sniffingmoose

Thanks for your replies everyone, it all sounds a hassle to me. The management say "why do we have to pay £35 every 3 years when we pay large annual licensing costs for facility & Eportal" So for a quiet life I will just create an exception on every teachers PC. Only 18 PCs to do!

The school is We are still running CMIS with Eportal. Started getting Certificate Errors when starting Eportal. I had to add an exception on all the Teachers PCs as a workaround. Hoping that there was a permanent fix I logged a call with Advanced Learning. 2 weeks later I got this reply:- Summary: Security Cerfifacate error Close Reason: Help & Advice Case Closure Comments: Hi Chris The reason you get this error message is to do with the signed algorithm in the IIS server certificate being SHA1 in which all major browsers have depreciated. Chrome where the first to have done this and IE discontinued that SHA1 algorithm recently. You will need to speak to your supplier of Domain/IIS certificates to give you an updated IIS certificate." I am non the wiser, who is a supplier of Domain/IIS certificates ? Any thoughts

How about using Clonezilla. Its Free and simple. I dont use WDS myself. WDS looks to complicated for a simple bloke like me.

Thanks for the info. That does give us a bit of control. I guess If I turn that off I can then provision staff manually. Not sure if I can them delete the cleaners and dinner ladies email addresses. May be I will log a call with LinktoIct and ask.

We don't like it all. You have no control over it. When we were migrated over from Zimbra to BGFL365 there was no choice, no negotiation everyone on the MIS has to have an email address. We do not need the J2E resources either and we don't need the cloud storage. Users do not like to click through all those pages just to get your email. So we are stuck with email addresses for all the cleaners, dinner ladies, all the pupils and anyone on the staff database. So we are looking to migrate away to a host that provides a email system just for the staff who need email.

Definitely noticed slow internet since coming back after the summer break. Supposed to be 100mb. Thought it was our network at first. Maybe its too much video streaming, BBC Iplayer, Youtube and Netflix.

I solved the problem by leaving the Domain and then rejoined the domain. On reboot after rejoining the domain computer said please wait for 15 minutes before the login screen appeared. The user can now logon OK. What happened between the server and the workstation under the hood to cause this I don't know.

I've just set up a new user account for a new teacher, however she is unable to log in on her workstation only -- the account logs on and immediately logs back off. The users desktop does not get a chance to appear. However, the account works on any other PC so I suspect there is a problem with the local workstation. Additionally, any other staff account appears to be capable of logging into that PC just fine. We are using roaming profiles, Windows 7 workstations and Server 2012. Never had this strange one before. Anyone else had this problem?

I have fixed it. It was a faulty TV tuner card installed in the PC that was causing the computer to reboot instead of shutdown.

The PC has been running for 4 months OK since I installed a new Solid state drive and re imaged. The problem has been happening for a week. No error messages after startup. PC works fine. Its a Stone tower PC.

I have never run WSUS and I let each of the 150 PCs automatic update themselves. I also do each server out of ours from home on remote so they don't need a reboot during working hours. So yes I am sure you don't have to set up WSUS. The company who set up the servers say they don't recommend WSUS as they are all DC's However I dont know how you are expected manage it all on 2 hours per week though.

Windows 7 pro 32bit. Well I have seen it all now as regards strange errors. Click on shutdown and the system reboots. Tried the DOS command shutdown -s and it still reboots. Press the power button at the front of the PC, when you think its off but hey no up it comes back on line. I have the computer that never wants to go to bed! Has anyone encountered this strange one?

E Portal did not work after the update. We lost the navigation bar on the homepage after the update so teachers cannot do the roll call. However I found it works fine on the Safari browser. I am waiting a fix from Advanced Learning. has anyone else had this problem?

I have just updated to 16.1 successfully WITHOUT renaming the folder. I have let the install overwrite the files as per the old LINK TO ICT Instructions. Glad that went OK!

Just trying to do the Facility 16.1 update and as you all said, the instructions from Advance Learning are to rename the E:\Facility\Admin folder, however if I do that it will break ADSUM for dinners as its folder is in the admin folder. I called Link to ICT asking, should I follow the old Link to ICT instructions? Reply was that we cant officially say to follow them but she said the update installation has caused a lot of issues in Birmingham schools because I presume it has broken Adsum for Dinners and Adsum for Trips. Nightmare! What have other schools done?

I now have access to the downloads so i will be doing the update tomorrow.

I have not done the facility update, I have yet to gain access to the install files and the installation notes. I am awaiting Advance learning to give me access. After getting no response from my email, I phoned the Advanced learning support line today, it took 25 minutes before support answered. Come back Link to ICT!

The get Windows 10 icon has just appeared in the system tray on School PCs. So now Microsoft are inflicting this on Domain connected PCs - not good. Microsoft just want to make our lives more stressful be inflicting this icon. The last thing I need is children clicking on it and starting a Windows 10 install. It looks like it came with last months (March 2016) Windows updates. So now I need to uninstall KB3035583 on all our 160 PC's! to stop this! How dare Microsoft do this. So Microsoft think its OK for Domain users to upgrade their Domain PCs themselves at work schools, doctors surgeries etc etc, what on earth is Microsoft thinking when they inflict this on organisations.

I use EMCO remote shutdown, I find it very good. Not too expensive. I use it to shutdown PCs at different times depending on which rooms they are in or who usually uses them. Remote Shutdown - Automatic Shutdown and WOL Software UK distributor is QBS Software Ltd

Well I never thought of that, its only me having a panic attack when I saw those instructions and 10CDs! Thanks I will try it.

Just had 10 Scholastic CD's dumped by a Senior Leadership Team Teacher on my desk with a note saying please install these on the network. Trouble is here is the installation instructions:- Network and custom installations: If your network administrator or technician wants to customize the installation to maintain a single location for the downloaded content then you can do this manually by editing an XML file as follows: Install the program on the first client. The next steps are to be taken after installation but before running the program. In the location where the program executable/application was installed there is a folder called 'userconfig'. Inside there is a file called 'userconfig.xml'. Using a text or XML editor, enter an absolute path in the element of the userconfig.xml file. It should point to a shared location on the network that all clients can access. See the below XML example which should be modified to your own network path. Next run the program. Content will now be downloaded into the specified network path where all clients can access it. Next install the program on another computer and change the in user config on this computer too. Use the same path on each computer!!!!! (Oh my God 135 x 10 times) so all point to the same place!!!!! (Oh my God) Finally run the program on each client. (what?) The program will use the amended path to find the existing content on the network as downloaded by the first client computer. A variation on this would be to install on all computers, changing the on each and then finally run it on one computer which will download all the content. Subsequently running it on the other computers will find the existing content. SESCD/Comprehension/userSettings SESCD/Comprehension/userSettings/ActivityList /SESCD/Comprehension/ //YOUR_SERVER/DesiredFolder/SubFolderIfDesired/SES/ So it looks I will have to do this on every PC in the School x 10!! No chance. We have 135pc's Which bozo designed this rubbish. Great for one standalone PC but Don't they realize schools have networks. Anyone labored to install this.

There are so many reasons a PC can run slow such as big roving profile causing slow logins. Malware or bloat ware running in the background, look what runs on start up. It can take a lot of detective work, you can start with looking in task manager to see what is sapping the computers resources. I did this when I found brand new clean installation of windows 7 was running slow recently. On the new Windows 7 installation, Windows update just got stuck on checking for updates for hours and in addition the PC was running as slow as an old dog. I found an instance of Svhost.exe was using 99% of the CPU. Trouble is I did not know which DLL this instance of SVhost referred to. There can be multiple instances of svchost.exe running on your computer, with each instance containing different services. One instance of svchost.exe might host a single service for a program, and another instance might host several services related to Windows. You can use Process Explorer to view which services are running under each instance of svchost.exe. After more detective work I found that every new installation of Windows 7 will need a new version of that Windows Update Agent because the update list has got so big. Downloaded and installed the March 2016 version of Windows Update Agent from Microsoft and the system ran fast plus there were 250 new updates were waiting to install. So sorry no quick fixes I am afraid, it can be hours of detective work to sort out what's causing your problem. https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/949104

Thanks for the info. Trouble is users do not want to transfer these themselves, its another hassle in a busy day from their point of view. I think I may have to login to all 60 accounts and do it for them!

LinktoICT are closing our email (Zimbra) from April 1st and imposing BGFL Office 365 instead. I am with academic staff on this one, neither I nor the staff want it. We just want a simple school email system for the 60 accounts we have. We have already purchased office and do not need another Microsoft Office system and the stress of the migration. We are told that each user has to migrate their own address book and calendars ourselves to the new system! Not sure what will happen to our existing emails after the migration, I have yet to find an answer. Anyone recommend a school a school email provider.

Can you start any of the services manually?