sloughman

Thanks, adding that way was what I was thinking earlier, and is probably makes the most sense, and the recording idea is also good, hadn't thought of that , thanks!

Hello, a teacher wants to observe lessons being taught using Teams, what's the best way for them to achieve this, make them a member of any/all of the dozens of class subject Teams, and this is a manual process I suspect as I'd have to do this, ie they can't do it themself......or is there another way to achieve this observation via Teams...? Have others done this ? Any thoughts on this or recommendations gratefully received.

I always find it's not the system but the physical process of lending....I used to have to lend out only 13 laptops and 8 ipads at one point but it was a complete pain. You are just walking out of your office and teacher/student wants x number of laptops/ipads...then something always interrupts you phone/another customer whilst logging what laptop with whom.....student/teacher returns 5 mins later and meets you in corridor "this laptop/ipad is not logging in/needs charging" ...can I have a charger....back you walk to your office...give replacement or charger.....then some time later 6 laptops are handed to you whilst you are once again heading off to somewhere else....or they are sub lent to another teacher and you have to track them down, and the chargers are missing even though you have told SLT that this shouldn't happen.... and this happening throughout the day everyday....and then being told...its so easy to keep track just jot it down.....hmmm.....Lending is best avoided in my opinion.

Same here, called to someone today who wanted to download doc attachment from email in chrome, wouldn't work...nothing happens but works in IE. No changes, previously worked fine.

As I've thought all along it's a waste of time. My analogy is this, it's like having a smoke alarm in your house that may, or may not go off when smoke is detected, (or it may not go off until smoke is too thick to survive), or it may still go off when there is no smoke and no fire.........I wouldn't bother using it !

Yes the Office Removal tool (scrub) is what I used, although I used it in auto mode not manual. I think I'm just going to re-image....

Hello This week I uninstalled Office 2010 on two PCs, using the Microsoft Office Removal tool reporting it successful. I then deployed Office 2016 all good. However the PC continues to pick up just 5 Windows Office 2010 updates dated last May, nothing from earlier or more recent, strange. It seemingly installs them, (from the list of installed updates) although when it shows installing updates it doesn't actually progress through them one at a time as it normally does. (all Office 2016 updates installed fine). But then immediately says the same five updates need installing...aaagh! Has anyone got any suggestions on how I can stop this happening, or am I going to have to just re-image afresh to deploy 2016 I have WSUS set up which works fine. Thanks

In the last week or two I have come across a couple of classroom PCs that were playing up, wouldn't start, anyway got them going all fine, however when I went into the BIOS the screen has changed colour, it is now monochrome (see attached) this may mean nothing but it is not something I have seen before, just odd, (they were definitely blue before) is there a setting to make it blue again and I am just concerned that maybe a student is upto no good. The BIOS is password protected. The two PCs were of the same type. The settings all seem identical and PCs now work fine.

I should have updated earlier, netsh winhttp reset proxy , ie no proxy, was the answer, as there was a proxy setting in there previously although I am still at a loss as to what populated it...but all working now.

Hello all. In the last two weeks our County provider has changed the internet provider, we now go through RM Notify. I noticed this week that the PCs hadn't done any Monthly updates , whilst looking through the WSUS console I could see that no clients had communicated with the WSUS server since the exact time of the switch over to RMnotify (2.00pm on a school day, 10 days ago), up untill that point PCs had been communicating throughout the day and only stopped the minute of the change-over. Synchronisations of the server are working fine and I can see a number of updates from this Tuesday, so the server is connecting fine with the outside world, but not with the clients. I have added the WSUS server as an exception in proxy settings but this makes no difference, I have tried running this command 'http:///iuident.cab' but nothing shows, so clearly a connection problem. This must have something to do with the change-over but I am at a loss now what, and what to try....any ideas ? Thanks

We are a Server 2012R2 and Win 7 domain. I am in the process of deploying some new Windows 10 PCs. So therefore will be a mixed environment. I will need to add the latest 1703 Windows 10 admx to PolicyDefinitions central store on the 2012 DC. My question is will this overwriting of any current admx with same name knock any GPO settings out, or any other possible adverse effect. I am understandably cautious with importing so many templates that overwrite others. Thanks in advance.

Many thanks to Pete above, Basically our network covers the first three points, do other NMs do much Log Analysis as described above...We are only a small special school of 100+ so users, with just me running things network-wise, my knowledge of Log Analysis software (other than Windows server events etc) (as described above) is zero....

Hello, A member of SLT has approached me with a document from the National Cyber Security Centre titled "10 Steps to Cyber security" in One of the steps it includes the following "Protect your networks from attack. Defend the network perimeter. Filter out unauthorised access and malicious content. Monitor and test security controls. Analyse logs that could indicate an attack." He has then said how does this apply to our network ? I am really not sure how to answer this. We have our Internet connectivity provided by our County Suppliers, this will include Firewall. I am currently awaiting details of exactly what is involved at County before stuff hits the school network. However we have no ability ourselves to monitor and test security controls and log files. Should we have this in place ourselves or is that more for the County suppliers to do ? I would be grateful if anyone can help me with this.

Great...that worked. Thanks

Hello In the summer term I added a new Synology DS216se to the network, created a couple of folders mainly to store archived work. All was fine, and over several days copied many GBs of work to it. After returning from the summer break I now cannot connect to the NAS through explorer, ie previously I did Run, \\synology\archive and it connected, but now after an age it asks for domain user name and password, which I provide but then tells me it's wrong anyway.....I can connect fine to the nas via ip address in browser and log in that way. I have not made any changes to the NAS, and other than filling in Domain credentials didn't really make any changes to synology on first set up, ie defaults. I am at a loss as to what may be the problem. I have re-started the NAS, and nothing really seems to stand out problem-wise. Any advice gratefully received.

Hello I wonder if anyone can help. When you do a Google internet search for a school (or anything) on the right hand side of the results screen is a synopsis of your school (or business). This is where reviews are shown. Also you can "suggest an edit" and edit for example "school" or other details. I have "claimed" our school site, but this doesn't seem to make any difference, but it seems you can still make changes. From Google searches it seems there is no way to stop this. Can anyone confirm or otherwise if this can be stopped, if so how ? Thanks in advance

Thanks for replies....good stuff. We do not have a seperate VLAN for BYOD, just the one flat subnet, wireless that is used by domain, I know...but we are only a very small special school.

Hello, I wonder if people could advise. A member of staff is wanting to buy himself a Windows Surface Pro, his own property, it won't be part of the domain. But he wants to be able bring the surface into school log into the staff drive and use printers, effectively as if it was part of the domain. I have concerns, obviously it won't be manged for Updates or AV. This member of staff is senior. Although not Head or DH. Being his property , I am not sure if I have any responsibility towards it, but he thinks I should. Do others have this issue in their schools. How do they address it ? Do others think it good practice ? I do plan to speak with the head about it, but it would be good to gather advice beforehand. If anyone has suggestions as to how I can deliver what he wants ? I am the only network person, and it is a small special school, so I am hoping someone with greater knowledge can assist. Thanks in advance

Hello all I have been asked to sign up for a course on 0365 and its apps so I can help the school move forward in the use of O365 in the classroom. I am not a teacher or classroom based, I am a Network administrator. Most courses seem really basic, has anybody done/been on any genuinely useful O365 course(s). Any advise will be gratefully received. Many thanks

Hello all We recently had a network upgrade, server etc and as part of this, new Windows 7 image was deployed to all machines. Previously on Win 7 I used to run the following two lines of script as a batch file, it would prevent access to the F8 boot options screen and any failure messages from appearing, therefore PCs always boot to windows log in screen even if PC crashed out rather than graceful shut down, as students love to do. However since new Win 7 image this does not work anymore, I have tried running the batch file, or copying into cmd prompt with admin rights all to no avail. Anybody got any ideas why this might be happening ? Thanks in advance. bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu no bcdedit /set {default} bootstatuspolicy ignoreallfailures

I am playing Devil's Advocate here. But will it make any difference to any Ofsted result, I have set up Analytics now, but just wonder at the point of it all really. So say an ofsted Service Provider is noted in GA does that mean they will visit, will it be tomorrow, the next day or two weeks' time, something else, or not at all ? In other words does the school immediately fly into OFSTED panic mode (as happens when the real call comes in) on the off chance that they will come in ? GA just tells you that they've been looking, and if they've been looking from home it doesnt tell you anything ! I think it just makes it worse in many ways....

So, the situation is you may, or may not see a spike in viewing policy pages or you may or may not see an ofsted ISP in Google Analytics, which you tell your Head about, who then gets a call an hour later from OFSTED anyway...So I personally don't see the point. And shouldn't schools be OFSTED ready anyway...what difference does an hour or day make ? But no doubt I will have to implement Google Analytics.....Thanks all who have made comments. Further comments are welcomed.

Thanks for replies folks. GuyJD, yes maybe the activity you mention was linked, but from what you have said above, there was an approx 7-8 week gap between policy activity and school inspection..... Do other folk use Google Analytics to sniff out the OFSTED inspectors.....

Hello I have been asked by the head to investigate an "OFSTED early warning" functionality which is advertised on a website designers site. I am dubious about the validity of this, too many variables, does anyone know the basis for this claim ? Or have any experience, information ? I have not contacted the site designers yet as I wanted unbiased info first... Any info gratefully received.

The way 0365 was set up here means I have to do a few manual tasks for each newly created user in AD Eg set SMTP: proxy adddress in attribute editor in AD, also set the account to the email@address rather than .internal. Also I thought if there is ever a problem with Azure Ad connect I wouldn't need to worry if there is no sync.