kestrel1

You probably need to be logged in as an administrator. It may remove better if you do it in safe mode, so just before Windows starts to load you need to press F8. You should then get a menu where you can choose safe mode. Try to login as the administrator. If a password hasn't been set by the person who setup the laptop you should be able to get in OK. If a password was set you will need to find out what it was.

Thanks for the link Ric. I will look into it next term when it dies down (maybe by January) lol.

See if there is an updated driver on the logitech website. Make sure that the drivers are completely removed before re-installing.

I can't remember what the problem was with PMP now, as it was probably over two years ago. Old age or something, lol. Thanks for the tip on PyKota, I will have a look.

I have used PMP, but found that it was unreliable. This is on a thin client network, via Citrix. Got onto the manufacturer & they are aware of the problem, but never came back with a solution. This may have been sorted now, but I have moved on to pcounter. This isn't as nice, because all actions are on a per printer basis. With PMP you could have action on a per user basis, much nicer. The staff moan about it, but I just say it's one of those things. They don't argue about it. At least pcounter works over a Citrix environment. Not tried Papercut myself.

We use Precedence Technologies & Surftec. They work together & have some very good ideas. http://www.precedence.co.uk http://www.surftec.com The support we receive has always been excellent.

Sounds like there is something corrupt, could a graphics driver or could be a Windows file. Personally I would use a Windows XP CD to boot up & then select to go in to the recovery console. From there run chkdsk /r If there are any Windows files found to be corrupt it should repair them. This can take a while, but it may sort it out.

I would say, that as long as staff are made aware of the need for others to access their home areas if they are off, there shouldn't be a problem. If there was a shared area on the network though for different subjects, staff could save work into these folders instead of their own personal area. That is the system we use. Only staff have access to these shared folders, whilst other folders are for everyone to view, but only staff have write access. Some staff wish students to be able to save to certain folders, so write access is granted to that year group on a per folder basis. Any abuse to this & the access is withdrawn.

Yeah I appreciate it rather too many to be doing this to. That's why I love thin client networks. If anything goes wrong like that I only have to worry about the servers. Take one out of action at a time, get it sorted & move on to the next. No running around the school, looking at fat clients (PC's). Installing Flash 8 may help, but if anything residual is left over from flash 9, you may still have a problem. I have just downloaded the latest version of flash 9, so I don't know how long yours have been updated. You could have a look & see if the version is later than yours.

If you want to sit quietly, then education aint it. In my experiance (22 years, 7 in ICT) you don't get a chance to sit quietly for very long, if at all. I should have been off for most of the summer hols, but this hasn't happened. I have been in practically every day, but it is more enjoyable without the kids & teachers getting in the way. I would say that MCSE would follow, as this is more hardware based. MCSA is more for system admins. Good luck with what ever you get into.

Another thing to remember is that most certificates require you to take the exams again after two or three years or so. None of the courses mentioned will be easy or cheap & you normally have to pay for the exam seperately. As mentioned above, experiance is essential.

What certification you decide on should reflect in what area of computing that you want to specialise in.

Not seen this one myself, but as far as I am aware there is an issue with Flash player 9 & IE7. I don't expect just uninstalling flash player will work as it will leave things behind. You try a restore point to before the point that flash player 9 was installed.

If you have a tester & have tested the patch cables & get the full eight lights, then they are fine. You only need four cables to be connected correctly, but they must be the right four. Have a look at this link that FN-GreaterManchester pointed out: http://www.ece.ndsu.nodak.edu/~ceatech/files/cable-color.html You will notice that you only need 1, 2, 3 & 6 connected. When you say you are getting 6 out of the eight, what six? I would say you really want to make sure all eight are connected though. It just makes more sense & is not a bodge job.

If Kix is set up correctly it works good. I haven't played with the kix script in a very long time now & I have probably forgotten most of it. The last thing that I did was to set it up to log every login (User, client, time, date) just to keep a check on the little sods. Has come in very useful at times. I normally leave the scripting up to out network support, when something needs doing.

Yes same here. Infact music are mostly still using Acorns (if you can believe that) with midi cards. Only one PC in music. Never tried any sort of music prog on the thin client system. Thin clients are restricted on sound & it may depend on your servers spec as well.

You need to make sure that the cable is fully connected at the sockets. You can get a LAN cable tester, but they aren't that cheap. If the router is set up to be a DHCP server, your best bet may be to use a patch lead to connect to the router from one of the sockets, then use another to connect to a laptop or PC at the other end. Set the machine to get an IP address via DHCP, this is normally the default. If you don't get an IP address, I suspect that the sparky hasn't tested the connections after the install. Get him back to check it out.

Who loves our government???? What sort of fools work in the government?? This country has gone to the dogs. I would get out if I could, but I love the weather.

The Igel Winestra terminals are fairly good machines, but the sound is limited. I have some of these machines, but can't remember ever getting the sound to work. What sort of age are your machines? I think ours are about 5 - 6 years old now. Not even USB is supported.

We use a kix script that points to a CSV file that then allocates the correct printer to the client. Say you have Room 1 with 25 clients, you would name the clients R1-01 to R1-25. The CSV file would only require a line that may look like this: R1-*, R1-Mono, R1-Colour Using the * acts as a wild card. So if your client naming convention is kept logical, it makes life easier.

You won't cure the problem. These files are catalogue files & are required during a file restore, as far as I can tell. Not read all of this, but have a look here for more info. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/249120 I know this is relating to Win 2K server, but should be basically the same for 2k3 as well.

If that happens I am leaving. How stupid is the government????

Had a Vista machine come in, played with it for a while. Found it kept on crashing. Used to option to downgrade to XP pro. Agree with webman, better the devil you know. Not able to convince the teachers to use Linux.

Are you locked into this? I would never go that way, you need some control over your network. We have a good relationship with our network support team, but I rarely use them unless I am unable to sort out the problem myself.

as long as the AT command is still available in Vista it should work. I use this method to reboot the servers during the night & to shutdown machines after a certain time. To find out the full list of parameters type 'at -?' at a command prompt. You can specify days of the week, so that this is a scheduled task & is not deleted after it has run once.