SHimmer45

@matt40k missunderstood what i was reading lol. if it was me id be looking to put the sims DB on a fast local server rather rather than having data split across the host machine and a SAN also if you have antivirus on a sims server (or any SQL DB) this can kill performance unless you exclude parts of the SQL install from being scanned.

doesnt the daily backup of sims compact/delete certain logs to keep the database a reasonable size

We have a Dell R510 running our SIMS currently, as it matches the specification published by our LEA, (however alot of the newer servers on paper dont match the required GHZ which is complete crap, and to match the speed we would have needed to look at some really really ££££ equipment) 16GB ram and a RAID 10 X5660 xeon array on 15K disks and its not had any complaints yet, it also runs discover as well its very likely very under utilized but we got a good deal at the time and as such i dont see u needing to replace it for many years

id get to know 2012 if your going to be using it before 2015 comes out, unless 2015 has a feature which you need which 2012 doesnt have

yes it is "draw a line in the sand" and run with 2012 if your already looking at/using it.

you might notice issues with time syncing and MS recommend syncing with an external source (to the host) for this.

ive heard that as well, however having used it myself it does work well and saves aggro from a managment point of view. people who have had the problems end up removing and then readding the printer as part of the policy but ive never found a problem with it

would have thought using GPO would have been easier? used it for manual rollouts when i was updated rooms which were not gpo applied so to speak. i used this: rundll32 printui.dll PrintUIEntry /dl /n "printername" /c\\pc-name rundll32 printui.dll PrintUIEntry /dd /m "Kyocera FS-3920DN KX" /c\\pc-name rundll32 printui.dll PrintUIEntry /dd /m "Kyocera FS-3920DN KX" /c\\pc-name rundll32 printui.dll PrintUIEntry /if /F "R:\knew\OEMSETUP.inf" /b "a14-fs3920" /r "\\servername\pcname" /m "Kyocera FS-3920DN KX" /c\\pc-name this was removing a couple of old drivers as well so the /if /F line is actually installing a new printer dont see why you couldint drop this into a login script tho i have never used it like that

if your forward Zone is working properly it should return the server:"your_servername" if you just type nslookup at a command prompt. can you connect "directly" via IP using RDC?

other option would be to use the adobe MSI custom tool and embed the options into the MSI and then activate if your supressing the registration you will need to activate after the install.

+1 on the above all DC's look to the Operations Master for time syncing i believe there is an option in W32time to query the time source to see if you get a response might be worth trying that

i have spent alot of time swearing at adobe activation... in the end after much modding of the SLS store folder and the like used an aternative tool for activation which is the Adobe Provisioning Toolkit enterprise which seems to work much better than AMEE tools

been for a couple of interviews for management positions and on both occasions the main focus was more on strategy for ICT in the school rather than can you do this and that.

if your "forcing consumer based drives" into a different environment then your going to bump the failure rates surely? i always assumed this is why you paid more for the enterprise type drives like the WD RE series as these had higher MTBF ratings but backblaze is not your standard environment..

if you recover the data id be pushing for a backup solution for if the RAID fails on a device if they havent already got one. this is an in ideal opportunity to say its needed

ive found with the buffalo products that firmware upgrades/restores work best from XP workstations. tries it on 7 and it failed all the time... any even if you manage to flash the firmware of the device if this is physically damaged its not going to behave as it should. if the buffalo is a "software" RAID then connecting the disks in the correct order in a linux system with mdam MAY allow you to read/rebuild the array. its a good sign that ubuntu is recognizing that the disk is part of an array so id start there.

thats informative lol

sounds to me like when your adding the print driver on the server you have both x64 and x86 boxes ticked so when you point it at the location for the x64 its happy but that location doesnt have the x86 driver. Id try getting the x86 driver and pointing the wozard directly at that. iirc if you are using different arch's for your clients and servers making sure the version numbers match is important.

does the event viewer on the client show anything permission errors or the like?

retired a couple of Dell Poweredge 1900's a while back and they are still being used to test hyper-V and other virtual bits (only 1.6Ghz Xeons but have virtual support) you dont always needs the latest and greatest kit to achieve a task, good for learning on

assuming that the raid card/controller is in good order are any disks being flagged as having an issue? have you tested the ram in the server an I/O could be as simple as an iffy dvd/cd drive as i have had this before

eepp that is VERY steep

you could use GPO but if you havent got that setup then adding the printer as a local port (the port being the full share path of the printer) and it will appear for all users regardless.

so its being "published" and is viewable if you "browse for a printer"? if you have shared the printer queue you could just add the port manually (\\servername\"printersharename") and your driver and off you go or browse the server where is shared from and click connect and it will push the driver onto your machine (providing it has the correct one for your client on the server)

had a similar problem after an upgrade on a similar release turned out part of the problem was the shortcut to SIMS. worth adding just your "staff" group as a local admin might fix this as well as a test