Jobos

I'm looking at replacing one of our servers this term and would appreciate some advice please. Current situation Server A: Dual Xeon 2.4 Ghz 3MB RAM running Server 2003 FSMO DNS DHCP IIS Exchange 2003 (clients use Outlook and OWA) Sims .Net/FMS (4 users) SQL 2005 full version Main file server holding 93GB of data Server B: Dual Pentium 4 3Ghz 4 MB RAM running Server 2003 DNS Print Server WSUS Anti Virus Server Ghost Image file server Both servers backup to NAS each night using NTBackup Server A is now 6 years old so that's the one I'm looking at replacing. There are 160 XP machines in the domain but no Win 7 or Vista machines yet but that will change during the life of the new server. I would like the new server to run Server 2008, Exchange 2010 and SQL 2008. What sort of spec will I need for that!

Yes that's my whole point. Now running SIMSLoad it says "Upgrading Workstation" for around half a second when before is was displaying for 15 seconds on every Sims machine and every time Sims was run.

Since running Pulsar.exe Sims is working better than ever, so I'm happy about that. But I would like to know why all the admin machine were affected in this way.

No, it's not that. Sims has been excluded.

Right, this gets better and better… let me explain… As Sims has always been slow at loading taking about 10-15 seconds on a wired client before the logon box appeared. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to monitor the network on my PC before moving on to the laptop. Surprising my PC was also downloading 170MB of data just as the laptop did, and before you ask there were no updates to install! Following Mcshammer advice I ran pulsar.exe and Sims fired up within 1 second. Then I ran SIMSLoad.exe again and Sims loaded in a slightly time but still about 1 second. So I asked the office staff to restart Sims and both of their computer loaded Sims within 1 second as well and that’s a record for this school. So what was it that caused the Sims clients to download the updates every time SIMSLoad.exe was run? I'll take the laptop home tonight and try again with the VPN. I have a feeling it will work this time!

I just need something simple like a tool that can be installed on the machine in question and tell me how much data is being passed through the network card. I could use the XP network status window but that only tells me the packets transmitted and not the MB's

Tried it 3 times and each time it downloaded 170MB of data. All updates were done before I left on Friday and if there was any updates still left to do it would have installed them on the first try. Good idea about using an undomained laptop. I will try that tonight. Regarding security, I know what you mean but the plan of the VPN is just so the office manager can access sims during the summer holidays.

What tool could I use to monitor the network traffic on an XP machine? I don’t need anything fancy just something that will tell me how much data has passed through the network card. Thanks.

Thanks for the replies so far So just to answer a few questions: Laptop was tested and working with all updates done before I took it home. No backups were running on the server at the time of the VPN connection and laptop is part of the domain.

I’ve been testing Sims over VPN and need some advice! I took a clean laptop and installed Sims, everything worked ok so I took laptop home and connected back to school via VPN. Started Sims and it took 30 minutes to load showing the 'Upgrading Sims Workstation" message and from the look of the VPN network traffic stats it is downloading 170MB of data. I tried this 3 times and it was the same each time. I’ve heard Sims is slow over VPN but surely not this slow so I’m guessing there’s something wrong here... any advice?

Email Synetrix at [email protected] and ask them to send you a firewall change request form.

What sort of cost per print would we be looking at?

I think the download link to the Wiltshire document did the trick!

Thanks for the replies.

We're looking for a HP mono printer and the P2055dn is selling for around £260. Any views on this printer for use in schools? Thanks.

Yes I saw that as well but minutes later normal service was resumed

Lots of good guides there, thanks. We're using server 2003 and XP clients although I've been testing with my home laptop that's running Windows 7 and it connects fine using PPTP. I know what you mean about exploition which is why I only want VPN to be used from 3 or 4 certain laptops.

Thanks for that. Now I just need to get L2TP working

Been testing the schools VPN access from my home laptop today and already I've got a question! Right, connecting using PPTP and found that when the VPN connection is up I'm unable to use IE to browse the web from my laptop. What setting do I need to change this? Although I've got PPTP working I would rather use L2TP because I can limit what computers are used to connect to the school network. Is there a guide that would help me with installing certificates on the clients and server? Thanks.

Two links here but I can't say if either will work. Group Policy Search Providers ADM File IE7: Trying to add list of search providers using ADM

@AngryTechnician: Thanks, I'll try that tomorrow.

Thanks, I didn't know Publisher could save as .jpg but it did the job a treat

In the past I have used the XP version of gpmc.msc to manage the group policies on XP machines but now I want to use a Vista machine to do this. Is it just a matter of installing gpmc and copying across the ADMs to the Vista machine? Using group policy on server 2003r2, is it possible to manage a handful of admin Vista machines or is Vista server 2007 only? Thanks,

Tried that and it's still prints black dots.

I'm using Publisher 2007 and want to shade a text box. I've set the fill to black and transparency to 40%. This looks ok on screen but when printed the text boxes are shaded with dots instead of a smooth gray. What am I missing?