Roberto

In simple terms, "yes" to the last question. Also, consider availability - if you have one server with the DC role, DHCP role, File server role, DNS role, and... oh I dunno, an IIS role installed. If its not a virtual server then a patch to part of the DC role that requires a reboot means that you interrupt all the other services. If they're virtualised as seperate servers, you can patch one role and restart that virtual server without interrupting the other services.

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What about Skydrive?

It's clearly designed by people who don't know what else to do, so they're doing the same thing as before, only more of it. It's like they've convinced themselves that the reason a deaf person can't hear them is because they're not shouting loud enough.

My going rate: £600 per day or part thereof. Yes I know that's a bit "silly" in the context you're asking about, but I don't want to do jobs like this so I'm intentionally pricing myself out of the market, while leaving the way open for that small business that's absolutely desperate to recover their exchange database to make me an offer I can't refuse. There is a serious side to that price too. Simply put: how much do you value the time that you have spent doing this job? How much do you need the money you could be making from doing jobs like these?

Done - On the question where you ask about amount of maintenance, I think you could have added "about the same", unless there was a particular reason why you didn't, I had to select 'other' and type that in.

No. It needs to be on a web server. The webserver needs to have the correct mime type for what you're doing defined too. If you're not using WPAD and just pointing directly to a PAC file, configure the MIME type application/x-ns-proxy-autoconfig for the .pac extension. If you're using WPAD configure the MIME type application/x-ns-proxy-autoconfig for the .dat extension.

While we're winding down our use of macs, we still support both workstations and servers to a pretty high level in house. For the very occasional requirements we have outside our abilities, we have a contract for support with our mac reseller.

We solved this problem by saying "No". There's too much potential for error and dilution of security if you allow this, imho.

Seriously? You think losing a set of tapes and losing all your backups is the same thing? I have not the words, frankly.

If its RAID 0, then I'd say that no, it isn't a backup. With all due respect, this is the craziest thing I've ever read... and I've read the source code and design spec for Vista. What about obligations for protecting exam data? Financial records? Etc? Do your SLT know and understand the implications of this "backup" process?

Say what you mean and mean what you say: In other words, whatever you do, be consistent in how you do it. Remember that no matter how "friendly" you want things to be, as their manager your words will carry certain weight (so be careful what you say is understood properly) and that they will need to be sure you will take their concerns seriously. And you need to be sure they know when to take you seriously too.

I don't think that corrupt data would disable a service (I'm assuming you mean that literally). You need to be sure you're treating the root problem and not just a symptom here!

I agree with all the above, and the other reply that someone made about fixing leaks, but that doesn't alter the fact that we have a real problem in some parts of the country right now and it doesn't alter the fact that a few weeks of showers ain't going to fix that problem.

Sadly a few days, or even a few weeks, of on again off again showers will not refill reservoirs. It won't do the crops any harm though!

I can't agree with the list though. All the games you mention above are more worthy #1s for a start...

There's a difference between "Not locked down" and "users can see it" and its not clear from your post which one of these issues you're having. I can see why you may prefer to hide some things to stop users playing with them, but if permissions are correct then the fact that things are visible isn't a security risk, and if permissions are not correct then hiding something won't stop a determined user from being able to do bad things with it. Accessing local drives is fine, providing that permissions are set correctly to prevent them viewing altering parts of the workstation that they should not have access to. Browsing network shares - again likewise, browsing shares isn't a problem per se (though I agree it may be undesirable). What matters is what they have permission to do; permissions need to be set on "staff only" shares to keep students out, or on "SMT only" shares to keep students and 'normal staff' out. The command prompt - again simply having it is not a problem as they shouldn't be able to run commands that are harmful to the system if permissions are set correctly. As for RDC - If you're saying that any user can actually LOG IN to any server via remote desktop then this is indeed a problem, because that means that someone's been playing with the default permissions on those servers. Simply being able to run the remote desktop client and connect to a server and be asked for a login isn't a problem, by default anyway, as non-admin users do not have permission to log into servers* (*except terminal servers, because of course the point of these is that users can log into them...) I'd suggest you need to determine exactly what users can do (not see) and then fix any permission issues you find because these are fundamental to securing your network. with that done, you can then worry about anything you wish to hide because you don't want users to see it... a completely different and separate issue to securing items.

Quite. This is why we solved the problem I was having in the other post with Userlock rather than just with a bunch of scripts, so that we could take advantage of the extra options it offered us to improve our service.

I'd suggest that it varies from establishment to establishment, and also to the precise course offered. Currently we use: 1. Final Cut Pro (thought his may be changing, to either the avid package or Adobe premiere) 2. Dreamweaver 3. Visual Studio 4. Photoshop

But equally "Classroom management software" is overkill when you just want to manage logins. I work with norphy, and userlock is a precise, focussed solution to a precise set of problems we wanted to solve in a way that other solutions (including the full-blown "classroom management software" alternatives) were not. For example, it very neatly solves the problem with exam account scheduling that I describe in this post.

Ours is a bit slow today...

We use AD Manager Plus for user management. We also use SCCM - it is a beast of a product, but you only need to use the bits you need to use, and we're managing 1500 machines with a lot of different software deployment patterns so its a bit complex for GPOs - YMMV of course. We don't bother with "profile reset". In our experience, that's a RM generated solution to a RM generated problem and isn't needed on a vanilla network.

I fully agree with Bruce's advice. I'd also suggest that DCs should ideally be performing the DC role, plus DNS where that's integral to the domain, and ideally nothing else. Where that isn't possible, I'd only add roles that are part of the "domain infrastructure" such as DHCP, rather than specifying file server roles as well. This makes backup and recovery much simpler.

There are concerns with VNC and while we use it under certain circumstances where I work, I totally sympathise with people who won't. Mentioning things like DDA allows you to insist that a solution is found, and I'd encourage you to do so if that is what it takes to meet the needs of all students, but it doesn't allow you to insist on one solution over another, just to produce a list of requirements that have to be met.