starscream

We tried painting some windows. But it flaked off. Ok I didn't but the caretaker did. I wouldn't have....

passworded hard drive as in windows password? If that is the case you could boot the machine with knoppix and it bypasses any windows security as long as the drive isn't encrypted.

We can't afford the software. I have tried iTalc (free) but to be honest it isn't very reliable. The server software crashes as do the clients and I couldn't get the server software to run from a client running on the server which I thought was the whole point in this sort of software. I am considering Ranger Control as we have Ranger Primary but I think they rip you off for this stuff.

I totally recommend Acronis True Image Workstation. You 'buy' it and install it on your PC then make a recovery CD. You then sysprep the machine you wanna image and then boot it from the acronis recovery CD. You then create a disk image to either a network share, USB drive or DVD, I love the versatility of this software.... You then take your 2nd machine, boot from CD and then pick RESTORE, you locate the image wherever you stored it and hey presto. It's pretty quick too. Obviously it is slower than multicasting for like 100s of machines but for 10 at a time it's fairly quick and dead simple. I use it all the time. It supports pretty much all hardware out of the box. It automatically lets you net card work on the network and detects USB drives on boot. Anyone else rely of Acronis? I don't know if using it this way is allowed in the licence but to be fair I only use the 1 cd so I can't see how it is a problem! You never have to make boots disks etc or use floppies at all.

What a stupid time of year. Yet again all use education sys admins left out! Although most of you work the summer don't you? :-P Still... means there are no staff around to appreciate you!

Might be worth paying a little extra and getting one with AV inputs too so you can use an external cam or mic with it. Can be useful in some applications. A feature not many cheaper decent make cams have. Strangely enough though those cheap 99 quid jobbies from ebay (Taiwan, Hong Kong or wherever) do have AV inputs! I wan't one for use with a bullet cam on a motorbike! Vroom Vroom!

Aww man it's locked now! Was gonna add Darik's Boot and Nuke site. Invaluable when military wiping hard drives that are leaving your school. I don't know if it's features are available on a rescue linux CD or something though.

I prefer MG ZRs. I prefer England. ..yeah right!

I lock mine when I go out for lunch and it has the wallpaper on there. Plus my carbon footprint is HUGE as I NEVER use low power standby etc because half the apps crash! So I like to have a nice wallpaper. Mine is currently a photo of my car. It is a few months old now so need a new one! I used to love the vista grass as I use the MS Zune Noir theme

I have set up my domain with ranger and a dell server. I ordered a dell backup tape drive. It didn't come with any backup software though. What do you use for backing up your server to tape and how would you recover the data following a disaster? Obviously I want a full backup somehow of all settings and files on the server. What would be the best way to do this? What should I bear in mind. Are there any free backup software titles that are up the job? ta!

indeed... master!

thanks for the help guys. I feel like an AD padawan at the moment! Thanks for your help AD masters!

thanks for the help guys. I feel like an AD padawan at the moment! Thanks for your help AD masters!

OK I did this the way you said and it works great! Many thanks! Will this overwrite the local policy on the machine? For example if it was disconnected from the network would the policy still be applied?

I did this this ranger for the computers but it didn't work. Should I just use active directory and create a policy for the OU of the computers and change it there?

I am wanting to change the local policy on all computers to not need ctrl-alt-del, not remember last logon and to display an AUP warning on every client computer. I have set this in Ranger for all computers but it didn't seem to make any difference to the client computers so I think that I need to change each computer's own local policy. Does anyone know what a need to change on each computer to enable the above changes and is there a way to do this on all machines at ones, remotely or with the least amount of work possible? I don't want to have to go to every single machine and log on locally and change the policy. Any help would be mucho appreciated guys!

One of my schools is moving across to a new school building and are getting brand new equipment so all the old is being sold off. It is a race against time to DBAN, create and deploy xp images to them all by the end of term. If that wasn't enough I am setting up server - client networks from scratch in 3 schools and don't even have the hardware at 2 yet. Better to burn out than to fade away I suppose!

Ta! I couldn't bring up the goods in google. Perhaps I was using incorrect terms.

Can anyone please list me the Server 2003 commands that can be typed into RUN in order to open different parts of the server management. I know that the active directory one is dsa.msc What are the ones for DNS, DHCP etc? I do not have shortcuts to this in Administrative Tools but the run commands do work. Thanks

Hi all. I have just finished setting up server 2003 with ranger primary installed and have added my first client to the domain. I have a few issues I wondered if anyone has the patience to explain to me. 1, I am trying to create groups in the Ranger Account Manager for a class (Intake 2000) I then want to edit the policy for this group, change start menu etc. So I go into Ranger Administrator and click edit and settings and groups and synchronise. The manual says that I should now see the group I created, but I don't. Apparently I need to do this sync in order to view the newly created group in Ranger Administrator. Have a done something wrong here and is that why the new Intake 2000 group is not listed? 2, We have an IT Suite here with different software than in classrooms. What is the best way to set up Ranger/Server 2003 so that when kids are in classrooms their start menu has only software for that classroom (I figured a group for each classroom woudl do this) but then when they log onto the computers in the IT Suite they have a different list of software. How would I do this in ranger? Do I need to some how assign a group to the IT Suite computers so that overrides the classroom group when they log on in the IT suite? Let me know if I have not made myself clear. As you can appreciate each classroom has different software as does the IT Suite however each group of computers in each room has the same software running. IF anyone coudl point me in the right direction here, I am learning ranger and have only had brief training years ago! Looks like I should be able to do what I want in Ranger rather than Active Directory I just need a helping hand Cheers John

It is a nightmare if you don't use VLM. I used to spend hours on the phone to microsoft activating machines that wouldn't activate.

Hamachi is good but slow unless you pay for it. The free version works great though, just a little on the slow side. It's fast enough for remote control but copying files would be scarey. Dirt easy to use think it is the brainchild of logmein.

Women are always right. Even when they're wrong! ...in my experience!

i have tried this approach and it never works i can never seem to get virtual server working If you can't get a virtual one working you will never get a real one working! I recommend you install server 2003 onto the free MS Virtual PC and play with that. Then if you wanna set up a domain I recommend getting VMWare. I am sure you could source it cheaply. It takes too long to install and set up in a real environmnet and I would personally only do it in a real life scenario where you need it. underpowered servers lead to long log in times among other things. I was in a similar situation as you a few years ago and was even experimenting with linux but until I could convince the headteachers to spend the money on a server instead of 8 desktop computers I bought a cheap and cheerful terastation from Buffalo for as network attached storage. Server's have the specs they have for a reason. Also i would check with your LEA as if you left your job and you set up a cheap vanilla system the school might not get support from the LEA. At least if you buy a recommended server from them then other technicians could fix it if there is a fault. This is my reason for going dell and ranger

Could you not just do away with the upgrade cover? I thought the annual charges were just to cover you should a new version come out?