Busybub

Depending on the time interval between shutdowns, you may want to monitor what the users are doing and see if one of them has managed to gain access to Computer Management somehow (context menu of an icon on desktop?) If in CM, you can switch to another computer and bring up the property sheet, go to Advanced, then Startup and Recovery, and there is a shutdown button with various options in there including restart. Does exactly what it says on the tin... Otherwise, as Midget says, blaming Successmaker is easier!

Unfortunately with our bunch, once they find something to fiddle with they exploit it, and tell everybody else :x I'm half tempted to remap one of the keys to act like the back navigation button just to confuse them when they are surfing! :twisted:

Compared to you lot, I need to move out of the Dark Ages... running a Celeron 600 over here with a mere 128mb of PC100!!! Works adequately provided that the users are restricted to 256k speed limit in a class of 28max, otherwise at 512, this number of users simultaneously downloading videos will overload it. Sounds pretty bad but I've not had any complaints since dumping Packet Dynamics 2 years ago! Surprisingly, speed isn't actually that much different for users.

Someone who stands for no nonsense too !!! What ever is on our network is the administrators too.. For all we know they could have viruses or anything that could harm other peoples files or computers.. This is the point I'm trying to make... if its on the kids pen drive then it is NOT on our network (its on their removable media not the school PC or Network shares) What im not sure about is if we can legally delete data from pen drives that are not owned by the school. Until I can find out otherwise, our school assumes that its illegal to delete the data, therefore we takes steps to block pen drives and/or confiscate the drives. If it turns out that we can legally delete data from their drives then our policy will change likewise. I've often wondered about this and I'm in the same boat as you on this one. Unless somebody tells me otherwise I assume my right to delete stuff from their USBs is the same as my right to delete MP3s off their players or numbers from their phones. Stuff they store on the server is another matter...

One OU for each year group, contianed within an OU for each school (Primary, Juniors, Seniors), all contained in an OU for Students. OUs for Teachers, Admin Staff, and Administrators. Computers allocated to OUs by room. Groups created for each year group and one for all students Teachers are allocated to departments, those departments are listed under the Teachers group. Other admin groups as necessary. I don't create subject groups unless there has been a specific request to make resources available to a select bunch of students. User migration is a chore: Archive the data for the leaving students. Delete their accounts, move the next year into the OU and reset their profiles, etc. Add new users into the bottom class. There must be a way to script this but I'm not sure it is worth it for 180 students, your situation is very different. I've considered a naming convention based on year but it would be problematic to maintain this across the school as the younger kids struggle with their own names let alone year of birth etc!

Cheers Norphy That explains a lot, been using the widgets we use with our older Smartboard leads to try it out! *DOH* Looks like this is a goer despite getting a useless reply from RM which didn't answer my question at all!

I have considered barbed wire and connecting the keyboards to the mains but I'm told this is cruel and unusual punishment... The irony in all this is that our kids are probably no different from yours, but there is a special school down the road from us for kids who have been done for burglary, assault, arson, and robbery... and their kit is mint...

It is the performance I am predominantly interested in, as specified by Geoff. It's a matter of whether the difference over a conventional drive array is worth the trouble and expense. AJB, the suckers I'm referring to either use regular computer memory with battery backup or some derivative based on the same technology. The problem is that a 4gb mirror will cost upwards of 225 quid (400+ for 8gb)which is expensive (considering the limits for storage) unless it is noticably quicker.

We also have this problem. Although computers can log account details of who logs in and when, it doesn't help when the vandal doesn't actually use the computer, or has access via another account if one of his mates has given him his password. Seating plans taken at the time are far more effective in this regard as they tie down students to a particular location at a particular time but this is not a practical long term solution. There are still problems as you will still need some means of inspecting the machines on a regular basis, whether getting the next bunch of students to do it, or doing it yourself which is time consuming. This is problematic if the vandalism involves swapping keys on a keyboard which can be easily missed for days, or involves the appearance of scratches on hardware that already had marks - which they could feasibly deny they had anything to do with. CCTV is the only solution which produces foolproof results and cuts your monitoring to a minimum, though you would need sufficient coverage to enable you to see all the monitors, base units, and peripherals (preferably from more than one angle), and you would need to trawl through the evidence to find the culprit. We get this every year with new intake and they usually get bored of it after a few weeks, and we have got to the point where frankly we just don't bother kicking up a stink anymore since doing so only encourages them to carry on (since they then know it is annoying you and they have just got away with it), and the cost of policing the room is far more than it costs to replace a mouse, keyboard or monitor: In three years we have had to pay for 2 monitors not covered under warranty (£200), one keyboard (£7), and 8 mice (£5 each). Two thirds of our monitors shows signs of abuse (including full height vertical scratches), half of the keyboards have been scratched up or covered in pen marks, and every mouse has damaged buttons, but they all still work. I would love to have kids that respect the hardware and the fact that it is used by everybody else, but for us, the cost of actually identifying the vandal with 100% certainty is too high to be practical (we can't afford another CCTV system).

Used to use Bloxx (when they were Packet Dynamics) and they charged us 4700 a year for a service that had less funtionality than the Censornet (which uses Dansguardian) stuff we now use that cost us nothing! The cost of the physical device itself was also seriously steep for what amounted to a Gigabyte motherboard with low end AMD processor and two 80gb HDs.

Anybody have any experience with these? I am considering rebuilding one of our servers using a pair of solid state laptop drives, and possibly introducing one as a swap drive on another. Other than the obvious issues regarding the connections, I was wondering if anybody had any other comments on general reliability and performance. Is it worth doing?

Are browser connection settings being applied properly from the server?

That did cross my mind, assuming that the keyboard itself can actually operate through a USB adaptor. I have a few here which simply refuse to do anything through USB... Should get confirmation from RM soonish. Thanks for the suggestions, keep them coming!

Does anybody have any suggestions for a keyboard with lower case letters, different colour keys for letter numbers and primary keys such as enter,shift and space? I've seen an RM jobbie which is cheap but only comes on PS/2 I have investigated getting keycaps custom manufactured to spec but I am looking at over 100 bucks each for 25 sets, going down to 75 for over 100 sets. I am looking at dedicated units rather than stick-on labels. Any thoughts?

I can understand not wanting to unnecessarily bog down computers with more programs, but AB Tutor client is a relatively light load for a client computer considering what it is capable of. It is also easily installed from the monitoring computer. Best bit about it is that once you apply a lock on the students they cannot get around it even by restarting the computers. If this doesn't get their full attention I don't know what will!

I use an additional group policy which has outlook.exe disabled. I just add the users or groups to the permissions of that policy. Can you give any more details on this full mailbox journaling? Sounds interesting...

Just had another look and seems it operates on HKEY_current user. I remember struggling to change the setting for something else on this key (worked for me, not for them), so I would be interested to know if you have any luck. Otherwise, if that doesn't work, the other way would be to create a new local user and set up the interface as required, then copy that user profile to the default user folder in documents and settings. Delete all existing user profiles, and when they next log in they will pick up the new default setting.

This wot you're looking for?: http://www.theeldergeek.com/force_use_of_classic_start_menu.htm

Result! Sadly, even though this fixes it, I've had it happen enough times that I really want to know why it happens when I've done nothing to change it! *grrrr*

Been having the same problem here. Try this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555382 I managed to re-establish connection though I have no idea what it will do to my VPN connectivity which runs using the second NIC!

I've been thinking that this might be the way to go, if somebody knows of such a solution???

In the property sheet of the user account there is an Exchange tab that gives you another option called delivery restrictions. You can specify "From everybody except"... Problem is that you would be there for ages putting in the relevant entries. If somebody knows a better way, I'm all ears as I have a similar problem. *grrrrrr*

We use RAID5 and RAID1 on different servers. Try to use 5 if the hardware allows, but some of our stuff only does RAID1. Tried software once but the speed difference is noticably slower. Wouldn't bother again considering you can get a decent PCI based RAID5/1 card for 45 quid, or a cheap RAID1 only for less than a tenner.

I increasingly find myself looking for Samsung drives whenever we need additional ones. They are reasonably cheap compared to others and run very quietly if my system is anything to go by (I run mine with the main case wide open). Got six in one of our servers and has been running without a problem. Only drive manufacturer we have that hasn't had a failure yet.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816042/ Set up your PDC as an authoritative time server using it's own internal clock and have the workstations synchronize with it.