ronnoco

Not sure of the top of m head but whilst you get to the bottom of you could use GP to disable running of extensions associated with software such as .exe, .msi, etc....this will be a temporary fix.

Hi all, We have purchased a new MIS server which has Server 2008 R2 standard. We want to keep it 64 bit but unfortunately we don't have the SQL Standard 2005 64 bit media, only the 32 bit version. I have ordered from Phoenix software nearly 3 weeks ago but is still yet to arrive. It should be coming Wed but that is my last day for a while and I really want to wrap this server up before I go on holiday on Thu. You use to be able to download the 180 day trial version from Microsoft but this now just diverts you to SQL 2008. Is there anywhere I can download it (legally)...even this tial version? We can't use MS VLSC. Thanks very much in advance for any help that can be ofered.

Thanks for the advice but turned out it was the profile. Resolved with a new profile, seems fine now.

Hello all, I want to remove Winsuite. I have ran the uninstaller exactly as per the NDI instructions. On log on as pupil, blank desktop and start menu. Tried deleting the Winsuite folder from Program Files and deleting all traces of 'Winsuite' and 'GinaDLL' from the registry, Still no joy. There is no profile for the user who is getting the blank screen so doesn't appear to be a profile issue. Does it for other users too. Winsuite no longer has a helpdesk and I wondered if someone knew the correct procedure to fully remove Winsuite as i'm sure me tryinh random things will probably make it worse! Thanks in advance for any help that can be offered.

They still have access to our domain with their own user area which is backed up every night. We also sell 4GB memory sticks and have sold hundreds. Students are learning to take responsibility for backing up their data....if they know from the word go it's down to them, I don't see it as a problem. We have media students who due to the size of their data we have told them they need to take full resposibility and ownsership and this system has worked for 2 years +.

Google Apps meets all of the Becta requirements of a VLE. Schools are entitled to the premier version at absolutely no cost, usually £33 per year per user. It includes Google mail with a 7GB limit as standard, Google Docs, Google sites for building sites - you can insert video, blogs, images, gadgets (some are excellent - live tv) and much more. There is a private video section as well as Google Wave which is a platform, product, and protocol for creating live, social communication documents. Students can share documents so they can be edited or marked by teachers and there seem to be other ways of doing the hand in. You can create new users in 15 seconds and I believe the limit is 3000! There is a powerful admin interface which includes excellent e-mail monitoring and restricting, you can add keywords to be filtered and blocking e-mail from being sent to certain domains, i.e. hotmail. It also supports LDAP and SSO. The only downside we have found so far is that you can only upload 1 file at a time in sites although you can do multiple uploads in Docs and then link from there. This is a flaw but hey, it's free...we can live with it!

Thanks for all the support. Unfortunately, it was not possible to see the hard drive array from anything - even with the correct drivers loaded it just hung so it does look like a faulty RAID. We have deleted and re-created the array and are now initialising. After this, will re-install the OS then hopefully recover the OS using a backup...after that, just need to restore the rest of the data! I am expecting grey hair by the end of this week!

Thanks very much. I already have RAST installed so i'll read up on what I need to do to change the policies on my machine and apply the domain wide. Cheers Gary

Hi all, At some point over the weekend our MIS server which is running Server 2003 R2 crashed with a BSOD reporting a dump of physical memory. It did have the BSOD when I last shut it down but on power up last time it came back up fine so I didn't worry about it. This time, it started by getting stuck at the screen showing the RAID arrangement. I could see all the drives looked ok but it would go no further. Powered down, reset all cables, memory, etc and on next boot it got to the Windows Server animated splash screen with the moving bar but after 10 minutes, no further. Tried last known good config and safe mode with no success. Get stuck at loading acpitabl.dat. Researched, could be various things but some say RAID or CMOS battery. Tried changing battery. I take a backup of the entire server every night using NTBackup and do a weekly ASR. Used Recovery Console to try to restore the ASR but it seems to freeze at the 'examining XXXXMB disk space' part. It does the same if you go through the process of trying to re-install Windows or Recovery Console. Ideally I wanted to use RC to run chkdsk. I'm suspecting either a corrupt RAID or possible faulty hard drive(s). I've noticed that only the first LED flashes lots out of the 4 drives (running RAID5 + spare) The rest are mostly solid. I tried to test the memory to eliminate but test would have taken 6 hours so I’ve gone home now leaving it on the 'examining XXXXMB disk space' part. If it's still like that in the morning I would guess I’m going to have to rebuild the RAID and try and recover from backup. Has anyone got any advise/thoughts/suggestions? If I select the option to rebuild the RAID, what does this actually do by default? Does it format the drives or does it try and recover any bad stripes, etc. Thanks very much in advance for any help that can be offered.

Hi, I want to start making some new group policies for Windows 7. We have 1 Server 2008 R2 server but it's currently not a DC. It could be but ideally, I’d prefer to leave it as a member server and not do a schema upgrade (did this last year for to get to server 2008 level) From other posts I’ve read, it seems possible to manage it from a Windows 7 machine. What is the easiest way? Do I need to install GPMC tools or do I need to install Remote Server Tools?...do I have to export the ADM's? Thanks very much in advance for any help/advice.

Hi, As far as I am aware, you can't password protect a folder...only a file. You can probably do it with some third party software. Doing an audit trail on all the changes seems a bit over kill to me...I can't imagine many schools really doing that? We have a SEN folder where only SEN staff have access via normal folder permissions. Why do they need to enter their credentials again? If when they leave their desk they know to lock their computer, there should never be a problem. If there was, it would be down to the individual member of staff. Hope this is of some help.

Hi, Have you looked as these? Sophos website search Do you have a support contract with Sophos? If so, I would go straight to them as I have always found their support awesome. Hope this helps.

Hi, I'm sure there are some better but we have been using PortableApps.com - Portable software for USB drives for some time.You have to install the Toucan module. This was some time ago so things could have changed. We brought every member of staff a cheap memory stick, installed this software and on the stick provided a guide for how to encrypt/decrpt files to cover ourselves for Data Protection issues, etc. It's easy to use and best of all, it's free! Hope this helps.

Thanks 3S.... that was a good suggestion but tried it, still no joy. Craig, I think i've got the same problem as you. I'll try updating it directly without a proxy. if that fails, i'm turning it off for now. Cheers guys.

Hi, Thanks for the reply. No, it's not pointing to the old WSUS server and even does it when logged on locally pointing to a proxy without authentication or filtering with no GP's applied. Stupid thing...i'm going to install WSUS back on a 2003 box and go back to Server 2008 at a later date! Thanks for your help and advice.

Hi, Thanks for your reply. This is (or should I say was) our WSUS server. This was the only role of this server. It needed wiping and I thought why not upgrade to 2008. I'm pretty sure if I install WSUS, it will fetch the updates as it did this last time but it wouldn't update itself and why will it not connect to Windows Update direct? No policies are being applied...it really looks like a proxy issue but it's so odd that when I go through an unfiltered ADSL with no authentication it still doesn't work. Tried resetting IE defaults (good idea) but same error. Thanks for the suggestion again.

Hi all, I have a server which has been freshly installed with Server 2008 Standard. I was unable to connect to Windows Update, error code 80072f78. I have tried it both joined to the domain and standalone. It is not a DC. Tried downloading and installing SP2, still didn't work. Trawled through usual Microsoft suggestions of installing Windows Management Framework Core package, installed Framework 3.5. Tried setting the proxy using netsh winhttp command. Added every possible Microsoft Update site as in exception in both IE and the netsh settings. I even tried a different proxy server which is on an ADSL which has no filtering or authentication....still doesn't work! The only other thing I can think of is taking the server to our ADSL and plugging it in directly to the router to eliminate the proxy. I think I’m missing something that should be installed but I have Framework 3.5 and the latest version of BITS. What else is needed? The crazy thing is, this server was originally running Server 2003 and I upgarded to 2008 and had this exact problem. Not being able to fix it I thought a fresh install surely would resolve, I was wrong! Does anyone have any ideas whatsoever?....if not I’m getting the trolley jack or making up a 50 metre network cable, lol! Thanks very much in advance for any help that can be offered.

Thanks very much for your suggestion...i'll start from scatch and use the filter. I've just ordered a copy of 2008 R2 as having trouble with desktop redirection, even on a fresh policy. As 2008 R2 is designed for Windows 7.0 i'm hoping this will sort it as just can't understand why it's not working easily on 2008 standard. Thanks again.

Hi all, I'm having fun and games (not so much fun!) preparing for Windows 7.0. I'd been curious to know from people who have implemented if they made new GP's or just tinkered with their old ones? Any replies would be much appreciated. Gary

Yeah I think that was the one I was on about.

We got 17 Tosh A10's in the summer and I remember having a bit of trouble with the drivers. Something rings a bell that I needed to install some kind of Microsoft generic bus driver driver before installing the Toshiba Audio driver and only then would it work. Had the same problem with some Lenovo Think Pads. I've got it somwhere, if I can find it, i'll let you know the exact name.

Hi, What about using the restore cd on a different machine to downgrade from Windows 7.0 to XP then look in device manager to see what the device is and from there you should also be able to locate the driver or at least help you work out what the exact device is. Hope this helps.

brill!....cheers!

Thanks Spot, that was really handy! Gary

Hi, Thanks for your post. We are having trouble with Folder Redirection and I have just tried to change these settings but can't see them. Are they specific to Server 2008 R2? We are running Server 2008 Enterprise 32bit. All the new options for Folder Redirection are available, just can't see these settings? Thanks very much.