m122794

Hi, We don't use Illustrator any more but Photoshop is fine on VMs however you need to allocate at least 4GB RAM to the VM for it to work properly or it gets horribly slow. Cheers, Graham

Yes - but please don't fall into the trap of thinking user/device licences are a good idea in a Xendesktop VDI environment - you must have the (even more expensive) concurrent ones for this. User/device are fine if users always pick up the same desktop but if they have randomly-allocated desktops (which most people will use in Xendesktop/app scenarios and you have, say, 100 licences then all the licences will be used up after the first 100 hits...

I'm faced with a comparable bill and may have to jump as well - So what do you do now? Thanks, Graham

We're in the same boat - had to pay the extortionate price hike this year but word is that the Education sector may possibly get another "deal" similar to Campus agreements as Citrix re-think its recent pricing (stealing) policies. I really hope something decent comes of it as I'm just not sure how much longer we can justify Citrix financially in the current funding environment, but we're so heavily dependent on it functionally that we'll struggle to adapt if we're forced to drop it. Cheers, Graham

FWIW, we run the server on a tiny stand-alone Linux VM as it uses virtually nothing CPU and memory-wise but it will use some disk as it stores the media locally (although you could use shares if you want to get complicated) You can pay to buy Android boxes, but the free Windows client does all we need: we show RSS feeds, scrolling piccies, video feeds and text on the screens, using the sceduling facility and find its all dead-easy to set up and really stable at the client end. You can use pretty-much anything from an old laptop to a new i7 depending on budget: we use Gigabyte Brix Celeron units (about £100 inc RAM) hooked up on the HDMI to TVs around the building and these are brilliant with enough CPU and graphics capability to run smoothly. Software-wise we load a standard Win7 image with CCCP codec pack, VLC and Impero (so we can remotely manage them)

Absolutely right - another 'feature' I suppose!

Closing date is today if anyone is interested...

Pate's Grammar School are looking for a dynamic and experienced IT Technician to join our busy IT Support Team. Reliance upon IT within the School has grown in recent years and the introduction of new technologies for printing and cashless catering has meant that there is a requirement for an extra member of the IT Team. Pate's combines a relaxed atmosphere with academic rigour, and the pupils are a pleasure to teach. The school has superb facilities in new buildings on a spacious site. We recognise that our staff are the most important reason for the school’s success. Full details of the job and the relevant Application Form can be downloaded from our website at Senior IT Technician (Full-Time Position) Closing Date is 24 February 2014

Also talk to the guys at Overnet Data - they have a superb offering which does just what you need: it allows teachers to add SIMs groups to courses, take registers on Moodle and gives parents access to see their childrens' reports, attendance, timetable and (if you let them) the course material. We've been using the CMIS version but are just about to change to the SIMS modules as we're moving MIS . Cheers, Graham

Unfortunately, there is no universal profile available: Vista and Win7 are just too different to work with XP profiles, but you can get away with 2 versions. No need to sysprep etc... Process is as follows: Make sure you get the desired desktop config sorted as normal (by using GPO's or local policies) and log in to a PC. Immediately log off and log back in with an adminstrator account ( or Domain Admin user in an AD environment) Install a useful bit of software called "Windows Enabler" - this will allow you to activate greyed-out options in windows menus - you'll need it later! Create a folder under your profile share (or create a new share) called [anything].V2 (.V2 is important as it signifies the store for Vista/Win7 profiles) Now run control Panel -> User Accounts -> Configure advanced user profile Properties. Select your target user from the list and click on Copy to... Now, if this button is greyed-out, click on the Windows enabler logo on the toolbar and it should go black: you can now copy the profile to your newly-created folder. Once copied, go to the profile share and rename ntuser.dat to ntuser.man Set the users up with a profile path (excluding the .v2 extension) and the system will find and apply the new profile I use this system for both XP and Win7 clients and they work seamlessly side-by-side. I hope this helps !

This works - copy all the InstallerData files to a common "InstallerData" folder somewhere on the server and run the installer. Don't forget that there are also some sound files on the main install disk !

Another Script along similar lines - just runs quicker than the one above - and mixes OU with computer name for mapping. Dim wshShell, wshNetwork Dim strComputerName Dim computerName ' Create Global Objects Set wshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") Set wshNetwork = CreateObject("WScript.Network") Set oPrinters = WshNetwork.EnumPrinterConnections On Error Resume Next ' Initialize Variables strComputerName = wshNetwork.ComputerName computerName = UCase(strComputername) Function GetDN() ' Use the NameTranslate object to convert the NT name of the computer to ' the Distinguished name required for the LDAP provider. Computer names ' must end with "$". Returns comma delimited string to calling code. Dim objTrans, objDomain ' Constants for the NameTranslate object. Const ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_GC = 3 Const ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4 = 3 Const ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779 = 1 Set objTrans = CreateObject("NameTranslate") Set objDomain = getObject("LDAP://rootDse") objTrans.Init ADS_NAME_INITTYPE_GC, "" objTrans.Set ADS_NAME_TYPE_NT4, wshNetwork.UserDomain & "\" _ & strComputerName & "$" GetDN = objTrans.Get(ADS_NAME_TYPE_1779) 'Set DN to upper Case GetDN = UCase(GetDN) End Function ' Delete existing connections to network printers (uncomment to use this) For i = 0 to oPrinters.Count - 1 Step 2 On Error Resume Next if Left(oPrinters.Item(i), 3) <> "lpt" And Left(oPrinters.Item(i), 3) <> "usb" then WshNetwork.RemovePrinterConnection oPrinters.Item(i+1), true, true else WScript.Echo "No network printers found" end if Next 'Now define the main Print Server if required - can also use specific names 'such as "\\PS1\Printqueuename" in select statements Dim printServer printServer = "PrintServerName" ' Add printer connections dependant upon location (in this case lowest-level OU) ' GetOU is DN from the first "OU=" statement GetOU = Mid(GetDN,InStr(GetDN,"OU=")+3) ' Now add the printers - NB Case Stements MUST be Unique or more specific lower down the file ' as last match will be actioned - also need to be in UPPERCASE. Select Case (Left(GetOU, 3)) Case "D&T" WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\D&T A3 Colour" WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\D&T Laser" WshNetwork.SetDefaultPrinter "\\" & printServer & "\D&T Laser" Case "ART" WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\Art Printer" WshNetwork.SetDefaultPrinter "\\" & printServer & "\Art Printer" End Select Select Case (Left(GetOU, 4)) Case "BIOL" WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\Biology Laser" WshNetwork.SetDefaultPrinter "\\" & printServer & "\Biology Laser" Case "EXAM" WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "\Exams Printer" End Select 'Pick up any random computers and allocate them a printer 'Select Case (computerName) {or Select Case Left(ComputerName,n) ' Case "RANDOM" ' WshNetwork.AddWindowsPrinterConnection "\\" & printServer & "RANDOM PRINTER" ' WshNetwork.SetDefaultPrinter "\\" & printServer & "\RANDOM PRINTER" 'End Select