Busybub

I would make sure that you have 2 Domain Controllers running. If you only have one and it falls over, everybody is going to be twiddling thumbs... What are you doing about backups? If I were starting from scratch I would dump every tape device and go with removable hard drives, preferably encrypted ones you can take offsite.

Try it all on one line: Shutdown -s -m \\PCName -t 100 | Shutdown -s -m \\PCName -t 100 | etc I have this working in a room of 30 and it shuts them all down at the same time, doesn't make any difference if some of them are already off.

Makes me wonder... came in this morning and somebody had a problem which I traced to the USB drive being plugged in at boot up. Worked fine once it was removed...

Thanks for the suggestion. Already tried it and it doesn't work. Never gives me the option to create the swap file anywhere other than the users home folder and always asks for memory allocation. Think I might be out of luck on this one unless someone reprograms it for the next release!

Have you tried leaving the Users OU bit blank? Should catch every user on the system.

Had exactly this problem ages ago... You need to enable access to Control Panel for rundll to work. You can hide all but one of the options in there by using another Group Policy to lock down .cpl files. Desk.cpl can be left, as the desktop options can be locked down elsewhere.

Just downloaded this and started having a look at it with a view to rolling it out in a new image. Does anybody know of any way to automate the user setup bit so that the swap files are automatically assigned to the users home directory, and memory allocated according to the name of the computer? Thanks

Spybot and Spyware Blaster. Had them for the last couple of years. No problems

Jet, you might want to check with your supplier and enquire why it is not available to you. It's possible that something was missed out when they were finishing up their paperwork.

Some odd goings on over here... Got a "error formatting drive", then tried it again and seems to be working fine again... bizarre. I think if this one gives me any more grief he's heading for the bin!

Found some more info on these things. Apparently the Super Talent laptop jobbies are slow as you like so thery're out of the running, and the Gigabyte one which uses conventional memory chips only works with certain chipsets, so I'm out of luck. Looks like it will be bog standard RAID stuff...

Taken about 50mins to format 89% of a 160gig drive.... *snore* If this doesn't work out I'll try MBR tomorrow. Gdisk? Eh?

Very odd stuff happening. Chucked it in another computer to see if i could format it as a second drive. Could see it in device manager but not disk management. Tried going into recovery console and couldn't access it. Then downloaded Maxtor MaxBlast and tried formatting it using that. Got an error say the HD could not be accessed. Rebooted. Everything runs REALLY slowly It shows up in disk management. Just deleted the partition and started another format... it's taking forever and the drive is running really hot! Hmmmmmm.....

Cable OK, tried another HD which works fine. Definitely this HD which has thrown a wobbly, was working before I tried the reinstall and seemed to crash out in the middle... No jumper settings changed. Weeeeeeeird!

Just what I need this week! Got a HD that shows up in BIOS but when trying to install Linux or XP from CD it says it cannot access it. Blue screens when you select anything. Not seen this before, any thoughts? Or do I have another doorstop?

If I was buying for myself I would go for a Herman Miller Aeron. They're not cheap, but by far the most comfortable chair this backside has been on! Configurable backrest, pitch, lumbar support, arm rests, etc Could get one on *bay for 200-300 quid.

Geoff, don't suppose you have links to a more idiot-proof guide? That one is way over my head at the moment, literally only just started on all this! From what I understand, Postfix would route the mail between our Exchange box and external router, whilst MailScanner deals with attachments(?) and SpamAssassin would deal with the actual filtering. Presumably for outbound as well as inbound. Would that be correct? Cyber, I may look into Zimbra in the future but I think this wouldn't be practical for us at the moment. SLT would hang me over all the disruption! Perhaps one day when I actually know what I'm doing with this stuff!

Thanks DJM, have downloaded a copy and will have a stab at it early next week, I'm getting heat from everybody right now *argh* From what I can see it will do anti spam stuff for incoming, but what about scanning outgoing stuff? Can't see any references to this, and this is the bulk of the problem at the moment.

I am currently looking into getting some filtering for our email and looking at what options are available (have posted another thread in the *nix forum). Does anybody know of any software based stuff which runs on Exchange 2003 which scans email for keywords, phrases, and attachments of incoming and outgoing traffic? Budget is limited to a one-time spend. Anything that requires license renewal is going to be a hard sell to SLT (unless it is cheap for 200 users). Cheers!

We are currently running MS Exchange 2003, and I have been asked to investigate implementing some sort of filtering system which can scan incoming and outgoing email for nasties (inc keywords, phrases, attachments, etc). Budget is limited to a one-time expense which should cover hardware. Any recommendations for a system that will work with Exchange? I see a lot of references to anti-spam stuff but that is less of an issue for us at present. Other than Censornet we don't currently run any other open source devices so assume I know nothing about Linux! (Not far from the truth, I have just started looking at Ubuntu) Cheers!

Might be a bit late but you may get additional AD problems if you install a DC using an existing name without cleanly demoting the existing one. From experience I would demote the troublesome server (after transferring roles) before doing anything else! If you don't cleanly demote the DC, any new DC using the same name will have a new GUID allocated. You will get replication errors everywhere as your online DCs attempt replication with a server that doesn't actually exist. If you are lucky you will be able to get rid of the rogue entry by doing a metadata cleanup in ntdsutil. If you are unlucky you will be stuck with it forever. Using a known good backup may not help if it is more than a few days old. The last time I tried it with a 3 day old backup, the server had changed its GUID... *argh* ... and the restored DC appeared as a different computer.

Should also add that we got the regular Ultimate upgrade as well as an x64 one.

ultimate? I didn't think that was available under any volume license? I didn't think so either until I saw it as an option under Software Assurance Benefits which you have to opt-in for!

Thanks for the heads up on the proof of purchase requirement. Something to remember for future purchases. Despite this headache, I don't think I will abandon Lite-On since DVD drives these days are much of a muchness and Lite-On ones are about the easiest ones to make region -free. A lot of the Sony ones are rebadged Lite-Ons anyway, so by avoiding them, you may actually end up with one anyway!

We were only sent upgrades too - Business, Enterprise and Ultimate. If you are under the Schools Agreement you should be able to access licensing.microsoft.com using the information supplied with each renewal. This will allow you download a full bootable version of Vista Business or Vista Enterprise which you can burn to a DVD. No sign of Vista Ultimate though.