GoldenWonder

Modified my unattend file to change the locale settings and it worked! Thanks for that - would never have guessed that one!

Cheers - I'll give that a try. It looks very similar to ours except for the language settings.

Do you mean the SetupUILanguage setting? I have got this setup to en-GB, but it was originally en-US. Either way prompted the locale dialogue box on boot.

I'm trying to use our WDS (Server 2003) to deploy W7 images. I've got a sysprep'd W7 image and also the default image (from the DVD) I can boot the client PC and install either of these. However, when I create unattend files (for the WDS and Image part) and assign them using the WDS console, the client ignores them. The PXE boot goes as normal, then stops at the language selection dialogue - and I specify this in the WDS unattend.xml. Anyone know why its ignoring the unattend files? I've only used the WDS console to attach them and used System Image Manager to create them.

WDS doesn't seem to work with any Windows 7 image I try - I always get the error: "Windows could not apply unattend settings during pass (null)" This is whether I use a blank Windows 7 image from the DVD, or a prepared and sysprep'd version. I've tried creating a unattend.xml file using the System Image Manager and attaching it to the image in WDS but it makes no difference.

I was just about to post a very similar question! I'm using WDS for XP images and would like to use it to deploy Windows 7 images. MS mention a lot about MDT 2010 and WAIK etc but I'm not sure how to tie them together with WDS

This is the vb script I use- very similar to above: Dim fso, f, f1, fc, folderspec, strName folderspec = "C:\Documents and Settings" Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Set f = fso.GetFolder(folderspec) Set fc = f.SubFolders For Each f1 in fc CheckNames(f1.name) Next Set fso = Nothing Sub CheckNames(strName) If Ucase(strName) = "DEFAULT USER" Then Exit Sub If Ucase(strName) = "NETWORKSERVICE" Then Exit Sub If Ucase(strName) = "LOCALSERVICE" Then Exit Sub If Ucase(strName) = "ALL USERS" Then Exit Sub If UCase(strName) = "ADMINISTRATOR" Then Exit Sub ' Add as many of these as you need -one for each profile you DON'T want to delete! On Error Resume Next fso.DeleteFolder folderspec & "\" & f1.name, True End Sub I've got this running on machine startup - its worked a treat for around 5 years now!

Thanks - I'll have a look at that as soon as my Windows 7 admin PC is alive again!

I'm looking at Windows 7 to replace some of our old XP machines. One of the things I haven't found a way of doing is removing old profiles from the PC on reboot. In our current XP system (no roaming profiles, with the local Default user profile configured per PC type) we run a script on machine startup to delete any profiles that belong to students etc but leaves system profiles/admin profiles etc. Obviously this doesn't work with Windows 7 or Vista as any deleted profiles means the user cannot login without errors the next time. Is there a way to remove profiles like this in Windows 7? Basically I want the 'clean start' mechanism I have now - plus preventing the PC from having 100s of profiles stored on it.

Funnily enough our authority has started doing exactly that - auditing ICT in all schools. We (i.e the NM,me!) were audited not long ago and it was a) good to see were doing the right thing in their eyes and b) useful to compare notes with the other schools audit results. A few improvements points gave me a something to work on as well. Sadly though, this process has started now, and as BSF starts next year it probably negates the point of it.

We had no intention of using Vista after testing it. Windows 7 isn't even that much of an improvement in my opinion but I would consider that upgrade next. Problem is as we run all Xp/2003 server its a new load of CALS as well (no schools agreement here!) and loads of missing drivers/incompatible applications in Windows 7 so a gradual migration will be on the cards with the newer machines getting Windows 7, and the older ones staying on XP until they're replaced.

I subcribed to Adobe, doesn't take long and they give you the link to dowload the MSIs for GP distribution. As previously said you have to apply every year but its not too painful!

Personally I've enjoyed the latest batch of threads. I spend all day working with computers and servers, and on forums discussing said computers and working out how to fix/do new things so a normal human thread is a bit of fresh air! Its like being down the pub and eavedropping the conversation at the table next to you

I think a lot of people will still regard Office as the standard, or the 'quality' option. Its a bit like buying a VW for the perceived quality it gives you over a Skoda. Both are the same but you feel the VW is the 'better' product somehow, based on historical attitudes.

I'll had a look at that thread thanks, I've used Orca before but never to install driver MSIs

Has anyone found a reliable way to install device drivers (i.e with .inf file) to remote machines? I have some USB devices that require drivers, and 350 or so PCs to install them on. I looked at devcon but that only offers the install option for local PCs.

Ta for that - that website is working for me now. Tried all of that and all seems OK. I've manually removed all policies (domain and local) and disjoined/rejoined it to the domain and so far it has locked itself - time will tell!

We've scanned for malware and viruses but its they seem clean. All of the ones playing up are of different ages but none have been reimaged/installed recently. I'm going to try and remove all policies and see if that helps.

Couldn't get your link to work? It happens when a user is logged in or not. For example we rebooted one laptop and left it at the login screen - 20 minutes or so later it was locked by the 'blank' user! Other times a user is logged in, and it locks but shows the username as blank. At this point, even an admin can't unlock the machine and a reboot is the only option.

We've got a handful of Windows XP (SP3) machines that seem to 'lock' themselves (as if the user had hit Windows+L or CTRL+ALT+DEL and clicked 'Lock Computer' They have no screensaver (disabled by policy) and no scheduled tasks running, the time it takes to lock seems random but is always longer than about 20 minutes. Its happening on a few machines, different ages and specs (some desktops and some laptops) Oddly though, the message (when locked) says the pc has been locked by ' ' (i.e blank) instead of a user name as normal. Anyone had anything like this?

I did this with Software Restriction policies some time ago and its worked really well. Plan ahead and make sure you've got a good like of your networked applications. I made ours a whitelist unblocked C:\program files and c:\windows etc which meant most legitimate applications installed by us were ok. Watch out for SYSVOL and NETLOGON shares, as these will need to be allowed as well to run login scripts etc. Some apps are a pain as they create a file in the users application data folder and try and run it from there - once you know the app name though you can unblock it for any path.

I've had a couple of weird ones recently. 1) Can I fix a students mobile phone. It stopped working after she dropped it in the toilet. 2) Can I take a photo of the skin my pet snake has just shed. Even brought the skin in to school! Needless to say, I did 2) but 1) was a non starter!

I seem to have found a solution to this - for the start menu problem anyway. In our user policies the policy setting: 'Remove Users folders from the Start Menu' is set to Enabled for our XP clients. Changing this to Disabled makes it work in Windows 7 I haven't tested the impact of this on XP, as I changed a test Group Policy which only impacts the Windows 7 test PCs Now, onto the rest of the problems!

Well W7 thinks start menu redirection is working - the event viewer shows: "Successfully applied policy and redirected folder "Programs" to "\\server1\desktops\staff\start menu\Programs". Redirection options=0x9008" However the use gets neither the start menu shown above, nor the local default user version either.

Hmm. I can see the logic inn the Ownership problem for the users personal folders failing to redirect, but what is failing to redirect is the Start Menu (which is redirected to different paths depending on group membership/yeargroup) Oddly this is exactly the same for the Desktop redirection, and thats working OK.