srochford

VBS would be: set oShell=createobject("wscript.shell") sCmd="C:\Games\Starcraft.exe" oShell.run,,true 'true forces it to wait for process to finish Set OpSystems = GetObject("winmgmts:{(Shutdown)}//./root/cimv2").ExecQuery("select * from Win32_OperatingSystem where Primary=true") for each OpSys in OpSystems OpSys.Win32Shutdown 0 next the WMI stuff to log off is a bit of overkill - you could just do: sCmd="shutdown /l" oShell.run sCmd you then run this with "wscript " (you want wscript otherwise a cscript window will lurk in the background)

Not sure I understand the question. The scripts I've shown won't change anything - they'll simply show you what's there. If you have the extremely long filename then that's what you'll see reported. It's then up to you to decide what to do with it. It's possible for users to create files where the total length of the path on the physical drive plus the filename is too long for explorer etc to cope with but the user sees it with no problem because they start lower down the tree. Once you've found such a long file you can deal with it by just mapping a drive to the lower level folder; explorer will then let you rename the file (if that's what you want to do)

Close Outlook, delete the OST file - there's nothing in it you need. When Outlook starts it will just re-create the OST file (OST files allow you to run Outlook in off-line mode; they do sometimes get messed up but as they're just a cache of what's on the server there's no harm in deleting them although don't do this if the only way to re-cache is over a dial up modem!)

The Sony site has a link for the SATA drivers and if you download them they're just the standard Intel SATA drivers. Do you have (eg) a USB floppy drive you can put them on for the F6 bit? This might be quicker than the nLite process (although if you're going to do this more than once it's worth building the CD with all the drivers on!) If you can't get the Sony drivers to work then google for f6flpy32.zip - this should get you to the download you need on the Intel site (it downloads an EXE which will then expand on to a floppy disc and give the appropriate drivers)

Everything's possible :-) The "execquery" line is using WQL (WMI Query Language; recursive acronyms are great!) and you can add more bits to it. ("select * from CIM_Datafile where drive='C:' and path='\\temp\\'") will search c:\temp - note the doubled backslashes You can also search for particular kinds of file - eg ("select * from CIM_Datafile where drive='C:' and path='\\temp\\' and extension='mp3'") would search for MP3s under c:\temp and this would search for mp3 and avi in c:\home\year9: ("select * from CIM_Datafile where drive='C:' and path='\\home\\year9\\' and (extension='mp3' or extension='avi')") watch out for brackets and single and double quotes!

Sorry; that's normally what causes the problem but you can test for the filename length (rather than full path) by checking the length of "filename" rather than "name" - code below. The echo statement shows the full path - you might need to know where the problem file is :-) sComputer="." Set oWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & sComputer & "\root\cimv2") set colItems = oWMIService.ExecQuery("select * from CIM_Datafile where drive='C:'") for each item in ColItems if len(item.filename)>6 then wscript.echo item.name, item.FileName end if next

There's a program called scanpst - details here - which can be used to fix PST problems and it might be worth trying that in case the message is wrong. the other thing to do is to see if the PST is being held open by another process. Download process explorer and run it; search for the PST file (or just "PST") and you'll see which process is holding open the file

Not sure that this gives you a reason. I could well see the next government scrapping BSF but keeping the idea of "managed service providers" As most people seem to feel, the driving force is saving money. If you can save money on the IT and save money by not building new schools, what's to lose? (and yes, that is a rhetorical question!)

£55k sounds like an awful lot of money to replace 5 servers; given you say that one of those is only the radius server it's effectively only 4 boxes that need to cost any real money. I'm guessing you're including rather more than 4 servers in the bid you're making so what else is the money going on? It certainly makes sense to replace any server over 3-4 years old (basically, anything which is out of warranty) and I would hope that you can make that point to management. Can you get a quote to just replace the servers? That's likely to be a more reasonable sum of money which the school might be able to afford? Can you phase in the replacements? Not sure when your financial year ends but can you spread it over 2 years? Ideally, if you have a 4 year replacement programme then you want to spread the money so that it's in roughly equal amounts each year - that makes it much easier for the finance people to manage.

The script below searches the C: drive on the local computer for files and reports those where the full path is longer than 60 characters - adjust the "C:" and "60" as appropriate. You can run this against a remote computer - just put its name in place of the "." but it would be quicker running it on the server. If you're having problems backing up long files then there are two possible reasons for this; the software is c*&p or the user running the backup process does not have "backup privilege" (Problems with long file names are typically because the server stores something as d:\home folders\year9\student\maths but the user sees that as n:\maths; amongst other things, backup privilege bypasses the length restrictions. If you're using robocopy to run the backup then use it with the /b switch to fix the problem) sComputer="." Set oWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & sComputer & "\root\cimv2") set colItems = oWMIService.ExecQuery("select * from CIM_Datafile where drive='C:'") for each item in ColItems if len(item.name)>60 then wscript.echo item.name end if next

You seem to have got several scripts mixed up. the first chunk should work just fine although your dateadd is the wrong way round ("old" dates are smaller numbers) The message box popping up is probably because you're running this with wscript instead of cscript - either type "cscript nameofscript.vbs" or change to use cscript as default (cscript //h:cscript) Dim oFSO, oFolder, oFiles, oFile Set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Set oFolder = oFSO.GetFolder("c:\share48\test") Set oFiles = oFolder.Files for each oFile in oFiles if oFile.DateLastModified < DateAdd("d", -2, Now()) then oFile.Delete True end if next

Padlocks will give you more security than cable ties (might not be necessary - depends on how enterprising your kids are!) Hills components do a variety of padlocks - eg these are about £2 each and are keyed alike (so you don't have to worry about hundreds of keys!)

Could the account you're using to do this have been removed from local admins on the remote machine? Could the machine have lost its AD account? If you go to the machine can you log on locally and shut it down? Anything in event log? Is this just a one-off or is it all the time? (If the server service stopped for some reason you wouldn't be able to make an RPC connection but it ought to just start at the next reboot)

It's worth talking to Brightcode - they have a lot of experience in working with websites for education (and business and charities - the Keep Your Eye on the Ball website was produced by them.)

That makes sense but I think the OP wants a single website which can be accessed from anywhere but, if it's accessed from inside school doesn't prompt for authentication. I think you can add to the allow/deny stuff so that it starts like the one above but then has a section to specify which users/passwords are allowed. The process exits as soon as it finds something which matches so if it's internal there'll be no password prompt but if it's external then it does prompt. I'd guess the other way would be to have 2 servers; one internal with no authentication and the other "external" and using authentication. Make the external one mirror the internal so that they stay in sync. This would work but obviously adds the cost of another Windows license (unless you do it as VMs!)

I think it might be 304.8m - historically, the reels were 1000 feet so I reckon that it will still be that long. Not sure how much the odd 20cm matters (and no sniggering at the back!)

We use twitter - Imperial College We're also on iTunes (just one example!) and YouTube

I agree; I'm just asking questions in the pursuit of knowledge :-) Sometimes, I think it's good for users to see the shield - if they're running Windows at home then they ought to see it and deal with it so seeing the same stuff at work shouldn't be off putting. Sadly, I know that it's not always that easy ...

Can you put the image you're using on a Stone computer on another machine and see what happens? Might need to add some drivers but the IE thing should show itself in the same way (or not!). If it does, then you know it's the image, not the hardware. Check the network drivers - GP needs good networking and flakiness there could cause problems. What do you get if you run gpresult /v > gp.txt (open the gp.txt file in notepad; it will tell you what GPOs have been applied and what they did) - can you seen anything wrong? Are there any messages in the event logs? The commonest is 1202 and there's a whole raft of stuff on the MS web site about how to deal with them - start here. You can also turn on userenv debug logging - details here - to put more info in userenv.log (remember to turn this off when you've finished with it; the extra logging will slow down the logon process)

I wouldn't say it's common; I've only had it happen once and it was a real nightmare (in the end I think we just bought a new UPS and kept the spare battery to use in the next one which needed it.) If you have several UPS which are the same it's no big deal to have a spare battery. If you've only got one then buying a battery and finding you can't fit it is a pain and a waste of money!

The "shaky thing" does it the other way round - it keeps your current window open and moves everything else out of the way. I'd guess that's useful if you want to see the stuff on the desktop and keep open the current app. I'm sure some people will find it useful just like I'm sure some people find the way of switching between active apps in Vista to be useful. Do you really think people don't know how to use the minimise/restore/maximise/close gadgets?? They've been there since the very earliest Windows apps

Does it matter? if the shield icon is there and someone clicks it then they can install the updates but they're only going to get the updates that you've allowed - they can't start installing random packages!

Wireshark will do but it's probably overkill. ISA server should be generating logs - you can just do a query against the logs; one of the columns is bytes transferred and you can just get a total per second, minute, hour whatever. You could also use performance monitor on the VLE server and capture the data about network traffic.

The only problem with changing the battery is that they can swell. If this has happened, it may be impossible to get the old battery out. What I would do is arrange some time where you can shut down the server then unplug the UPS and try to remove the battery. If it comes out easily then replace it, if not then get a whole new UPS. One other thing - not sure what size UPS you've got but if it's the APC 2200 then the battery is heavy (it's made of lead!) so you might want someone to help if you've got to move it and you'll definitely need someone to help fit the new one.

Not sure if you're mixing up a few things here. When you create a group policy object you have to link it to somewhere in your active directory. That can be an OU which includes computers or an OU which includes people or an OU which includes both. If your GPO is only going to make changes in the "computer" section then it makes sense to link it at a level where you only have computers but it does no harm if you link it right at the top of the domain (you might want to apply automatic updates to everything, for example) The other thing you can do with GPOs is say that they are targeted at a specific security group - "authenticated users" is a security group which includes every security object which has got a valid password etc. This includes users (ie people!) and computers and this is the group which is normally present on GPOs Sometimes you want to apply your GPO to computers which are scattered throughout AD; it seems like a good idea to link it to the top of your domain but actually you don't want this particular GPO processing by domain controllers or other servers. Updates would be a good example of this - you probably want all your workstations updating as soon as possible but servers only get done at 1600 on a Friday etc. One way of doing this is having an "all computers" OU near the top and all the other computers go under this but the other way is to put every computer except servers into an Auto_update_computers group and then instead of targeting "authenticated users" for the GPO you remove that group and add your auto_update_computers group.