Bob_the_Goon

I set my SRPs as user-based GPOs. Worked like a charm. I had already tried what Cache had suggested but it didn't work for me. Now that I've got the SRPs in place, I'll take a look at AppLocker. Thank you guys.

Thank you for all of the replies so far! In terms of AppLocker - yes I would like to take a look at this however I just wanted to setup some quick and dirty SRP's to get us going whilst I plan AppLocker. I'm more familiar with SRP's. If I right click the file I can indeed run it using "Run as administrator". I was thinking of setting the SRP's as a user-based GPO however, all of the documentation on the web that I've read always seem to tell you to make it a computer configuration rather than user. Is there a good reason for this? Does anyone on here apply their SRP's via the the user context of a GPO?

I forgot to mention that if I log in as the THE local administrator, executables will run.

Hello, I am trying to apply a software restiction policy to a group of computers within an OU. The policy is applying however even domain administrators are being blocked and I can't figure out why. I've linked a GPO to an OU containing computers. I've gone to the Computer Configuration --> Windows Settings --> Security Settings --> Software Restriction Policies I've set the Security levels to "Disallowed". I've set "Enforcement" to "All Users except local administrators" as well as "All software files except libraries (such as DLLs) When I go to the computers and log in as a non-administrator I can't run executables. This is as expected as I haven't added in any exceptions yet. When I log in as a Domain Admin I still can't run any executables. I've checked that Domain Admins is a member of the Local Administrators group on the PC. I've even specifically added the domain admin into the local admin group but no luck. There are no other GPOs that are taking precedence over this GPO. I'm pulling my hair out with this one. Can anyone help? I'm sure that I'm just missing something obvious!!! Thanks in advance. Paul

Hello, Just wondering if anyone uses Schools Broadband for their VoIP services? Is the service reliable? Any other comments? Kind regards, Paul

Hello, Does any body know how to prevent users from being able to launch the "Add A Network Location Wizard" when right clicking inside on Windows Explorer. I've tried searching Google but none of what I have tried on there has been successful. There must be a way of doing this?!? We are running Windows 7 SP1 32 bit. Kind regards, Paul

I have plans to look into this over the next 12 months.I'm hoping that MS PowerApps will be ready when I start. I believe that your school needs an O365 subscription for this.

Don't Lightspeed offer a client app that runs at login and passes your AD credentials to the Lightspeed box?

+1 for "Windows Weekly" and "This Week in Enterprise Tech". "Security Now" is an absolute must. "PC Pro Podcast". "The Bugle" is pretty funny especially when it is an episode with Andy Zaltzman AND John Oliver. I like a bit of "Gardeners Question Time". I could go on...probably listen to too many...but hey, it makes the house chores a little more bearable!!!

Spinrite is a great HDD recovery and maintenance tool. I think if you run it on a level 2, it hopefully will recover your SSD. https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm It's not free but it's a great tool to have in the toolbox.I've recovered a couple of drives with it in the past. I also run it on all of the computers in school as a maintenance task.

Gotcha. So did you keep the same domain and then just transfer data etc to new servers within it? If so, what was your domain level before and after migrating?

Thank you Andy. So did you go down the CC4 Matrix route as set out in your tec article?

Thank you Michael. Unfortunately RM won't advise me with this as a migration away from CC4 to vanilla is outside of my support contract with them. They said that we would need to pay for them to carry out the migration. I don't have the available budget to do this.

Hello, I was just wondering if anyone has any experience of migrating away from CC4 to vanilla? Ideally what we would like to do is keep the existing domain, but to introduce Server 2012 DCs into it. We could then migrate users and computers away from the current CC4 GPOs. Has anyone approached their migration in this way? My main concern is that by introducing a Wk2012R2 DC into AD, the schema changes would break CC4. Our current domain is running at a 2003 domain functional level. Any thoughts? Paul

Edublogger - Did you subscribe to the TinaPilot solution? I was just looking at the website. I know of one school in my area who has one. I'm going to ask them how they've found it.

Hello, Is anyone hosting their SIMS DBs in a SQL cluster? This isn't supported by Capita as such but I was just curious to see if anyone is doing this? Cheers, Paul

I am also currently looking at going with option 3 using the methods described above. Has anyone else got any experience of this? Did it go well? Were there any pitfalls?

I have setup a script that moves the DB backup to a NAS box every week. This frees up about 9GB on my server. Not sure if this is one of the options in the Symantec doc.

Cool! Can't wait to play with this. Does anyone know if this is part of the Technical Preview? Once they've added the Update-Package feature to keep everything automatically updated, this is going to be awesome.

+1 for VeryPC Thinbook.They're a standard Clevo chassis but you get it at a great price and their support and customer service has been great.

Thanks for your thoughts and advice so far. Is anyone currently using a tablet and TV setup at the moment? What advantages/disadvantages have your staff encountered so far?

Our finance team are keen on looking into computer leasing schemes. They aren't set on the idea but just want to see if it is worth pursuing. Has anyone got any experience of such schemes? If so, which companies did you use? Which companies have you heard are good?

Does the Sankore software support SmartNotebook files? I'm just thinking of how staff can migrate away from SmartNotebook.

Hello, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on alternatives to SmartBoards and SmartNotebook. We have a large, ageing fleet of Smartboards which we would like to replace on a rolling basis. I'm hesitant to replace them with Smartboards as I think they are are very expensive and underutilised in the school anyway. Are there alternatives to both Smartboards and SmartNotebook that teachers have grown to like? It will be interesting to hear from schools that have made this transition in the past, for better or worse. Thanks in advance!

Hi guys, Just wondering how well your migration of SQL to SQL Server 2012 went? I'm trying to weigh up the option of either doing this work myself or taking up Capita on their offer of doing the migration for £300. I've read the "Migrating SIMS, FMS and Discover to SQL 2012" doc from SupportNet and it seems to be deceptively easy!! :-) Are there any gotchas with the process? Is there anything that caught you out (even with the initial install of SQL 2012)? Our SIMS server is running Windows Server 2008 R2 with SQL Server 2008 Standard. We also use Discover so I'm going to hold off on the migration until after the Autumn 2013 release. Thanks in advance!!