theeggmaster

If it's just basic page hosting (no scripting), then Google Drive will serve websites - https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2881970?hl=en

I was lucky enough to install it for our organisation before it went paid, and they gave it to us for free for being an early supporter. It is a really good piece of software and is obviously the one we use. The other one I like is the Techsmith SnagIt extension and Chrome app: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/techsmith-snagit/fcnghgbgmemnlbckdipnmelbanpgneik?hl=en-GB https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/techsmith-snagit-extensio/annopcfmbiofommjmcmcfmhklhgbhkce?hl=en-GB

We've got over 100 Chromebooks. We tend to buy the smaller 11" screen ones (Acer C720) for students and staff get the larger screens on the Acer CB5-311's. We've got a Chromebox as well for one of our meeting rooms, and I've trialled the LG Chromebase. The Chromebase was especially good as it has an HDMI in so that you can plug a proper PC or other device in, and use the screen.

Yes, I'll trawl through the Event Viewer logs. A quick glance shows printer errors so far, but I'm sure there's more interesting stuff in there.

I've ran it on all four DC's. The two new ones report no errors. The two older ones report errors on systemlog.

Yes, all present and with the same amount of objects inside the folders. If I copy a file to \\domain.local\Sysvol or \\domain.local\netlogon it gets copied to the sysvol and netlogon folders on each server

Whether I do or not, it doesn't solve the underlying problem of one of the 2003 DC's causing group policy processing issues when it's switched off, which is where the group policy central store idea came in on the last page. However, I can't find any policies that are stored just on that server. This issue existed before new DC's were introduced. Don't you love inheriting networks...

I was originally going to have all of the roles on the same server to start with, but the DHCP migration to DC02 failed as it wasn't handing out IP addresses, so I rolled it back and tried it on DC01 instead, which worked. I could try moving the roles all onto DC01.

netdom query fsmo gives me Schema master DC02.mardenclc.org Domain naming master DC02.mardenclc.org PDC DC02.mardenclc.org RID pool manager DC02.mardenclc.org Infrastructure master DC02.mardenclc.org DC02 is one of our new DC's. DC01 is the other one, and it's running DHCP. I thought I'd done it correctly as I followed this slightly older guide from the same website you posted, written by the same guy Step-By-Step: Adding a Windows Server 2012 Domain Controller to an Existing Windows Server 2003 network - Canadian IT Professionals - Site Home - TechNet Blogs I'll verify the steps on the one you posted to see if it matches up.

Yes, all of the FSMO roles were transferred, and both of the new servers are the first two DNS servers.

I agree with you, but I have all of the DNS servers in the DHCP Scope options, the clients show that they can see them as registered DNS servers. This is the first time I've had to do a DC migration, so I'm loathe to demote a DC when I know if I do, half of the clients will stop processing group policy. They used to do this before I even started looking at Server 2012 R2 when that server was off.

All of the clients that I'm testing with are just classroom PC's; they are all on DHCP and aren't using fixed addresses for their IP or for DNS. I didn't want to demote the old DC's until I had DNS working on the new ones. I'd authorised the new DNS servers, unauthorised the old ones and disconnected their network connection. *edit* Deauthorising was what I did when I was looking at migrating DHCP. So yes, I'd simply turned the servers off by disconnecting their network connection.

Aah yes, thanks for this. I was reading something the other day about it and I did wonder if it was related.

The clients certainly have them showing in ipconfig /all, and they are appearing as the first two in the list. We do have a software restriction policy, but the only ones referencing any servers don't reference domain controllers. It's been like looking for a piece of hay in a massive stack full of needles.

Hi, I've been migrating our DC's to Server 2012 R2 DC's from Server 2003 ones. I've migrated DNS, DHCP and all of the FSMO roles to the new DC's. However, we've had a long-running problem that if one of the old 2003 DC's is not switched on, only about half of the machines apply group policy and get wallpaper, security settings, proxy settings etc. The others log on as normal. This is still the case now that I've migrated all roles to the new DC's. I've also found that DNS doesn't work if the same old DC is switched off, even though it is present and should be working fine on all of the DC's. I've been trying to troubleshoot this for months now and I'm still no further forward. Any help would be appreciated.

There is a really good blog post about the DfE, Cloud Services and Data Protection here - ChromeStead: Cloud Software, Schools, Data Protection The Google response, specifically, is here - https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4froD7RGVqtaFlKc3VnTHF0THc&usp=sharing#

I think if you buy the devices directly from Google, they come with the licence, but they cost at least £19 more. I buy the devices and licences separately, and we use both XMA and C-Learning.

Before Google changed it to unlimited storage, it was just about feasible that we could store offline files locally and redirect them to the server through the profile. However, the offline files didn't work correctly when they were redirected, so they are just saved locally onto the machine you're working on (which is why it says not to do this on a public or shared computer). The more you use Drive, then the less likely it is that you'll be able to download all of your files before the lesson ends. We've been using it for two years and our top user has 270Gb of data on Drive. Some students have 12Gb. We clear the profiles automatically.

I've also played around with Google Collaborative Groups as a cloud-based free alternative to Spiceworks, but it just didn't do quite enough for what we currently use the ticketing system in Spiceworks for. It may help some people, though. https://support.google.com/a/answer/167430?hl=en

Hahaha. Yes, the account I used doesn't have a server-based profile. The first time I tried it I did it room-by-room and then worked up from there to see how the network would cope.

We use a mix of leased MFD/Copiers for high volume or centralised printing, and for smaller print requirements we use these or similar - FREE - Dell 1760NW Printer Deal - IJT Direct They sell remanufactured cartridges through their eBay shop really cheap, and the price per page works out sometimes cheaper than the leased MFD/Copiers.

We moved away completely two years ago, apart from the fact that we have to use Office for some things (SIMS reports, third-party software, legacy PowerPoint animations). The shared drive has been read-only for a year now. I was initially worried that the slowest and least reliable part of our network (the Internet connection) was going to be a huge issue, but it's actually proved not to be as much a problem as I'd thought. We enable offline syncing of files and I'm currently looking at how I can get a reliable second link into the school for the occasion when the Internet does go down. The major plus points for us are collaboration, enabling independent learning, able to use any device (we have over 100 Chromebooks which work wonderfully and are dirt cheap), unlimited storage and access to everything everywhere. It's also really hard to lose or delete files, as you have to delete it out of your drive, then the Google Drive trash doesn't self-delete, so you'd have to clear that too. Even then you've got 30 days as an administrator to recover files that have been deleted from the trash. Auto-saving of files and version history of every change is a dream. The downsides are obviously when the Internet goes down it can be an issue, but we mitigate as much as we can. Backups of unlimited online storage are impossible, and staff resistance to change or new staff coming into the school means lots of training, but it's worthwhile when you have such huge benefits. It's too much to go into here, but I've spent the last 15 years working with Microsoft, and the last two with Google and I've thoroughly enjoyed the last two years using Google. I'm happy to chat on the phone if you want?

We've just gone ahead with the purchase last month but I've been evaluating it for a few years as I've always managed to find something that doesn't quite work for us. Now we're at a point where everything is working. My reasons for buying it were from a few different points of view. It helps with network management and software upgrades. When we do a SIMS upgrade I simply log in all of the machines at the same time out of school hours, run simsload.exe on all computers, and when the staff come in first thing on Monday, SIMS is updated for them so no need to wait for the files to copy before they can take registers. We also needed a classroom management solution, and I've used ABTutor, NetSupport etc before. However, as Impero runs from a server rather than the teacher's PC, it has persistent logs and settings and is much easier to manage centrally. Thirdly, we needed an e-safety solution over and above our Smoothwall filtering, especially with Ofsted looking so closely at e-safety now. I've looked at Securus for a good number of years, but we run PC's, Macs, Android, iPads and Chromebooks, and Securus doesn't work with anything other than Windows. Impero works with everything but Android, but that is on the way, so we are covered on all devices. It isn't the cheapest solution, but for me to get something that covered all of the bases would have been a number of products, and the total cost would probably have been more, plus more complexity to manage. I'm very happy with it and our staff love it.

The supplier is working on this right now, as they haven't come across this before. Their solution extracts data from SIMS into their own tables, then writes back into SIMS when changes are made. The authentication is with SIMS, so without a password, I can't see how it is going to authenticate as I don't see SIMS getting a password from anywhere before Trusted or TrustedAuto logs in.

My understanding is that it doesn't actually have a password at all, and won't accept one. It just uses the username from SIMS that you've matched against an AD account. If that matches, then you get in. I don't believe any passwords are exchanged from PC to SIMS.