Oxcidius

I had similar issues with an old HP 4100TN. I spend ages trying to get it to work with Server 2008 R2 64-bit. Eventually I discovered that I could add it quite happily to my Windows 7 64-bit machine directly, so I copied Microsoft's drivers for HP onto the Server and hey-presto! It worked!!! Yey! Give it a try for yourself! (assuming you have a Windows 7 64-bit machine of course! )

OK, here's everything I did to make it work for me... 1. Set up a Computer Configuration Policy (Policies\Windows Settings\Security Settings\File System) to Deny ALL for Exam User to the following folder: %Program Files%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Proof And to the following 2 files (Although not entirely sure I needed to): %Program Files%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Proof\MSGR3EN.LEX %Program Files%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Proof\msspell3.dll 2. Set up a User Configuration Policy (Policies\Administrative Templates: Policy Definitions (ADMX files) retrieved from the local machine\Classic Administrative Templates (ADM)\Microsoft Word 2007\Word Options\Proofing\) to disable the following: Enable Context Sensitive Spelling for Word Check Spelling as you type Mark grammar errors as you type Check grammar with spelling You may need to import the ADM file for Word 2007 if you haven't done this already. 3. Set up a login script that calls silently the .reg file containing the following: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Proofing Tools\1.0\Override\en-US] "dll"="c:\\temp\\dud.dll" "lex"="c:\\temp\\dud.lex" Here is the script snippet: Const strOFF12 = "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE12\" If objFSO.FolderExists(strOFF12) = true then WshShell.Run "Regedit /s ""\\FQDN\NETLOGON\DisableSpell.reg""" End If AND....that was it!! So far I've tested it on several of our student laptops and works fantastically! We currently use Windows XP with Office 2007. Don't forget though that we are using a single user login called 'Exam' that has a mandatory profile and we only let them save to memory stick and nowhere else. They can't access anything else like printers or internet, so as long as they have network connection this should work for others too! Hope this is clear enough for everyone and is of use to those in need!

Hi Sippo, I've literally just been playing with this today and we use mandatory profiles with an exam login. calling the reg file using a vbscript that TonySharps mentioned works perfectly for the user as it only effects current user so anyone else logging in won't be effected by it. Also if you set up the GPO to block the Grammar check etc too it turns out to be very neat for disabling spellchecker in Word 2007! Happy days!!!

We had no problems with disabling Word 2003 spellchecking last year, but this year we have upgraded to Word 2007 and, to start, there is no msspell3.dll in the Microsoft Shared folder anymore! I tried renaming PROOF folder and deny access for the exam user to this folder but still it recreated itself and even though the exam user has full deny on the PROOF folder, we were STILL able to spellcheck! Has anyone managed to disable it properly in Word 2007? Also, anyone know how to disable F7 too? Cheers guys!

I have the same problem on my PC! :@ I've actually resorted to using Pidgin instead to access my Live account as Messenger 2011 was crawling! It got to the point where I couldn't even type in the box it was THAT slow!! Initially I thought it was my PC as I've recently gone 64-bit but reading this makes me realise that it's not my PC and everything else works fine on it just now so "boo!" to Microsoft!!

I personally always try and download the latest drivers from the Manufacturers. Most of our machines are Dells and the great thing about the Dell drivers is that even though they are all .exe's you can extract the drivers from them using software like 7zip and then use 'Update Driver' from the device manager to install them. This means that I get no hideous software installed that I don't need. I think the only time I don't 7zip them is for the Chipset where it pays to run the .exe as they can be a right pain otherwise, especially with the integrated chipsets. I find that the Windows Update drivers can be a bit hinky so I try not to use them if possible, although it does save you time... Hope this helps!

I think you don't actually need Server 2008 R2 drivers for the print server. Only the drivers for the O/S's you will be deploying them to. If I'm wrong you could always try the Windows 7 (x64) drivers from HP and see if they work for you as they use very similar architecture. HP Color LaserJet 2600n Printer - HP Color LaserJet 2600n Plug and Play Package - HP Business Support Center Hope the link works.

We use a PCL separator page between each print. Yeah it uses an extra sheet of paper for each print but in the public areas it has saved us so much hassle! Because our students are visually impaired we have bumped up the font size for their username so they can read it and it throws the date and time on there too so you know when they printed it and how long it's been sitting there! Also you don't need the separator page on every printer, so our staff printers which are hardly used don't need it. If you want the .sep file then let me know.

We use something very similar to Alan-d. All of our students have their own laptops with their own screen readers etc. so we must let them use their own laptops. We have a mandatory profile called exam which every student uses and logs in with. Everything is locked down on it including internet, applications except Notepad, Wordpad and Word (we kill spelling & Grammar on this app) and the screen readers and access to any drives except the use of pen drives. The pen drives themsleves are heavily guarded by our exam officers and wiped every time they are used. We change the desktop wallpaper so they know they are in exams. We use a .vbs script to add the app links to the desktop so that we can lock down as much as possible in the start menu etc. So far, this has worked exceedingly well as the exam officers have their own laptop hooked up to a printer in the exam room and when the student is finished they hand over the pen drive, exam officer prints it out and after confirming all is there, lets the student go. This way from our point of view we only have to worry about one AD account and we are not tied to any scheduling. in fact I think for the last set of exams I didn't have to lift a finger....cool!!

Thanks for the reply fawkers. Unfortunately, I've already tried that. The manually added VPN desktop shortcut uses some weird registry address (I think) to create the shortcut. It shows the Target Location as simply "Network Connections" and the target is "{BA126AD7-2166-11D1-B1D0-00805FC1270E}" and Start in is greyed out!! This is no ordinary shortcut that I tried to deploy but the XP machine was having none of it!! Boo!!! Any more ideas guys?

All my students are requesting to have VPN put on their laptops for when they go home. I've managed to add the VPN connection to their laptops via Group Policy but I could see no way of adding the desktop shortcut, which they prefer to use, in the policy settings! If I were to add the VPN connection manually to the XP laptops then you get the option but not in Group Policy! I don;t fancy manually adding it to ALL of the laptops so... Does any one know how you can add a desktop shortcut to a VPN connection via Group Policy or is this another one of those annoyances that Microsoft forgot about?

"MSInfo32" seems to give you a detailed breakdown of your PC components etc. Just type it in run and see if that helps....

We too have had similar issues to this and we resolved it simply by unticking "Automatically search for network folders and printers" in the View tab of Folder Options. If this was ticked and we were away from the network then it just froze for an age until it decided to give up trying! Hope this helps you...