GoldenWonder

We're looking to put minimal content filtering on staff laptops when they are used at home. At the minute they can use the internet (wireless etc) at home without any controls (on trust!) but the LEA have decided that there should be some level of filtering. Problem is, apart from things like K9 (which is great for home use by parents) there doesn't seem to be a lot around. Has anyone else setup filtering for offsite devices like this, and if so any information would be useful!

Some of these PCs affected aren't even from an image - they were OEM XP installs that we've added SP2, Sp3 to over time. The local user profile is ok when they reboot and try again - very strange. Its as if some login script is hanging, but nothing shows up anywhere!

I'm determind to crack this now I've got started! DNS seems to be functioning fine. We dish out DNS settings via DHCP and use the LEA DNS servers as forwarders. This all works fine and theres no issues with PCs in general, just maybe 1-3 a day hang when logging in. Like mb2k01 I'm not getting complaints yet - but its bugging me and it worries me that its going to get worse!

Yes we do use folder redirection and IE branding! Maybe its something to do with that policy? Strange how its suddenly just started. It seems unlikely to be the user accounts, as its mutiple users across multiple machines (profiles on the machine are removed on every boot) Usually when it has hung the user can login normally after a reboot.

I got sick of this as well and spent a little time putting mac filters on our ruckus system A bit of work, but surprisingly less devices used the wireless than I thought. Bit of a pain keeping it up to date but you have a better idea of whats using your wireless then.

Sorry, should have specified that! No roaming profiles, just local default profiles and group policy to assign user settings. Basic Policy for settings, one for Office and one for software restriction policies. None of which have changed in the last few months (problem has been for around 4 weeks now)

I'm getting desperate for any ideas here now! The problem I'm having is random PCs keep hanging at the login stage saying 'Applying personal settings'. This has happened on at least 50 PCs now, twice on one or two of them. Theres nothing in common with the users or PCs. Different accounts, PCs, SP2 or SP3, different subnets, times of day etc etc but once its hung at this point they can only power the pc off and try again (longest I've waited is an hour) Odd thing is, when the PC is hung in this state, I can still ping the NIC, and remotely manage it using the computer management MMC. I can't get a tasklist (tasklist /s) as this sits waiting on the admin pc side. So it appears the PC is hung, but not crashed completely. But its becoming a problem now as its random but happening on all types and ages of PCs. Checking the event viewer shows nothing abnormal, in the period the PC is hung, nothing is logged. Looking at the userenv.log file shows nothing other than the occasional message that does vary from PC to PC. I enabled verbose logging, but it only shows the Applying Personal Settings at the point it hangs. Users run a couple of simple scripts on login (have done for years) but these don't appear to be the problem as the server where the scripts are located shows that there is no access to the relevant share at the time. Any ideas? I've spent days on this and I'm stumped!

Oh my god. I've just spent 2 hours on the phone while a gentleman (judging by the accent) in an Indian call centre trys to tell me that the reason our wide format printer keeps detecting a paper jam is because it needs new ink cartridges. I mean FFS, do these people only have a script of 10 questions? I've fixed many a printer in my time so I've done the basics, but why do HP then waste an hour asking me to take the paper trays in and out ( repeat * 5)! So much for the fixed price, on-site technician repair. You have to go through this rigmarole first and believe me, it isn't worth it! Printer into bin. New printer please! (and not an HP)

The more I read about BSF, the more I realise what a massive money pit its becoming. Sure, its a great idea to update schools and give them the best equipment but the typical government way is making a £50 printer cost £500! In a way I'll be glad to be out of ICT in education (let face it, tupe=redundant!) as it will be heartbreaking to watch all of my teams hard work dissolved by some gobsh-te consultants.

I was going to install our newest server in as a 2008 (DC) in our 2003 domain, until I realised that basically meant I had to buy every single device CAL again, as all PCs would access the server and only currently have 2003 CALS! So its a all or nothing upgrade to 2008 for me, whenever the money is available! Probably will never happen with BSF looming..

Thats the answer I half expected and dreaded!

Alas, it doesn't come with a proper MSI and a package I created with Wininstall LE failed. Just wondering if anyone had deployed it successfully and using what?

I was hoping to avoid manual deployment! It takes ages to install as it is

I've just had Lego Mindstorms NXT Education dropped on my desk, a full site license. However its the usual problem, a site licence that means you can install a single user page across hundreds of PCs! Has anyone managed to deploy this across a network? Its around 650Mb so its a fairly big package to deploy automatically.

Has anyone else has any issues with the ICA client (version 10) running in IE7? We use that combination (via a proxy server) to access an external system. In IE6/Firefox the applications start almost immediately. With IE7 though,there is a substantial delay before the application starts? Bizarre - and frustrating as a trial of IE8 shows it does the same as well!

We've setup reports in Profiles 7 with the pastoral reports for Form/Year tutors. Thing is, the form tutors can see their classes and Form, but the Year tutors are only seeing their classes (when they should see all forms for that year) Whereabouts do I check to see why this is occuring? The year tutors are setup correctly in the academic structure, but is there a specific permission they need? Bit new to Profiles so I can't see how this is happening!

When I say 'upgrade' I meant I flattened my 10.2 and tried to install 11.1 on the newly freed partition! Gave up in the end. Stupid thing is, downloaded SLED 11 and that installed and worked with absolutely no problems. Surely SLED11 and Suse 11 are very similar?

Well, just spent a waste of 3 hours upgrading a pefectly working copy of Suse 10.2 to 11, all to get a non booting system. All I get is a nice blank screen after a 'successful' installation. I can access the other terminals but toggling back to the main console just hangs it for ages, before the monitor gives up and displays 'out of range' Back to Ubuntu and Windows XP for me!

We wrote a multi purpose system here. Every time anyone logs in it gets logged in an SQL server with the PC details/username/time etc. The trick is to store the MAC addresses etc as well for startup scripts. Then each of us has a console to view the logins etc. We can use the console to shutdown/restart PCs or simply shutdown all PCs or start them all up using the magic packet method. You can also watch for certain users This works really well - especially the morning startup is only a mouse click! I'll see if I can package this up in a more generic format. It should work on an Windows server/AD based network but it will need to be tweaked to fit.

An integrated system is a good idea, but the default choice of SIMS isn't necessarily the right way to go. SIMS popularity stems from the fact it was pretty much the only system available years back and its been steadily patched up and cobbled together along the way. From a evaluation of Sercos facility its clear that was a better designed system from day one. Still, not too concerned. BSF will force us all to use the same stuff anyway.

I would hardly call profiles is powerful piece of software! Its a basic mail merge system linked to the SIMS database. The facr you can't delete a session that has no reports open on it shows it hasn't been written correctly. I used to be a developer and worked on several MIS systems and my perspective is that Profiles is a half-cocked attempt. It works but has very poor management of the reporting sessions. We currently use Aim High which is a much better designed system. Alas, SMT are pushing the SIMS route whether I like it or not!

I'm new to SIMS and have had Profiles 7 dumped on me with no training so be gentle I've set up templates and comment banks and generated a test profile for a student to make sure everything works OK. I now can't delete this session because I've generated profiles against it, even though its only one kid and I've removed the comments placed against them, I've spoken to a few people who say thats just the way SIMS works (pretty poor bit of software in my experiences so far) but it seems rather inflexible - what happens if you make a mistake in the future, there'll be sessions all over the place! Anyone managed to remove a session before?

One thing that will be missed here is the the 'free' service we offer to staff regarding their personal PCs and laptops. We've repaired countless bits of kit - advised on many purchases and generally been an alternative to PC World! Although we don't sell anything we'll repair a home PC; the techies here enjoy the variety and sometimes you learn something new. Its that community mentality that will vanish I guess.

Sort of what I expected. Game over for NMs in schools then - time to look for another job with renewed enthusiam! Shame really, I quite liked working in education but like every other sector I've worked in in ICT, redundancy is always not far away.

Does anyone know or have any experience of how a BSF rebuild or refurbishment fund affects the ICT Support Staff? We're due to get £x million (Don't know - no one will tell me) for a partial rebuild and refurbishment scheme in 2012(ish) and no one will tell me how that affects the NM and Technicians roles. With it not being a full BSF build, would it include a managed ICT service, or has anyone gone through a similar process?