ajbritton

I'm sure you know this but just to state it for anyone else reading this thread, Windows 7 has something called 'XP Mode' which allows a copy of Windows XP to run on a Virtual Machine in the background and host applications that just won't work on 7. Modern PCs have plenty of power to do this. Interestingly though, Microsoft views XP mode as 'the last resort'. The application compatibility layers are usually enough to get most software working. I agree, however, that Capita should at least publish a timeframe to say that W7 will be supported within 6 months of general availability. My job no longer involves installing/supporting PCs and Infrastructure in schools, but if it did, I would be salivating at the thought of ditching XP in favour of W7 hooked up to 2008R2 servers. The enhanced group policy settings are very enticing although it would be death of my trusty old logon scripts.

I agree with SRochford's point. I wonder if there is some confusion between Product GUIDs and Package GUIDs. IIRC, the Product GUID can remain the same for minor updates but the Package GUID should be unique. According to Technet, the MSIEXEC command requires either a valid MSI file or a Package GUID. In other words, you have to you the exact same MSI for uninstall as was used for install. In terms of best practise, my hunch would be that the GUID would be the way to go although your experience suggests this can be problematic. If you search the registry for 'UninstallString' you will find command lines that are used to uninstall Windows Installer based applications and they all seem to use the GUID.

To clarify link between GUID and MSI; If you tell MSIEXEC to uninstall based on the GUID, it will go to the registry and look up the application based on the GUID that was in the MSI file when the software was installed. Once found, it will uninstall the package associated with the GUID. If you tell MSIEXEC to uninstall based on the .MSI file, it will look up the 'Product' GUID in the MSI file, then go look this GUID up in the registry and uninstall the associated package. In theory, every new MSI file package should have a unique Product GUID. Windows is able to uninstall without the original MSI as it makes it's own copy of the MSI in %windir%\installer when the package is installed. Note that the MSI file gets renamed and has any installation files removed; it's just the database at this point. This is done support several features on Windows Installer such as install-on-demand and self-repair. Least ways, that's how it was a few years back !

Another vote for Win 7. I've been a big XP fan since it came out but was never convinced by Vista. I've been testing Windows 7 on an old laptop (Pentium M 1.3GHz with 512MB RAM) and it works well. There are lots of small changes (relative to XP; I can't speak about Vista) that make life a lot easier.

Rafael can help... Downloading a browser in E, without a browser, in 3 steps - Within Windows

I think the biggest 'mess' will be the ballot screen. It will not make the blindest bit of difference to users who know what browsers are, as they will already have their favourite and if it's not IE, then they would have downloaded it anyway. Users who don't even know what a 'browser' is though will be thoroughly confused. How are they supposed to make the choice at all? Perhaps a better solution would have been to have a popup appear for the first 'n' times that IE successfully opens up a web page. e.g. (You are using Microsoft's Internet explorer Web Browser. Other browsers are available at no cost. If you would like to learn more, click here...) It's a joke, really it is.

Uuurrghhh. Code Monkey not like... [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4TfDs9veis]YouTube - 04 - Code Monkey by Jonathan Coulton[/ame]

LOVE IT!

Instantly close any application via a hotkey using SuperF4

That looks like a standard Windows Installer error code which occurs when one of the 'special folders' (my docs, app data, favourites etc) is pointing to a non-existent location. I'm guessing that the P:\ drive is used in your setup in some way and that the user profile under which the setup has been run has a folder redirected to the P:\ drive but the drive is not mapped. You can check by looking in the registry at HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders.

If you create a custom 'transform' using the Office 2003 Custom Installation Wizard (part of the Office 2003 resource kit), it's possible to have Outlook automatically connect to Exchange. It's a while since I've done this though. Perhaps someone who has done this recently could advise...

Good point. I've seen this sort of thing when profiles that have been 'copied' using Explorer rather than the UI. This means the permissions within the registry prevent folder redirection from working properly.

I grew up with NetWare from v2 through to v4. NetWare had some really nice features for clients at the time such as a rich logon script language. v4 also brought a hierarchical directory service which Windows would not have until the release of Win2K. In some respects, Windows is only just catching up. I could map drives based on OU back in NetWare 4. Sadly though, the servers were always crashing.

You lot are (with possible exception of Geoff) are all spoilt youngsters! My first computer was an Ohio Superboard which didn't even have a case. I managed to blow the on board fuse the moment I got it home by powering it up whilst it sat on the tin foil it came wrapped in RAM expansion mean soldering extra chips on top of the existing ones. I got it up to 12K like this. Happy days.

Perhaps, but my point is that at the time, I was still happy with XP and Vista didn't bring enough to the party to get me excited, especially considering the resources it required. A different matter today as XP is creaking a bit (although I do still love it).

I was originally going to post this on a thread about getting hold of Win 7 pre order where someone was asking why everyone was in such a hurry to spend their money. This got me thinking about why I have personally put money down to by an OS for the first time in my life. After the Vista debacle, I never thought I'd be excited about an MS OS again. Being of a certain age, I remember the anticipation surrounding the releases of various versions of Windows over the years and with a couple of notable exceptions, I've been excited to try every single one. Here then is my potted of history of what got me excited about Windows at almost every version. Windows 1.0 - Oooh windows! No apps though. Windows 2.0 - Oooh, overlapping windows. Pagemaker! Yay! Windows 3.0 - Nice step up from Windows 2.x. Colour! Program Manager! Windows 3.1, Workgroups etc. - Mmmm networking, Internet. Windows NT 3 - At the time I was not that interested, but that would change. Windows 95 - Hugely exciting at the time. I forget how many floppies this came on but at the time it was well worth it. All that desktop customisation - good stuff. Windows NT 4 - This came along just in time to save me from years of suffering with Novell NetWare. Windows 98 - Smoothing out of the rough edges and a much nicer OS all around. This is what 95 should have been from the start. (as pointed out elsewhere in the thread, R2 was the version to have) Windows 2000 - This came along just in time to save me from years of suffering with NT 4. A giant leap forward for Microsoft and a very very solid OS, still running in many places. Windows ME - Best left alone although some newer stuff did debut here. Windows XP, 2003 - Despite the solidity of Win2K, it was never an exciting user experience but XP fixed all that and 2003 was a good evolutionary step on the server side. Windows Vista - Never wanted it, never used it so I suppose I should just keep quiet about it. Anyone else care to share their thoughts / memories at this exciting time... [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Windows[/ame]

Congratulations Chris, it couldn't happen to a nicer Meat Loaf look-alike. (sorry). Seriously, all the best. Andy

UPDATE: I'm told by the host/vendors of the third party app that I will need to install something called a UniPrint relay server which enables local printing from the remote app. This is so that the printing goes to the correct printer.

I guess so. Our entire network runs on private IP addresses as you would expect and is therefore NATed at the edge, but perhaps the ICA protocol carries something that is intended to uniquely identify the host machine.

Hi Geoff,Ric, thanks for the response. The terminal server that would be hosting the ICA client would be running Windows Terminal Services. The terminal server hosting the remote app is presumably running Citrix. I attach a diagrom of the proposed config. It's been suggested (not by the app vendor) that the remote app would only allow a single user to connect, possibly because the connections would all originate from the same IP address. I am following this up with the app vendor/host but these things take time? Thanks again

Does anyone know if it's possible to install & use the Citrix ICA Client on a terminal server? We use an application hosted by a third party which is accessed via the Citrix client. At present this has to be installed on individual PCs and firewall changes made to enable access. We want to install the client on a terminal server and make the application available via a remote desktop session. We've been told that someone else tried this but it did not work, which surprises me. Any opinions? Thanks, Andy

Have you read the handbook (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/8/b/e8b7c732-93b3-4f0b-aab0-5526cc8505db/Windows%2520SteadyState%2520Handbook.pdf&ei=yY3ASOuMOZT4edmUvPYH&usg=AFQjCNGU3L-Pie7Yl19gQ3A-3lkXrf3Xpw&sig2=iZkKa9KzToIzlcGFf4gBgw)? I've only played with SteadyState but it seems to me that you would build your reference PC, then install SteadyState, they Sysprep and take the image. After the image is rolled out onto the target PCs and the OOBE and MiniSetup have run, then that's when you turn on the Disk Protection. Like I said, I'm no expert but I just happen to be looking into using this product myself.

Apologies if this has already been posted but it seems that you can now follow SIMS on Twitter! Follow SIMS on Twitter - Capita Children's Services

I'm wondering if there is a utility that lets you edit the content of any text box in an external editor (a bit like the Microsoft Access Zoom facility). I want to hit a hotkey and have the contents of whatever text box has the focus pasted into an external editor. When I close the editor I want the option to paste the text back over the contents of the text box. Any ideas? Perhaps this is something I could do in AutoIt...

As always, there's more than one way to skin a cat and you have to go with a solution that works for you and that you have confidence that you can manage. If you can get what you need without scripting then that's a good way to go. The reason I came up with the script solution was that it has zero impact on the PCs that you run it against. It will work against PCs with different configurations and can be set up to deliver different sets of shortcuts to different groups of users (eg KS2, KS1, Early Years, Teachers ).