talksr

Ohh interesting, thank you, interesting, will give this some consideration.

Hello everyone, I’d be really grateful to hear if anyone else is fighting this same battle. I'm currently trying to move staff away from using the local OneDrive desktop app on our shared Windows 11 PCs. While it’s fine for staff with dedicated machines, it's just not feasible for hot-desks and shared classroom PCs. Every time a user logs in, the computer attempts to sync their OneDrive, along with all their linked SharePoint document libraries. I do already have the Files on Demand policy enabled so it doesn’t download the actual files, but syncing all that metadata still takes a very long time. Because of our large SharePoint shares, this sync can take hours, and in the meantime, staff moan that their files are missing, whereas if they used Onedrive online, everything would be instantly available and synced. My push has been to get staff to simply access OneDrive via the browser and edit/create documents using the web apps. However, the constant pushback I get is about printing and formatting. They complain that when they print from Word / PowerPoint Online, the formatting is always off. Documents perfectly sized for one A4 sheet on Word application end up spilling onto two, meaning worksheets for the kids end up all skewwhiff and unusable. I’ve opened exhaustive support cases with Microsoft about the web app formatting issues, but we haven't reached a resolution. My current advice to staff is to create the documents from scratch in Word Online so the formatting stays consistent, but as you can imagine, that isn't a popular answer. I really don't want to keep the local OneDrive app on our shared systems. It's a massive drain on resources and just doesn't scale well when staff have massive SharePoint libraries linked to their accounts. My questions for you all are: How are you handling OneDrive on shared/public systems? Have you managed to successfully ditch the local sync app? Has anyone found a reliable fix for the browser formatting/printing issues? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you, I have just emailed them 🙂

Due to the spiralling costs of VMware and a lack of capital funds to replace some of our older servers with hardware that can support the latest versions of Windows Server for Hyper-V, I have switched our stack to Proxmox. It’s been fantastic so far, but I’m currently running on the No-Subscription repository. Does anyone have a recommendation for UK-based resellers who can provide Proxmox Support Subscriptions? I usually use Highgate for our procurement, but they don’t appear to offer them. I need a reseller that can handle UK purchase orders to get us onto the Enterprise repository. Thanks in advance!

I already pre-ordered. Got BF6 too but i'm struggling with it as so used to CoD! I need more time to get used to it I think!

Thank you both. OBS seems to be good, I have just had to make a few changes to the cavas to accomodate for the two windows. I also had to click "Start Recording" as opposed to "Start Streaming" to get it to record to the desktop rather than Youtube/Twitch etc. I should think by the end of the day I will be ready to become a Youtube streamer at this rate! 😁 Good timing considering the release of BlackOps7 today! Thank you for your help!

Good morning, I would be really grateful if anyone has any good recommendations. Generally, I use Windows Snip (I think it is called) by invoking it with Ctrl+Shift+S and selecting screen record, then dragging to select the entire screen as the recording area. This works really well, however, we have some systems that rather than having one large screen, have two screens. The two screens are not daisy chained so each have their own DP cable out from the PC to each respective monitor. This causes an issue as when running Windows Snip, it will only let you record one or the other screen. There doesn’t seem to be a way around this from what I have seen online so I would be very grateful for any suggestions you may have. We need this to record some training we are doing. It’s really useful to record both what we are doing but also the instructions at the same time and you just can’t fit it all on one screen! Thanks in advance. ☺️

We use a mix of Dell and Lenovo. The Dell we use is similar to what you have already....a monitor attached to a Dell stand with a PC on the back. Only issue with these is someone thought it would be fun to remove the screw that holds the monitor to the stand.If someone moved the height adjustable part of the monitor up, it would fall off of the stand and almost hit them in the face. The screws are thumb screws which isn't ideal as easily taken, but these can be changed. My all in one of choice is the Lenovo Tiny-in-one and accompanying Thinkstation PC. I always over buy on the PCs and have a small number sat in the cupboard fully preped and cloud-joined. If there is a harware faliure, I simply slide out the faulty Thinkstation and stick another straight in from my cupboard. Minimum downtime and disruption for the end user, I am able to take the faulty unit away for it to be worked on (again minimum disruption for end user). There are no fiddly cables or screws, it is nice and simple to remove a PC and replace it. In all the years we've had them, we have had a handful of faliures and one Tiny-in-one monitor faily, but the issues have always been out of warranty when they are +5 years old which is to be expected tbh. Hope that helps ☺️

Hi everyone, I'm keen to get some insights on how others in the school sector are handling the gradual move away from on-prem infrastructure, particularly for core services like DHCP and DNS. With budget cuts and the shift to cloud services, maintaining aging local servers is becoming a real challenge. I have a perfect example of this at one of my sites: an HP ProLiant DL320e Gen8 V2 server. It's well past its warranty coverage period, hasn't been rebooted since 2023, and the last time it was, we had a RAID array failure. It's now in a state where I'm genuinely afraid to power it down😭 This server is currently handling DHCP and DNS for the administrative network (for office staff, medical, SLT, etc.). While it's still running on Windows Server 2016, which gives us some breathing room, the hardware itself is a ticking time bomb. I'm finding that our reliance on Active Directory is decreasing as we move more services to the cloud. This got me thinking about the future of these core network services. Are you still running dedicated on-prem servers for DHCP and DNS? What are your strategies for replacing or migrating these services? Are you looking at more modern on-prem solutions (e.g., virtualised servers, micro-appliances) or are you moving these functions to the cloud? Any advice or shared experiences on this would be hugely appreciated!

Thanks very much. It was discontiuned but this is the newer version if anyone else needs something like this. I am going to get one ordered now. Thanks again https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00BUKO4WY?th=1

Hi all, I would be really grateful if anyone can link me something suitable.... We have a few old VGA projectors. All of the new laptops don't come with VGA and whilst you can get an HDMI to VGA adapter, what I am after is one with an audio passthrough as we find that often, the laptop decides to play the audio through the HDMI but when it is using something like this ....the audio goes nowhere. In the back of my cupboard, I found one of these. Although it is not really designed with my current use case in mind, it works perfectly but sadly, they are no longer sold and I can only find a few on Ebay. Can anyone recommend something suitable? Image for reference...

Thank you everyone. I really appreciate your suggestions. I had a trial with a few members of staff and so far, they quite like the Ezwrite one from Benq. I just need to alter the Google permissions slightly as it is getting blocked. Thanks again, your suggestions have all been really helpful. 🫡

Same here, this has worked really well. I have only ever had issues with the head’s computer for some reason - would be the head’s. When DELL does some firmware updates, it seems to trick the system into thinking it has been tampered with and it requires the Bitlocker key to boot. I have permanently left the key with the head, it is kept in the safe so if I am not around, they can still get on. Other than this, it has worked really well and means we don’t have to worry if staff take systems outside of the building.

Hi guys, I would be really grateful if anyone could name drop anything suitable. We are looking for something web based for year 1 pupils to use to draw. Something like Paint but for Chromebooks but we need it to be really easy for pupils to save their creation so teachers can view it as we need to be able to evidence what they have done. Using Docs is going to be a little too complicated due to having to go through the menus. Ideally, we need it to be free, but we could also look at subscription packages if anyone can recommend anything good. Thanks in advance.

Thanks everyone for your responses! It would seem this is a bodge of a job. I am assuming that the engineers who fitted this must have not had the correct cable, so just bodged it together, using snake oil for the lubrication. I did try coat hanger wire as someone suggested, but the feedback was too much. It reminded me of when I used some extra thick Sainsburys foil stuffed into the power plug when the fuse blew. Lots of sparks but no action, which was a disappointment. Jokes aside, I have ordered one from Amazon (thank you for the help and links). I appreciate some think maybe the quality isn’t that good, but this isn’t anything spectacular. Just a school hall, so used for the odd YouTube video, nothing high-end. If the cable gets damaged again, at least from Amazon, it won’t cost the earth, unlike that snake oil stuff 😆

Hi everyone, Can anyone tell me what the name of this cable is? It has a headphone jack on the other end which goes into the PC for a hall projector system. It seems to be RCA to headphone, but it is almost a double RCA as the left is joined to the right. We need a replacement as the headphone jack end has been pulled out of the plug and is totally desoldered and messed up. Thanks in advance...

It seems to have done the trick, just cannot believe it has been all of this time and just by chance I made a post to try and help someone else. Canon should be ashamed of themselves. Such poor service.

Thank you, it worked but just makes me even more furious that Canon took over 12 months and STILL we were no further forward. Yet another example of why we will be moving away from Canon and their awful support.

We always swore by Canon but support has really gone downhill. Initial support now seems to be farmed out to India. If you get an engineer out to site, they are fantastic.

One of the sites I work at couldn't afford management software so, ahving Canon iR-ADV C5540 II devices, we just added them direct to Google Workspace Admin as CUPS printers. So Admin>Devices>Chrome>Printers. This works well unmanaged but unfortunately, when users print from a Chromebook, it prints in letter which keeps causing the copiers to stop printing until a user intervenes and allows the jobs to continue. I have raised this with Cannon Support twice as well as logging a formal complaint about Canon's handling of support tickets and still 12 months on, we have the same problem. Six weeks and no resolution on a IMO fairly simple problem is not acceptable. The solution works for this school, sadly the hardware provider: Canon has really let the school down, particularly given the years of loyal custom we have given Canon. So maybe the above solution would work for you if you have unmanaged non-Canon devices that can do CUPS.

Not sure if this would help but I have a remediation script in our tenancy for all devices. It has the following detection script: And then the following remediation script: We have never had any activation related issues since I set this up. ☺️

I am afraid no progress this end. I am making sure I don't do any further Fresh Starts on any systems as this issue seems to happen on any system if it has a Fresh Start. The only solution I would expect at the moment, is to find the system in Entra, totally get rid of it, then re-join it to the tenancy which is a real pain and not got the time for that.

I was thinking the same in terms of the realisation 'oh god, we've lost a lot of customers, we better do something quick', though this is all so shambolically late in the day. October is getting ever-closer and there is only really one proper holiday (summer) for schools to sort their systems out before the Windows 10 deadline is here!

No, you’re right. We were planning to have an on-prem server but this site uses LGfL which then syncs USOs to Microsoft. The on prem server had it’s own AD with a lot of users, we were quite concerned that adding an on-prem could have caused a lot of sync issues for accounts, so we left the server and it is just servicing DNS and DHCP now. In the last holiday, we converted the final bulk set of systems from AD to Cloud, we have just three systems left using AD so the plan now is to just stick with cloud. I didn’t think that leaving hybrid enabled would cause any issues as this has been in place since the tenancy was first set up. I think I better check if it is skipping the local AD connectivity check in the deployment but I would assume so as if it is a fresh system without a hash pre-loaded, we have never encountered any issues with opening PowerShell on setup screen and joining it to tenancy, then signing in on the setup screen. It only seems to be an issue if you have already done that and then at a later date do a Fresh Start.

Super, thank YOU for sorting this. It wouldn't let me edit the OP to add the images so I have made a new post and it is working really well. Do you have the powers to delete the OP? It is this one that needs to go.... This is the new post which posted perfectly...