Duke5A

This is the route I took with WDS; PXE Linux gets passed out first and WDS is an option in its menu along with various other utilities. Getting it all setup is a PITA though. It was easier with WDS on 2003 and 2008 since the boot program could be changed in the management snap-in, but starting with 2008 R2 it needs to be done at the command line. Even though you can use an ACL to stop the kids from being able to deploy images in WDS, they can still boot the PE images I have in the list and access command lines. PXE Linux at least enables me to put the WDS option behind a password.

Do you know if you're using a KMS or MAK key for Office 2013? If it's KMS did the LEA staff import the key into your KMS server?

Your Dell system keeps the licensing information in the SLIC table that is part of the BIOS flash. Different versions of the tables are used for licensing various versions of Windows. The way it should work is if the machine shipped with Windows 8 Professional you should be able to pop in an OEM Dell Windows 7 Professional disc and it'll install with no questions asked pertaining to licensing. The discs typically come with business model Dells. It'll give you a clean install and the only difference you'll see is there will be a Dell logo in the system properties. ISO files of these discs can typically be found on any torrent site if you can't obtain a physical copy. I'm not going to link to any on here since I'm unsure of the forum rules regarding this though. While there technically isn't anything illegal happening since you are allowed by Microsoft to perform this downgrade I'd rather not risk incurring moderator wrath.

I've got a client that purchased a store copy of Windows 8 Professional, tried it, didn't like it, and would now like to downgrade to Windows 7. The trouble is the machine originally shipped with Vista and I don't know what downgrade rights are available (if any) with a store bought copy. All I ever deal with anymore is volume licensed stuff. Does anyone know off the top of their head if this can be done legitimately, and if so, what the process entails to get proper media and keys? Thanks guys!

Hmm, might be an NTLMv1 vs NTLMv2 issue. You can try changing the negotiation policy using gpedit.msc on the Windows 7 box. Computer Configuration > Windwos Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies >Security Options > "Network Security: LAN Manager authentication level Change it to 'Send LM & NTLM - use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated' and restart the system.

You can have local administrator access and still be restricted by policy. If open up RSOP.msc and drill down to the policies that control access to the areas you're having issues with, are they configured? Do you maybe have these users policies attached to a computer OU with loopback processing enabled?

Check your proxy logs. I don't know what the logging looks like on a Smoothwall box, but if you're doing it from the command line use something like this: tail -f /var/log/squid3/access.log | grep xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx You'll most likely need root access to do this and replace xxx with the IP address of the machine you're browsing from. You should see a connection request to the domain of the certificate authority scroll past with a 407 error missing a username and immediately be followed up another request to the same domain only containing the username this time. If you don't see that follow up request then add the CA domain to an authentication bypass ACL.

I just went through this a couple months ago and the problem turned out to be something stupid. We have both disk and tape backup jobs and it was only the disk that was jamming up; jobs would take four times as long as they should. The problem was one of the two cache batteries on the RAID controller went dead and of the mountains of HP monitoring software loaded on the thing nothing even so much as squawked. We only found it when running diagnostics by hand. Even the pullout LED diagnostic indicator on the server was all lit green. When I pulled the RAID card out it was more than evident as what battery was fried since it was bulged out to the point I had problems removing it. After swapping in a new battery write-ahead cache was re-enabled and speeds picked up considerably.

I was having certificate revocation issues in the beginning of the school year. We're using Squid 3.2, no HTTPS interception, and Kerberos authentication to get out. It turned out in the proxy logs the revocation connections were being swatted down because user credentials weren't included in the connection request. To get around it I added the most common certificate authority domains to an authorization bypass ACL.

I'm honestly trying to like it. I'm in the middle of building a base image of it so a few of my more advanced users can try it out and whilst doing this some of the UI changes I'm coming across just makes me wonder. Under the hood it's actually faster than Windows 7, but what it all comes down to is if it takes longer for me to perform a task on the new version of Windows than it did on the previous iteration, then it's failing. I hope they clean up some of the mess in the next release.

You could try manually assigning priority metrics to the interfaces like this guy did: Windows 7 - Why is the Network Adapter Priority ignored while - Microsoft Community I don't know if this worked as I haven't tested it.

Agreed. I tried IE10 out on a couple test rigs and it turns out the JS used on our district website for the menu is horribly broken. Compatibility view mode works, but I wasn't about to explain to staff how to use it. Home users have also been calling in and complaining.

I'm assuming this is a layer 3 switch. Speaking from Cisco land you can either add a static route or let the switch figure it out by enabling routing globally with: ip routing Once again, this is Cisco, but I'm sure there is some kind of equivalent.

Windows XP will deploy with WDS no problem. Be sure to remove all disk partitioning options from your sysprep.inf before syspreping the reference machine and capture with imagex. Import the captured WIM into WDS and place your sysprep folder onto the WDS server here: WDSRemote\Images\[i][/i]\[i][/i]\$OEM$\$1

What method are you using for WPAD, DHCP or DNS? If you're using DHCP then you need to add the WPAD option to the scope that is serving your new VLAN.

I manage seven buildings interconnected with private fiber at 1GB link speed with a Cisco 6506 at the core. Most of my subnets are /23 and each building handles about five or six VLANs. There certainly isn't 510 wired devices in each elementary, but we purposely doubled the subnet size so we could split it across two DHCP servers. Have one server hand out addresses for the bottom part of the sub, the second for the top half. The only problem I've had with broadcast traffic was with some phone equipment and LAN School when it was looking for clients. The solution was to make a flat /24 VLAN across the entire district and place the phone equipment on it.

We recently had to replace a 3550 edge switch with a new 3750 and this is the brand GBIC we received with. One LX and about three or four SX fiber models. They've been in place for about two months now and the only problem I had was I had to reseat the LX module in the switch after the building link went down and wouldn't come back up on its own. Other than that no issues really.

Admittedly my switch config is a bit of a mess due to having too many hands in the pot and changing infrastructure over the years. We're opening a new building next week and I'm diving in the core (a Cisco 6506) to create the VLANs for the building and I'm discovering some of the existing ones are defined in the core at the high school (like the security camera and wireless VLANs) and others for the same building are defined on their respective building's edge switch (typically a Cisco 3550). Basically out of six VLANs used in any given building will have three defined on the edge switch with other three on the core. The VTP server is always set as the building's edge switch. Would it be prudent to leave the management VLAN on the building edge switch, define the rest at the core, and point to the core as the VTP server? This is the direction I'm leaning, but just wanted to get some opinions. All the buildings are linked via private fiber and are configured as trunks. Thanks guys...

Are you using the DOS version of Ghost or Ghost32? The DOS version was always considerably slower and the Win32 counterpart because of the drivers it was sitting on top of. You can boot BartPE or WinPE and launch Ghost32 through there and watch it fly.

Issues with domain membership after a system restore Disable System Restore. Start Up Repair is enabled on my staff computers, but System Restore is not and I've never had a problem with Windows 7 clients dropping off of the domain. The above MS article describes the issue. I wouldn't be surprised if Start Up Repair calls out System Restore.

Try this in the RunSynchronousCommand properties. This should enable the local admin again after first login. net user administrator /active:yes In my image though I just let it disable the stock local admin account and have it create another one that is a member of the local admin group.

Ha, that was it! I feel like a bit of a n00b on this one. All that had to be done was to import the Windows 8 boot wim into WDS and use that. Thanks again.

Nope, no unattended file on either the install image or WDS server itself. The boot WIM was pulled from Windows 7 though. I'll try pulling it from the Win8 Enterprise ISO. Thanks!

Is anyone else having issues with Windows 8 deployment on a 2008 R2 WDS server? I wanted to try it out on a couple spare systems and it keeps bombing out on the installation phase on the client with the error C0000005 and Google hasn't provided much in the way of help. I didn't do anything special to it either; I just imported the WIM from a Windows 8 Enterprise ISO into the WDS server. Any ideas?