vladker

Nice to see that I am not the only saddo who loves this game. Its all about the Volvos. Anything else is not a volvo.

I use a combination. We redirect both desktops and start menus, but with a twist. On every image I place all the locally installed software shortcuts into a folder called local. There is also a network folder containing networked resource shortcuts which is copied down at boot. I then have a script that merges the two. Therefore the user only gets the software I want them to see, without dead links, and all organised lovely . This approach allows me the flexibility to do whatever I need (add shortcut for a few days, special case one install machines etc) with ease. Script was a pain though. I have further differentiated between staff and students. Add in App-V, its been a fair while since I last actually installed something manually.. Redirecting the desktop to a read only source also prevents people saving to the desktop.

Sorry, a bit late but for the info of others.. This warning is actually an information level log, and its display as a warning is some type of bug: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/6afd1599-f423-43ed-9a3c-1ca02ab04d3a/dfsnserver-id-516-flooding-event-log?forum=winserver8gen Scared the crap out of me too to be honest.

FYI, just replaced our fleet with Konica and papercut. iOptions give you the papercut embedded interface. iOptions are now standard on some models, namely the C308. Engineer had to enable but it was at no cost.

They are a little loud, but otherwise I can't see why you would use compressed air. Granted I used to but they are nowhere near as effective. Hold them at the wrong angle and they have a tendancy to ooze liquid out. The one we have has been in use for 7 years. I have cleaned 1000's of PCs with it and never broken anything. Just be sure to clean the bottom filter regularly. Personally, I always use it outside as I dont want the dust going back into the room and subsequently the PC again (and I have respitory issues).

Datavac is quite simply the best thing I have ever bought. I bought one for home even.

I had an issue with GPP Printer installs. Check out KB 2748246 Fixed the problem I had, although I can't recall if it is the same issue as you have. May be worth a go on a test machine.

Hello all, I am using BackupAssist 7 to backup my userdata to a 2TB iSCSI volume. I made a mistake when I set this up, choosing a backup every day, keep all data as long as possible. In hindsight this was a mistake, as it now takes up to 40 hours to backup (even though deltas are only maybee 3/4GB). I am surmising that this is due to the fact I have 200 days of backup which BA must process ! (the backups have grown in processing time). So fair enough, I will create a new backup scheme, but I want to migrate the 2TBs of backup into cold storage. Here comes the problem - BA uses junction points to provide the 'Single Instance Store' capability. As a result I cannot copy over the data. I have tried FreeFileSync (too many directories), Robocopy (filled 4TB drive), Ghost (just died), Imagex (died). Only thing left is copy and paste... Any ideas ? I dont really want to loose 8 months of backups.

This is my GPO (assuming your creating exam account ?). This nails it down perfectly. BWAC UC Examinations.txt to get it past the upload manager I had to rename to .txt. Just rename to .htm. GPO description also includes source website I got this from.

You sir, are a god amongst men. We were using the CD so copied the files to the share and added in the tags as suggested. Works a treat. FYI, for anyone else that has this god aweful pile of drivel, you will also need to configure flash to trust the location metro dumps stuff into (C:\temp\metro). To configure flash to trust the location you need to copy a config file to the following location: %APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player\#Security\FlashPlayerTrust The config file can be named as you wish (e.g. metro.cfg). Its a simple text file as below: # Trust all files in Metro Electro 2 C:\temp\metro I use a shorcut which runs a script...

I would be very wary about providing staff with access to pupil documents. There are potential CP and ass coverage issues (something we should be vigilant of too). I will also add that a member of our staff was sacked and banned from teaching for altering and falsifying work. Coming from this at a different angle, why not create a central location for pupils to submit work ? We have a 'hand in' folder. the permissions are configured as such that pupils can place a document in, but not view or edit any other documents. Staff can edit (inline comments in word say), but then as the pupil has submitted, you can cross reference against the original. Our staff love the hand in folder. Most have ditched our VLE in favour of it as it is simpler and quicker. Not fun on a permissions standpoint, but once done...

Hello all, We currently pay our LEA who cover all repairs and replacment of our desktop hardware under an SLA. We have had a quote for the new financial year, and this figure has doubled Does anyone have an SLA with any repair firms etc ? I am looking at costing potential alternatives.

Thanks guys. I have found this, dont know if it is the same one: Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio Soundcard - OEM | Ebuyer.com However, the creative website says it does not support ASIO Creative Weltweite Unterstützung "Sound Blaster X-Fi series (excluding Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio and external sound cards)" This is on the compatability list. But is more expensive. Creative Sound Blaster Z OEM Sound Card | Ebuyer.com Any ideas anyone ?

Hello all. I am at my wits end. I have Sibelius 7 on our Music PCs. These are hand build AMD Phenom 2 4 core with 8GB of RAM and solid state running 7 SP1 x64. These have all been deployed with an identical image with ASIO4ALL installed. Students use midi keyboards to do whatever they do. I installed ASIO4ALL as it helped with latency issues on our older machines. However, after imaging the machines, no sound is outputted when sibelius loads (and ASIO4ALL runs). Some machines, ASIo4all doesnt run, and sound is outputted, but ith latency. Can somone recommed an alternative ? Or a sound card, or some ideas as to fix the issue. Anyone in the south wales area ? I am desperate

Hi Mate, Out of interest, what compatability issues ? We are using it fine on windows 7.

Hello everyone. We have an increasing need to improve our accessibility for examinations. As part of this, I have been tasked to find some method of converting exam papers into spoken word. We find that: - Human Readers in exams are expensive, and pupils perceive a stigma with having one - We cannot use human readers in certain exams - The number of pupils given special conditions for exams is growing exponentially. I have been looking at textHelp's Read/Write Gold 11 for this purpose. This software can apparently scan exam papers, convert to PDF and then read aloud. Does anyone use this software, or any other to fit this purpose ?

Hi Mate, hopefully you have fixed this by now... I had an issue like this which only affected office documents. I was forced to recreate our DFS shares to resolve this.

I have preinstalled on a standard staff/student PC: VLC (pain to deploy otherwise) Office Everything else I deploy via GPO as they require regular updating, or are machine dependant (eg. SMART, Promethean). SIMS, and most other subject software I virtualise and deliver via APP-V. Other than removing some 'Windows Features' (Media Player, XPS etc), I make no alterations to the image at all. All my customisations are delivered through GPO/GPP and a tiny sprinkling of powershell. Its more managable, cleaner and easier to make changes. The images are also much smaller so are quicker to deploy. I have an IT room image which is much more bogged down with various software, but that is ok. Would really recommend against taking an 'all in one image approach'. If they don't need it, then dont give it to them.

My advice would be to use a location based naming convention. Ours is based on our school code (shared domain) - Room - Computer Number. Our school code contains an additional letter to determine wether it is a curriculum, admin or laptop PC. I have serious issues with asset tag based naming conventions. They are only suitable in a large enterprise environment where you would be unable to devise a compatible naming convention. If somone calls me, I only need to ask what room they are in to be able to connect to their PC. All the machines in IT rooms are ordered numerically. By contrast, I went to a school with asset based naming and it was hell. People can never find the tags, the kids tear them off, you replace them, end up with multiple old entries in AD. Urggghhh. Hell. As Darylrese suggests, if you can keep the AD description up to date you would be ok. However, in that other school there was not a single correct description. I had 500 machines, and I didn't know where the hell any of them were. Puts shivers down my spine just to think about it.

Agree with Arthur. I also use this method. I found disabling known folders causes too many applications to winge. However, rather than Using GPP to copy into each users profile, I found it better instead to copy these into the default user profile. I found that adding to each users profile only applied at the second logon. Neutralises the libraries. No winges about indexed locations.

Don't get excited. Sadly there is no group policy available for this. I am hoping someone my have a workaround for this.. I have been able to ascertain that the registry entry for the colour scheme is stored in: HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common Name: UITheme (DWORD) Set to the following to get the theme you want: 0 - White 1 - Light Grey 2 - Dark Grey (only bearable one IMO) All great right ? Unfortunately, the value of this key is overwritten when the user opens (e.g) word. This seems to occur where the user would be running through the 'first run' dialog boxes - regardless of whether this behaviour is controlled via GPO. You can actually see the theme get changed as word loads... Interestingly, if you alter the theme via the gui, the change persists. I have also altered the registry key with word open. If you then close word and re-open, you can see the change applied again... which makes me think that office must be storing this configuration elswhere - and re-applying the settings on launch... Any ideas anyone. (Please don't say use 2010 )

Mattianuk: Get off your vertically challenged horse for a second, and you might be surprised to know that I am - Quote - well liked. I also happen to be a one man band managing nearly 500 PCs, 1000+ users, servers, switches, 1k other things with a plug attached..... To summarise, I cant go for a wee without someone flagging me down. As such, I try my best to remove pointless crap from my job. Generating new AD accounts, moving files, altering mailboxes etc because someone changes their name falls squarely under pointless crap. Some of us also don't have the luxury of our own exchange servers to create aliases et al. Should we keep their original AD account for when they get divorced for the next academic year ? If you have the time to do this, good for you. You have obviously landed a cushy number. Jeez, should I be doing this for kids too ? Some of them have 5 different surnames by the time they leave school (I am not joking). My suggestion is a purely valid one. Altering their surname under their AD account achieves nearly all that the end user wants (Their correct name on the start menu, correct name when they send an email). After all, their username is merely a unique identifier which is commonly set as some combo of their surname et al. They go away happy, I expended minimum of effort. Just trying pass on some experience and knowledge - take it or leave it. Preferably without being criticised for damning the good name of IT people everywhere

I would just refuse to do this. I alter their last name under their ad account, so that their correct name appears on lock screen / email. End of the day, their account is just an identifier. They are lucky that we are kind enough to set it to such an easy convention (e.g first 6 letters of surname plus first initial). You could be a nasty bastard and make them have something like C1094567b as their username.... Tell them that they will loose all of their emails, and that they will have to inform everyone of their new address. That will shut them up

I use a separate deployment share for deploying 'standalone' images (i.e. laptops not on domain). I also have development and production shares, but I seem to only use development.

Well there is me.. and there is me.. 400 PC's, 900 users I find this is sustainable, but I am 6 months behind on server and win 7 migration.. If I talk to myself, does it count as a second tech ?