ajbritton

Hmm.. Can they print from other apps?

Sorry for multiple posts!

If you're learning VBScript, don't miss The Scripting Guy!

There are some awful things in Powershell like instead of piping to 'more', you have to pipe to 'out-host -paging'. This can be aliased to 'oh -paging', but it's still a lot of extra typing, especially when you are learning your way around.

I saw an excellent example in a magazine which, in a single command, scanned an Exchange organization for disconnected mailboxes and reconnected them to the appropriate user accounts. That would take quite a few lines of VB script code!

Does anyone know if DBATTACH sends back useful exit codes when used to do SIMS backups? I just need to know if the backup worked/failed.

Up until recently, I have done the same as Ric, and used the 'redirect to users' home drive' setting. This is not the recommended way of doing things though (MS article). Now I use the 'Basic - Redirect everyone’s folder to the same location.' option and point it to a location like \\server\userdatashare\staff. Provided the permissions are correctly set, this results in a structure as follows; \\server\userdatashare\staff\Username \\server\userdatashare\staff\Username\My Documents \\server\userdatashare\staff\Username\Application Data \\server\userdatashare\staff\Username\Desktop I still use the home drive setting on the user account, but it is set to \\server\userdatashare\staff\%username%\My Documents.

I suppose (without thinking about it too much), that if your program can't find the folder it is looking for then it should display an error message that the end user can understand and give them some guidance as to what they should do. If possible, it should log the exact details of the problem in the event log or a text log file which tech support staff can examine to found out exactly what went wrong. If your app is looking for 'My Pictures' and it's not available, then I think it would be reasonable to default instead to 'My Documents' and give a message to that effect. That way the application could continue to work. What it should NOT do is default back to the application folder under Program Files, or the root of the C: drive. As to why we use a home drive letter, yes I suppose it is a hangover from the NT4 days. As I said though, there is a LOT of software out there with completely ignores Microsoft's guidance on application standards and will not work with UNC paths at all. I regularly have to jump through hoops to make software like this work. Some software looks at the path that My Documents is redirected to the moment it is installed and records this is an INI file or a Local Machine registry entry. This is then the default path, regardless of who logs on!

If the profile is 'mandatory' and nothing else is in effect (ie no Group Policy folder redirection and no logon script redirecting the folders), then the settings will revert each time the user logs off. It could also be that Group Policy IS in effect, but is setting the wrong path. (Use Group Policy Management Console to verify which Group Policies affect which users on which machines). Similarly, a logon script could also be modifying the paths and setting the wrong location. Assuming the profile is being shared amongst several users (that's how I do it anyway), then something else is required to redirect My Documents to the appropriate home directory for the user logging on. As I have mentioned, this can be achieved with Group Policy or a logon script. As regards what software should do, I would say that it should default to the location pointed to by 'My Documents'. It would be nice if the software did not crash completely if that location did not exist, or was read-only though. It should also be possible to change the default location on a per-user basis (this information should then be stored in the Current User registry although this would obviously fail on a mandatory profile). If the software is designed to use 'shared' data, then it would probably make sense to have an override facility (stored in Local Machine registry, or an INI file in the application folder), which can be used to point to a network location.

Dan, when you talk about a My Documents 'variable', what do you mean? To my knowledge, there are two registry values; (Microsoft info) HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Personal and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Personal The first of these is only there for legacy purposes. Then there is the %USERPROFILE% 'environment variable, which will always point to the local copy of the user's profile (usually C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%) Now, when you say the 'variable' is missing, which one is it?

Not specially, but I'm still waiting on the ability to show all the posts in the last X hours/days/weeks... Sorry Russ

Presumably you mean that the My Documents location is not pointing to the same place as the users' home drives. I cannot speak for others, but in our schools, we use the H: drive for each user's home directory, and redirect My Documents to the same location using Group Policy. I have come across many programs that will not work correctly with redirected folders, but none that fail to work with drive letters. Are the schools in question using a proprietary system (eg RM CC3), or mandatory profiles?

Can't you do this through Group Policy under Computer Config, Windows Settings, Security Settings, File System, then add the path to the file/folder you want to affect and set the required permissions?

Just checked my notes and the NetG course was £2,200 + VAT (not including exams). @Kyle: For the 270 course, I did each module (13 modules between 1 and 2 hours for each) and then both test papers (about 2 hours each). I did most of this in the evenings and spread it out over about 6 weeks. For those that have done a recent MCSE, which exam should I tackle next?

I'll have to check when I'm back at my office PC, but off the top of my head I think it was about £2,700 for a years access to all the courses. That figure does not include the exams, which are currently £88 each (7 required for MCSE).

'twas ever thus!

I'm something like Alex Krapowski! I've tried it a few times and it seems a bit pointless unless you want to go gambling or gaming. Might be fun to have an EduGeek zone though. Anyone who has read Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson will know exactly what second life is like. They are even trying to re-create the 'black sun'!

I don't suppose a DNS alias would work...

Do Outlook clients automagically update themselves with the name of the new server?

Same as Ric, John. If think it roughly breaks down to client type stuff (workstations) on DHCP and server type stuff (servers, printers, switches etc) on static.

Hi Kyle, I use the Thomson NetG Live online training software. The XP course was OK, but didn't cover everything that was on the exam. There are two sample exams included with the NetG package and to be honest, they helped me prepare more than the course did. The kind of questions on the test exams are very similar to the ones on the actual exam. If you've been using/installing/troubleshooting XP for a while then you probably know most of what you need, and doing a couple of test papers should give you a good idea of where your weak spots might be. It's important to read the questions very carefully. There are often a couple of possible answers and only by looking for the clues in the question can you home in on the right answer. I found the questions relating to VPNs the hardest as I've never really had to set them up or troubleshoot them. Some key areas... Installation (unattended, RIS) Hardware (installation, driver signing, driver rollback, hardware profiles) Printing (installation, permissions, priorities) Disk Management (basic, dynamic, fault tolerant, spanning) File Management (permissions) Networking (tcp/ip, dns, wins, vpn, ICS, ICF) Remote Support (config, troubleshooting) Not exhaustive by any means though. Hope this helps. Best of luck..

Just passed my MS 070-270 (XP admin) this morning. It's now £10 a minute if you want to talk to me! Yup, I'm a Microsoft Costly Professional EDIT: Renamed due to passing MS 70-290

I don't use Avantis anymore (too expensive and DaemonTools is free!), but like apeo says, do the Administrative install and you should end up with an MSI fully configured and ready to go.

Assuming you have Active Directory, then a Startup Script will do it as you pointed out.

The trick with running a seperate script will be to make sure the script only runs once. There are many ways of doing this, but basically what is needed is some kind of 'flag' on the target PCs. The script should check for the presence of the flag before running the update. If the flag is not present, then the update may be run and the flag set to prevent future runs of the script. example CMD script rem Check for flag if exist C:\AppName_Update_X.txt then goto jExit rem - add script code here to install Update X for AppName rem - Add the flag echo Update X installed at %TIME% on %DATE% > C:\AppName_Update_X.txt :jExit