Gaz

I think you'll get some quite varied responses for this. I, like you have the most important ones blocked. Adult Intolerance Malware and Hacking Plagarism Pornography Social networking Terrorism Video sites - Youtube Edu enabled We also have a number that are customised i.e. only a few sub categories selected. Our students are 16 years+

This certainly is odd, we use a lot of Autodesk software, Inventor, 3DS Max, Autocad but I can't say I've ever seen it do anything like that before. What content are you talking about when you say "they push off all this content from the local install to web based" If you mean things like the Help, its online yes but there is an offline version which you need to download but the kicker is that this only works when you're offline, if you're online then it will use the online version, but I think you can force it to use the offline help not that you would want to because it doesnt include any of the tutorial videos.

I think whats more shocking is that from reading these comments I get the impression that head's just buy stuff without consulting the IT staff? Is that right? I don't work in a school per se so I'm albe to make the desicsions on what we need and I can buy from who I see fit, so I guess i'm lucky in that regard.

The same way I learnt/learning just dive on in and see what you can do. Then turn to edugeek for help when I break something.

My mate in Ireland gets this and its on a home connection, the company also does 150Meg packages but he cant justify it. I'm getting around 7meg average. http://www.speedtest.net/result/2185524373.png

Yeah and thats the reason I don't reploy per user and deploy per machine just in case a user moves OU, its less likely that a computer will move but if It does I'll delete it first and add it back in, it seems to work best. There is only 1 DC ricki I do have another server 2008 R2 but its in a different building and network.

Well I forced a gpupdate which I assumed would clear anything out and then rebooted as PPC is a startup script but it was still applying both printers from different OU's Doing a gpresult gave the correct OU's (default and printer) but it was still applying the printer from another OU. Its working and I hope I don't have to touch it again for another year. For clarification the server was 2003 R2 EE SP2 32bit (i'd really like to upgrade to 2008 R2 but costs don't allow at the moment) Classroom, mix of XP 32bit sp3 and win7 64bit sp1 Library, XP 32bit sp3 Its certainly a lot easier to do all this via a script but I also dislike writing scripts to do everything.

I really dislike computers sometimes! For whatever reason I've logged onto the workstations today with my various test accounts and its all working so I've no idea what on earth was going on yesterday. I've done pretty much as you guys have said. Using the HP driver config it allows you to set the default printer but it appears to be working randomly on different computers so I may try the GP method. Thank you to you both for your input.

Can anyone offer any assistance? I've only got 2 days before our students start back and I need to get these printers sorted. Its probably something obvious but I'm just not seeing it.

I'm trying partially successfully to deploy 2 printers via Group Policy. I've got two OU's one called Classroom and the other called Library In each OU I've got a policy called "*room* printer" and in each policy is the deployed printer. Also in each OU I've got pushprinterconnections.exe set as a startup script as they are per machine mappings. Everything should be hunky dory and it kind of is but they are both being mapped to the same room and I've no idea why. Both printers are shared, do they need to be? If it helps they are HP 2055dn's and I'm using the universal print driver. Desktops are XP Pro SP3 and Win7 Pro 64bit (only in Classroom) Server is 2003 R2 EE SP2

Oops I forgot to update this thread. I'd like to thank @Millgate and @VeryPC for some very nice workstations. The Students are happy so that means I'm happy. We went for SSD's in the end and they are blisteringly quick. So thanks to everyone that suggested them over the Velociraptors.

What about reliability under heavy use? I know even basic SSD's are faster than raptors, I've had my 74GB gen1 raptor for over 7 years now and its been faultless. I will have to have a think about SSD's I was planning on using those very Kingston SSD's from eBuyer to give a boost to the desktops that these pc's will be replacing as they are being moved into the library.

Just stumbled upon this on Youtube. minecraftinschool [licensed for non-commercial use only] / FrontPage "This wiki is devoted to hosting ideas, lessons, implementation strategies and more related to using the game, Minecraft in a school setting" I'm a bit sceptical myself.

I'd like to stick with dell because I've had good support from them and I've heard horror stories about HP but then I've also heard horror stories about Dell. They'll be using it for Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk 3DS Max and Solidworks. They will be doing some 3D rendering on them too. I'd like to stay away from SSD's because the cheapest ones at 128GB are too small a size and 256GB ones are too expensive, so a 500GB raptor is damn good value.

I need some more CAD workstations, we currently have some Dell Precision T1600's which work fine, but I think they could be better. Intel Xeon E1220 3.1GHz 4GB ram Quadro 600 1GB I'm now leaning more towards an i7 system with 8GB of ram, WD Raptor and a Quadro 600 1GB Now I've two choices, I could go with Dell again and they will cost about £1000+ each. Or I could build them myself for about £900 each but a much higher spec than the Dells using WD Raptor drives instead of 7200RPM drives. https://www.dropbox.com/s/g4ingtjc9bvx20o/scan-cadpc.JPG I guess my question is, is it too much of a risk to build myself and not have any support incase something goes wrong, i.e. the hassle of sending parts back. The benefits of course are big savings and faster pc's Has anyone else thought about building their own systems rather than buying from the likes of Dell? I'd have 16 to build.

Arh, I should have read the error more clearly. I was assuming it was an update file which won't give you the option for a network install for some reason.

I had the same problem. What I did was, I ran the installer just to the point where it says "extracting msi" (or such like) then opened C:\Documents and Settings\CURRENT USER ACCOUNT\Local Settings\Temp and looked for the .msi file it may have a random name so just right click it and check the file properties to confirm its a promethean file.

Arh right, that makes more sense. There is already a hole in the wall where the TV is, from an old aerial cable. So I will make use of that and I'll just need to drill a hole in the office. Its certainly the cheapest option but I'd rather not go drilling holes if the customer is happy to buy a decent homeplug setup.

Cheers for the advice guys. I'll have a think about it.

The customer doesn't want it routed around the skirting boards and its got a solid floor so no going underneath. How exactly have you routed it around your house?

This isn't really related to work but a client wants to hook his router up to his BT vision or Sky box, (I forget which) but routing an Ethernet cable through the house from where the router is would be very difficult. It would however be very easy to route it externally from the office to the lounge, on the outside of the house. Does anyone know of any building regulations or such that this might effect? I don't think there is but I want to double check that its OK to do. Another option is homeplugs but I've no experience of them.

I'm afraid not then. Can you view the videos on a lower years account if you play it direct from the play list? If so that is the only way you can ever view the videos. I think YouTube have definitely given up on this one. There are shed loads of videos on the YouTube forums about this issue.

Does your school have a YouTube channel? If so add the videos to a play list and sprinkle some fairy dust on it and hope for the best.

It seems like its been implemented on a whim and they've got bored of it and just left it. I've left it enabled on my network as its better than nothing but I'm taking the YouTube approch and I'm not going to support it.

I've just started a trial of Impero and its working out quite well. I'd recommend giving it a try, it seems like a very flexable bit of kit with some very useful features.