc.

All.. I'm a complete n00b when it comes to most programming languages, so let's get that out of the way I'm trying to compile WiFiSitter - https://github.com/sean-m/wifi-sitter so that I have a 32bit and 64bit exe to install and run on our scabby Toshiba netbooks that don't disable WiFi when ethernet is connected. I've installed Visual Studio 2012 Express and the full .net framework 4.6 on a test Windows 7 64bit PC. Opened the .sln downloaded from the above - and also the other files in WifiSitter. Select to Build it, and it comes up with assorted syntax errors. Can someone either put me out of my misery, and tell me what in the name of sanity I'm doing wrong? Or compile it for me? Any help gratefully appreciated. Cheers, Gerard

(If this even remotely comes across as spamming, feel free to kill it (but not me) with fire.) Are any of you here lovers of the ZX Spectrum? Do you have an artistic bone in your body? (Fnar! Ed). The website I help with - World of Spectrum - is looking to create a couple of new logos. One for their forum page, one for use in social media type doings. Competition time - design a WoS logo - World of Spectrum Go on - you know you want to. No, you do. You really do. Look - don't make me have to ask you to step outside (it's raining, and you're wearing sandals). Gerard

I've just been asked about them here. Though it seems the issues we're having accessing Bytesize through websense are hampering things somewhat.

A tad late to the party.. It's the "NoViewOnDrives" registry key that kills it. Which is a bugger, as I have that in tandem with "NoDrives" to stop pupils from simply typing "C:" in the address bar, and being able to see everything. [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] "nodrives"=dword:4 "NoViewOnDrive"=dword:4 NoDrives hides drive C but NoViewOnDrive stops them from just putting C: in the address bar. How do you boys and girls manage this situation?

Hello, all.. We're making the move from Altiris DS6.9 to SCCM 2012, and I was hoping someone could clear up a couple of things? In our current Altiris setup, we have our Main DS server which lives in the Data Centre, and each of our schools has a Package server which runs PXE and a simple file share for the OS/application installer files. If we want to create an image for SchoolX, we just fire up a job and tell it to image to drive P: which the PXE boot disk knows to map to the local school server. So pretty much no WAN traffic at all, and everything's peachy. According to the consultant we have setting up SCCM (or, far more accurately, if I've understood him correctly), we need to create the image in the SCCM console and it saves it to the main SCCM server in the Data Centre, and THEN copies it back down to the school distribution server. So if I create an image that's 20Gb once I lump on all of the common apps, that's 20Gb copied up the WAN only for it to then copy it straight back down to the very school it originated from. Which seems utterly mental. Our High schools are on 100Mb pipes, so that's about 90 minutes. Our Primary Schools are only on 10Mb, so I'm pretty much going to be waiting a day before the image is available. Or is there some other way around it? I don't care one iota if it's not the recommended supported super official Microsoft way of doing it, so feel free to advise on scripts etc etc Next question. If I create a scripted application installer that's 5Gb in size, and distribute it to SchoolX. Then realise I need to tweak a config file inside it, apparently SCCM requires that the whole 5Gb gets piped back out to SchoolX. Is that right, or is there some way around it? Part of me is thinking if it is, then my applications are going to be BAT files pointing to the installers hosted on the file share in the school Final question. How reliable is PXE on SCCM? I ask because the PXE on DS6.9 is pretty ropey, but we have it pretty much well documented how to reinstall it on the site servers, if need be. Is reinstalling PXE on the DP servers a common event? Any thoughts gratefully received. Cheers, Gerard

For our Java installs, I have a custom written AutoIT script which parses Add/Remove programs for any Java installs that aren't the one(s) you're wanting to install. It uses the EXE version to install, not the MSI. Happy to send a copy of the source to you, so long as you don't wet yourself at the utterly shonky AU3 code I haven't tested this on SCCM yet - we're getting this installed as we speak. It does, however, work quite happily on our Altiris DS6.9 software deployment. It also works if you just double click on the script (since all the DS job does is run the exe script).

If it's the tweaked Start Menu that's barfing it, but I've run a small script which forces the Shell Folders values for Desktop/Start Menu back to the "factory default". Then you can either put them back, or just have the PC reboot - presumably the GPO will apply each time. It could also be that it's looking for "My documents" being mapped to H: for the user account you're using to deploy the software. You could add a line SUBST H: c:\temp (or something) to create an artificial H: drive for it. Another thing it might be is that for our software deployment server, I've had to add ALLUSERS=1 to the script syntax. Otherwise, it fails with a 1609 error. All of this might be guff, but at least I tried

All.. Sorry for the delay in replying. No redirected start menu/desktop/startup. Nothing funky done to NTFS. From memory (I'm at home just now), we used to hide C: drive with 2 different GPO settings - one hides C: with drive calculator derived setting and the other was added because they could just type C:\windows in the address bar to get them access in days of olde. I'll have a trawl through to see if we're still using both. Cheers, Gerard

Hello, all.. This is probably some GPO setting long since inherited from our XP days, but I'm running on empty time and inclination wise Staff login on Windows 7. They can click on Start, then type in the "Search programs and files" box for (say) Word and they'll see Microsoft Word amongst others. Pupils do the same, they don't see any of the Programs at all. Can someone put me out of my misery about what setting needs tweaked?

Longest I could find on CPC was 7.5m, I'm afraid. CPDPHD001-7.5M - CABLE POWER - 7.5m DisplayPort Plug to HDMI Plug Lead | CPC UK Or get an DP m to HDMI f adapter, then it's just a case of plugging in an HDMI m to m? Bit bodgy, but might do it.

We started deploying SMART 15 to the one school we have that insists on using them over the pretty much issue-less-for-8-years Promethean boards. SMART 15's installer appears to be pretty poor when migrating from earlier versions. It's SUPPOSED to remove the previous versions. We're running into issues where apparently IDENTICAL PCs have "something" it can't uninstall, and you end up in a state with a PC with some SMART 11 components left over. I'm still investigating to see if I need to write some additional scripting to do the uninstall for it, but between this, the licence changes, the gallery issues, the stupidly massive installer file - I've long since lost patience with all things SMART related. (Anyone got a grumpy cat picture? )

For us, it was Win 7 PCs running the MS built in Intel drivers. Updated them and it worked OK...

Disabled on Win7 because our old software deployment application doesn't work with UAC enabled. Anything even vaguely UAC-trigger-y triggers UAC in a window we can't see. Tried footering with setting UAC at minimum and making admin elevate without prompting - nada. Rather annoying. Apparently new versions fix it, but we're getting ready to can it in favour of SCCM at some point, so UAC disabled it is. (If anyone can offer any suggestions of novel ways to get round this, that'd be brill)

I know it's bad form to be resurrecting an old thread, but we just got the first of 2 LabCabby 32 laptop ones - my initial thoughts reflect those of my esteemed colleagues above - not impressed. It feels like an (expensive) Ikea cupboard on wheels. The only place to cable tie the power leads are the tiny, flimsy plastic grips at the top - I give it a month before they're trashed.

That's all kinds of splendid

If I bought them a pint, would they bump it up their job queue a bit? (I don't offer to buy pints to just anyone y'know! Scottish, and all that jazz)

It's STILL an issue with the very latest drivers. Changing the registry keys suggested above works once. Change them and reboot, you're good. As soon as the ActivControl launches, it resets the key values back to port 1 and the board stops working at the next reboot. Can this PLEASE be looked at as a matter of some urgency? I'm about to roll out a few hundred COM-port-less PCs. Running a 5M USB cable isn't an option - the boards are wall-mounted on a cabinet enclosure. I'd need to get our building's Facilities management to remove the backing of each one to get at the thing. Not going to happen. I raised a call with Tech Support, saying quite specifically that I didn't want to roll back to 5.7, as we are endeavouring to have all boards running with the same version. The suggestion in the reply - roll back to 5.7. Exasperated sighs may have followed