ToyHeartsFan

They did email the school saying they were going to delete inactive accounts (I think they sent it to the enquiry account) but I told them that I didnt want any deleted at which point I dont think I should have had to do anything else. I believe they then put every single Zimra account they host that hadnt been logged into for 3 months into maintenance mode and expected us to then go in and take any accounts out of maintenance mode that we wanted to keep (you have to do this one account at a time...) any accounts that were still in maintenance mode got deleted on a given date (not sure when exactly). They have said they can restore deleted accounts but they havent restored ours yet; if you log a call with them saying you want your zimbra accounts restored assuming they have working backups then given time you should get them back... On a different note I found my Ebriefing account had been deleted I'm not sure when this happened as I never login to it I just used the weekly email function to receive anything that was relevant.

After my complaint they said they would restore our childrens email accounts but I havent checked yet. From an email sent to our School Business Manager: "We have now reduced the number of mail boxes by 75% which has resulted in immediate improvements to the service performance." What a good idea! If I delete 75% of our users from our Domain Controller do you think it would improve performance and make everyone happy? Maybe we should all do it!

Hi No dont take out any settings that are required just try not to duplicate settings e.g if you set internet settings in the default domain policy but override them for certain users (eg different home page, different proxy settings etc...) because doing this will increase the time it takes to process. Although the time difference might be very small if you have a lot of GPOs it can add up. Yes you can remove admin templates per GPO - I would copy one of your GPOs and try it on the copy before you do it on the live GPO so that you know your not removing an admin template you need within that GPO. For example the GPOs we use to deploy software dont need any settings in any of the admin templates so we can remove all of the admin templates from those GPOs. - This made a difference for us but it depends how many GPOs you have, how fast your network is, the load on your servers etc... The other thing that helped us a bit was to edit our logon script so where ever possible I removed any reference to a specific server and replaced it with the logon server variable eg replaced: net time %server1% /set /yes with: net time %LOGONSERVER% /set /yes so the workstation doesnt have to wait for another server before it can continue to process the logon script I think the thing that slows our logons down the most now is the way we deploy printers using the logon script, the printers are deleted and then installed at logon which slows things down a bit but means we can change printer allocation very easily.

I know you said you changed the power management settings but it does sound like this: Intel® WiFi Products — Power save polling (PSP) causes connection issues with access points

Your best chance of recovering any data is by taking it out of the caddy and connecting it internally to a PC (opening the caddy will void any warranty) if the data is critical then you probably need a data recovery company. In my experience external drives are far more prone to failure in this way than internal drives and they always fail when doing something critical like restoring your PC. In pre XP days I installed drivers but I've never needed to install any with XP its always detected external drives and loaded them without any problems without any input from me. Have a look on the manufactures website most of them have free diag software to test the hdd which will tell you if its a drive failure (it will probably need to be tested out of the caddy) Edit: You have installed SP3 havent you?

Our PDC (W2003) gets its time from the LEA time server; our other DC and member servers then get their time from the PDC. run this on all of the servers replaceing “peers” with the ip of your time source: "W32tm /config /manualpeerlist: peers /syncfromflags:manual /update" (there shouldnt be a space after peerlist but it kept turning it into a smiley) We have XP so still use net time in the logon script to set the time on the workstations net time %LOGONSERVER% /set /yes Note: If the date / time is too far out on a workstation then it won’t connect to the domain in which case you probably need to invest in a big box of CMOS batteries.

Birmingham use Policy Central from these guys: Computer and Internet Monitoring Software - Forensic Software It caused a lot of problems when we first started to use it but its got more stable and at the moment (touch wood) its seems to be working ok. Keywords (typed or displayed on screen) = image capture Ability to block websites, disable internet access for specific users, set time restrictions for internet access, use whitelists for guest accounts etc... But its a lot of work for the Head who has to check the captures, it needs to be a member of SMT thats responsible for checking incase it catches a member of staff doing something they shouldn't (not that they would).

Well I logged a formal complaint today I doubt much will come of it but what gives them the right to delete our accounts after I told them I didnt want any deleted? I'm the ICT Operations Manager at a 3 form primary and I dont have any additional support so it's my time thats wasted unless we pay £400 a day for a link2ict / Tempus tech to recreate the accounts then print the login details for each child. The Teachers then need to take them all over to the ICT Suite and get them to login to Zimbra and change their passwords.... And how long before they decide to delete them again? Thanks for the ideas guys, I did start looking @ the Edu solution and our ICT Coordinator has also been trialling google docs with some of the staff so both are possible options for us. As a short term fix I've asked year 3 to look at 2simple email and Email detectives which we have as hopefully that will cover their immediate needs until we sort something out.

Link2ICT have deleted over 300 of our Zimbra accounts despite being told not to. I had already deleted the old year 6 pupils that had left and was about to create the 90 new accounts for this years year 3. Then they come along and delete 3 year groups and a lot of our TAs becuase the accounts are not used very frequently. I'm not going to bother creating new Zimbra accounts for children now, whats the point if they are just going to come along and delete them? Ontop of that they cant make their minds up what they are doing with email they detect as spam, 1st it goes into a seperate account (I really dont see the point) then they changed it and sent it to users junk folder and now we have gone back to having seperate accounts for email detected as spam... I want to ditch Zimbra (at least for the kids accounts) and I'm open to suggestions if any of you have already gone down this route.

We deploy it via group policy so we dont allow it to check for updates. If you are just installing it manually you can still stop it checking for updates by changing line 11 in the admin.ini file to "11=1" then you can just install updates when you deem it necessary. By default I believe the latest version checks for updates every time you start it.

If it is the XP gigabit nic problem (basically gpo doesnt always get applied) give this a go on one of the PCs details http://support.microsoft. com/kb/326152 work around How to disable the Media Sensing feature for TCP/IP in Windows (I use the registry entry on every XP workstation that has a gigabit nic.) Have you tried opening internal / external sites by ip address (eg 207.46.197.32 = microsoft.com) if they open then it would suggest a dns issues rather than a proxy problem.

Possibly but usually if the proxy settings are not applied to a PC you can normally still access internal sites (if an old invalid proxy address is being applied with no proxy exception rules for local sites that could cause the problem you are experiencing). It could be a DNS issue (which can still be GPO related) have you tried to access your internal sites by ip address instead of server name on a PC that has the problem? As I mentioned in my earlier post gigabit network connections can cause a problem if you are using XP, does this apply to you? Another idea: Are all of the PCs you have a problem with connected to the same switch, if yes can you try patching a workstation into a different switch to see if that makes any difference.

Yes it’s Spiking Switch board on / off – yes this sometimes works, but it will probably come back again! USB Boosters / Extension cables can cause this try it without them (I had to do this quite frequently with one board: switch board off, unplug extension [both ends], plug extension back into PC and switch the board on then plug the board back into extension) Replace the power supply (borrow one from another board if you don’t have a spare) Update the driver Update the firmware (if it goes wrong you could scrap the control circuit) Replace the control circuit Replace the whole board

Domain GPO for some global settings but then everything else has its own appropriately named GPO. Assigned Application – xxxx, Desktop – xxxx, Security – xxxxx, Internet Explorer – xxxx, Firewall – xxxx, etc… This way it’s a lot easier for you (and anyone else in the future) to see what GPO’s are in place and to manage the settings. I would strongly recommend editing each of your GPO’s to reduce logon time this made a noticeable difference for us: GPO Status – If a GPO only has User or Computer settings and not both then disable the one not in use. Add / Remove templates – Remove any administrative templates from a GPO that are not in use.

I used that to create my original MST and ini files but now I just copy them from my old package into the new one as it saves a bit of time; just need to keep an eye out for any changes they make that would need a new mst / ini file creating. It would be nice if they sorted out the serial support you really shouldnt need to edit the driver msi to get it to work but its been that way for quite some time now. As this thread is titled V1.5 just a heads up for those that havent noticed that V1.6 is out The main installer thats currently available will install V1.6.43277 but if you then check for updates it will also find a patch V1.6.44682 which you can turn into an admin install point by running it from the cmd prompt with the "/a" switch Note as its a patch it wont have all of the files so some some jiggery pokery is required i.e. create the new admin install point then copy the contents of your last Activinspire package and paste it over the top DO NOT OVERWRITE any existing files! This has worked ok for me in the past and I'm just in the process of doing it again with this version.

I could never get an MST to work but I could get the serial driver to install by making a simple change within the msi file using Orca. I logged this with promethean a long time ago and was told it would be passed on to their software development team but as far as I'm aware they haven't made any changes and you still need to edit the MSI directly. This is a copy and paste of a txt file I have for ref with the change you need to make for serial support ========================================================================= "Problem: Activdriver Versions higher than V5.1.2.7 do not install the serial driver. Solution: Using Orca the Activdriver file has been modified so the serial driver is still installed. File name: modified-Activdriver X86.msi The following change was made: "Property table" - "InstallLevel" Value was "100" changed to "200" This installs the serial driver so older boards / boards with longer cable runs still work. Note: This only works if you edit the msi directly using a mst file doesn't work. =========================================================================== An alternative method would be to make the following change using Orca: Table: "ControlEvents" Field: "Addlocal" change Value to: "1" ===========================================

I would also suggest that sticking the files on a common drive is worse than format shifting because anyone in the school can copy them so you are effectively using the school server to share what are effectively pirated files.

I’m possibly interested in some as well if you can let us know what size / model they are (on label at bottom left of board) I might take 3+ off your hands. I would have to speak to site manager to see if he knows a white van man though I dont think they will fit on the back of my bike - lol

I don’t use wireless a great deal but I have an old 54G access point at home and found that a single laptop using wpa2 can max it out when downloading files and I only have a 10mb internet connection! Saying that we do have a laptop trolley with 16 Toshibas using a relatively cheap 54G Netgear access point but it is one of those Rangemax ones which are supposed to have better range / speed than standard 54G and that seems to work ok. 54G is reaching end of life and any new kit should support “N” but before you throw your access point in the bin I would try changing the channel it’s using (we can pickup the wireless signal from several of the surrounding houses at the school I support). I would also double check that the driver on the laptops is set to only use 54G so they are not trying to connect using 11b. A nice new managed wireless network would be great for us but the costs involved mean that’s not going to happen any time soon. But I might add a few “N” rated access points in key places. One thing to remember if you do buy a nice new “N” rated access point to use with your new laptops is that ideally it needs to be connected to a gigabit network point.

I would check your proxy exceptions as it sounds like they are not always being applied correctly for some reason hence external sites work but internal wont. If these are XP workstations with gig nics then you need to disable media sensing otherwise your group policy settings dont always get applied.

It might not be the cable although they can cause problems, you need to check what driver version you are using with activinspire! I forget of the top of my head which version they started doing it with but by default the serial part of the driver is no longer installed. I deploy using group policy and for a long time I stuck with the old driver so our older boards still worked. Then I used a new driver but had to edit the msi file so the serial driver was installed (using an mst file didn't work for me).

I believe Casio were the first and the others are / were playing catch up but a quick google shows plenty of alternatives. I’ve just ordered our first LED and have gone for a Casio model it seemed to make sense when taking into account the cost of the lamps. I haven’t actually seen one in operation yet so I’m hoping the image quality is ok, but almost anything would be better than the one it’s replacing which is end of life at ~5 years, its not bright enough ~1500 Lumens, has a poor contrast ratio and needs a new lamp. The only problem I have is that we are a promethean school and they bundle sanyo with everything so the lens is in the wrong position. I might need to have the pole moved but I’m hoping I can get around that. The one I ordered is approx the same cost as the last sanyo we ordered and wont need any lamps so I thought it was worth a shot especially as we are having problems with 2 of the last 4 sanyos we purchased. Only thing I would suggest is to avoid the slim line models Casio may have fixed the problems but I believe there were issues with them overheating.

Raid 5 is common place and used in most of the schools I’ve worked at but you need to be careful! If you have 5 disks and one fails your server should carry on running ok (without redundancy) on the remaining four (I’ve been in this situation several times) but from experience if an array with 3 disks fails your server will keel over until the faulty drive is replaced and the array is rebuilt from the remaining two drives. Compare the cost of a few extra drives against what it will cost you if the server is down for a few days while you wait for replacement parts / the array to rebuild. If you can then use 5 drives for the array and have a 6th as a hot swap so it starts rebuilding as soon as a drive fails reducing the chance of a second failure and waving bye to all of your data. Raid 5 means the difference between having a server that is down or one that stays online when a drive fails (although you get a performance hit when a drive fails) but it’s not a replacement for a backup. I don’t have any experience with Raid 6 as I haven’t come across it yet in Schools. I imagine the controllers are going to be more expensive and you will get slightly reduced capacity but you do get greater redundancy.

Windows Update is one of the things that can cause svchost errors so this might be worth looking at: You receive an error message after a Windows XP-based computer runs an automatic update, and you may be unable to run any programs after you close the "svchost.exe - Application Error" error message dialog box I know its not a solution but if you disable the sound device in control panel do you still continue to get svchost errors? I'm just wondering if its the audio driver causing the svchost errors or if its the svchost error causing the audio problem... Do you have a WSUS server for your microsoft updates? And if the Answer is yes do you use WSUS to update drivers as well? - I removed the driver option on our WSUS server after an automatic update on one workstation messed it up so much I needed to do a full reinstall - I now only perform driver updates manually.

If you still have problems after running another scan and updating the drivers look at any software that installs a service. I once had a problem where the remote software our lea used would crash the print spooler on the server – good luck!