talksr

Hi guys, I am in the very early stages of replacing a 25 AP Fortinet site. Our system is about seven years old and has been really reliable. Two controllers running together and then the 25APs. I don't think we will be able to afford Cisco, so I was going to start looking at Unify, Meraki (Cisco) and Aruba. Has anyone got any recommendations but more importantly with April almost here, any rough estimates on costs involved would be greatly appreciated so I can put something in for my budget next month. Seven years has been a long time and standards, technologies and prices have obviously changed so I am slightly out of the loop on this one! I was thinking of putting £15-20k in the pot.

One of the schools I take care of is on CC4. The first I heard of the demise of CC4 was back in October 2024. RM made no effort to announce this to customers and I only found out when dealing with their support regarding an issue. The site is already 65% converted to Intune. The tech seminars used to be really good, I was a fan of the bacon rolls and thought some of the speakers were really knowledgable. I can't remember his name, but the chap who gave out the chocolate fishes was great! RM may well find niche in providing a product that can sit over the top of Intune to allow for automated tasks. Scheduled shutdowns you can easily modify or disable instead of policies that are clunky and fiddly to change currently. An easy way to reboot stations in a particular group would also be handy. Maybe this is some of what CC5 will encompas but for me, it has become a costly expense for not a lot and I can't say I rate the support that has been provided all that much. We lost all communication from our account manager about 4 years ago. Account managers seemed to change with the seasons but you only found this out when you tried to contact the one you thought was yours only to find he/she had been replaced again!

Bring back those RM Seminar bacon rolls mmmmm

Thanks everyone. The site manager is super and has a set of M3, M4 etc screws. We have worked out that it seems to be M4. We have ordered from Amazon some 4mmx8mm M4s. Waiting for the finance department to actually put the order through. 2 weeks and counting.

I'm glad this has been posted, I hope I am not hijacking the OP too much... We are in a similar situation. The SLT are decided on one single projector mounted from the ceiling. They want an output size of around 5.8-6 meters wide. The site manager has insisted on going for a Panasonic LED projector. We have two companies involved in quoting and both are suggesting a Panasonic PT-VMZ1EJ 7000 projector in conjunction with a wireless button panel to control the projector without needing the remote which will go missing anyway. Both are offering a one year warranty which I am not terribly pleased on so I have asked for costs to extend to at least 3 years. For connecting devices other than hardwired HDMI, one supplier is suggesting using Microsoft 4k Wireless Display Adapter, the other the Panasonic "PressIT" display adapter which I am not so keen on as it has dongles on the user end that will go missing. The second supplier did also suggest an Epson PU1007W 7000 lumens projector. I would be really grateful for any recommendations on the projectors and also any experiences with the wireless display adaptors. The school is predominently Windows, with Chromebooks used by the children and iPads used by all. If only there was an Apple TV, Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter and Chromecast all built into one box! Thanks as always guys.

Hi everyone, I’m posting on behalf of a former colleague who runs his own ICT support company specialising in schools. He’s an excellent, hardworking and knowledgeable professional with years of school ICT support experience—longer than I’ve been in the field (which is saying something!) . Recently, he’s had a couple of schools leave his SLA offering due to academy/MAT conversions with existing MSPs, so he currently has capacity for new clients. Areas covered: North London, Harrow, Watford, Barnet, and Enfield. If you know of any schools looking for reliable ICT support—whether it’s a day or two a week or something more regular—I can personally vouch for him. He would greatly appreciate any referrals or leads. Feel free to message me if you’d like his details. Thanks for reading!

Hi there, Just putting some feelers out there as to best practice when using Intune. Currently for our cloud tenancy (no hybrid), I have our Windows 11 systems named based on their Asset ID... just makes it easier to pinpoint a system as they all have visible stickers on the sides of them. Then, I created a few core Security Groups: Admin Computers SLT Computers Curriculum Computers I then place the respective systems in their group. But, over time I have found I need further but some overlap. ICT suites for example. They are curriculum so the systems belong in "Curriculum Computers" group, but sometimes, they need specific apps that other "Curriclum Computers" need. To get around this, I have made further Security Groups: ICT Room 1 ICT Room 2 Medical Room Computers - computers which would be part of Admin, but again, have specific app requirements. The beauty of Intune is a device can be part of more than one group which makes it easier to customise what a system gets in terms of apps and config policies. I really hope there may be functionality in the near future that would allow me to affect bulk action changes to an entire group. E.g. restart ICT Room 1. So I can reboot all systems in that group at the same time, rather than having to manually. Does this sound like the best way to do this? I would be grateful of any other ideas, words of wisdom or criticism! And lastly, before I forget. What do you Intune users do about Windows updates? I have always used WSUS, but now use the update rings on Intune. This is fine, but takes some time to download and install to client stations. Does anyone still use WSUS and if so, how best do you config the systems to look for a local WSUS server? Thanks as always

Just had a look on Intune, and it would seem the correct address is selected which is strange. If I go to Intune>Devices>Windows>Enrollment>Windows Autopilot Deployment Profiles, the OOBE profile has the following configurations: Hmm, strange.

Where can I buy these? Was wondering if they did ones with barbed wire on hehe

Hi there, I am sure I can't be the only one... We have a lot of these DELL MFS18 stands with Optiplex 3060s inside and a 22inch Dell Monitor. The monitors slot onto the stand and are secured at the bottom of the VESA with one thumb screw. Someone (maybe more than one suspect) is deliberately reaching round and stealing the thumb screws. This means that when other users use the computers and attempt to raise the monitor up to suit their height, the entire monitor is falling off of the stand and falling towards their faces. As this is a primary school, the users are often short and small, particularly the really young children and I am quite worried that one of these 22inch monitors is going to end up really hurting a child. Has anyone managed to source replacement thumb screws or other screws? I don't yet have an image of where the screw goes but just wondered if anyone else had similar issues. We have over 10 devices now in this state where the monitor is literally hanging by one small piece of metal as someone has had the screws away.

Ah ok. Thanks for the suggestion, that was something I would not have considered. The only thing that seems different is for some reason it has reinstalled with UTC-08:00 Pacific Time (US & Canada) time zone. I am assuming maybe that is something to do with the base Windows 11 image?

It did the trick! How come?!

Our SBM has said the same to me today. If this continues, it is going to be passed to the LA legal team as it is utterly ridicilous. They are not even reading what you put in an email and just replying with exactly the same response as someone posted here earlier This all feels really wrong to me both legally and morally and I am really not happy with the way this organisation is treating long-standing customers. We have already had increased annual "website subscription fees" so as you say, what will be next. I am so disappointed with this company.

We have had exactly the same yet we responded within 7 days. We were then told that we had respond by 1pm on 31st Jan. It states this nowhere. I am absoloutely furious with the way this company is treating long-standing customers.

Yes, I will initiate one before I go home and will have a look on Wednesday and see how it has gone. Will let you know the outcome.

Thanks for your post. It has this: Install Windows 10 on devices not eligible to run Windows 11=Enabled Actually, I have just editied it and it does have "When a device isn't eligible to run Windows 11, install the latest Windows 10 feature update" and yes, it is ticked. If I go on a system as admin, I get exactly the same error with a manual update.

Exactly this, I was showing this to my head and said what a fantastic example when all of their example sites don’t have one!

Like you, I would be interested to find out how this happens. If ever I get time, I will try and test it. Maybe on Tinder or similar. Good point about parents raising concerns about how school can see what they are up to on private device but if they are signing in using a school tenancy, we have a duty of care to re-remind them of cybersecurity concerns. This is how compromises can occur and of all the schools I have worked with, this one in particular has an awfully high number of breached google accounts where pupils are logging in on compromised systems at home, which capture their login details and sell them on presumably on the dark web.

Thanks guys. Yeah I am assuming this must be a private home device, but signed in on one of our pupil logins. It is not the sort of thing a primary school aged child would use so guessing an older sibling or adult in the family. Just didn't know if there was a way to narrow down who it was so we could look at reminding them of E-Safety guidance. Thanks again.

One of the three schools I have been in communication with complained about the charge and managed to get some money off but still ended up paying. I think any school who has ended up paying for this should get their money back. Tell me a school who has a healthy budget at the moment? Business practice like this is so wrong but even more so when we are all struggling so much and can barely afford the staff we need to deliver lessons to the children. This has really alterered my thoughts on Juniper. Was bad enough with the poor cs and tech support I encountered last year but this is something else.

Hi guys, would be keen to get to the bottom of this. I have been working through the list of Apps users have requested to access and was quite surprised (in a primary school) that someone has tried to access Only Fans:doh: If I visit Security>API Controls>App Access Control> Apps Pending Review, I can see 1 user has tried to access it. Is there any way to find out which user? I am expecting this must be a pupil account signed in to a device at home not owned by the school as we use Smoothwall and it has not detectected anything involving the words Only Fans as far as I can see. Very strange.

Agreed, utter nonsense. Had similar with RM a few years ago. You don't just send out emails to organisations saying if you don't fill out our form, we will do the work anyway and charge you. What a disgusting business practice. Really not happy about this and the stress it has caused some of my colleauges.

Not sure if it helps but I found this one online. It seems Juniper is gatekeeping any sample ones unless you pay for their scaremongering "service".

They probably know that most schools could not afford to move away as this would involve a total redesign. I have been in communication with two other schools both of which are absolutely furious at the scaremongering tactics used by Juniper. This stunt has really not done much for their reputation.

No, I have re-booted, no other users signed in. It is also doing it if I am signed in as admin which leads me to believe this is actually a system incompatible with 24H2 but rather than just say this, MS is giving this misleading message. If it won't even go on as admin user and nobody else is signed on, the message doesn't make sense.