KevWCFE

Thanks Norphy. This has been driving me nuts....and here I was updating Java to see if that would help...ha! I did as you suggested and it now allows the web interface to load...not without the warning of danger Will Robinson of course! I just clicked run and I can configure to my hearts content. Thanks again and to Timbo too.

Hi, We have a couple of HP Jetdirect 170x boxes around the school connected to a HP 4200 and a HP Plotter. I was just trying to log in to one to reconfigure its IP address when I moved the printer's location and I can't get in. The four panels you normally see when connecting to the web interface begin to load. I see the Java logo and the spinning circle and then I get four error messages (all the same) for each panel. The error states: Application Blocked by Security Settings Name: linkTabs Location: http://ipaddress of box Your Security Settings have blocked an untrusted application from running I have to click ok four times and the page loads with "Error - Click here for details" in each of the panels. When I click that I get the same error message and a details button. When I click the details button I get a Java Console load up with the following text: Java Plug-in 10.51.2.13 Using JRE version 1.7.0_51-b13 Java HotSpot™ Client VM User home directory = C:\Users\Kevin This is what I get when trying it from my laptop which is Windows 7 and not on the domain in the school. I tried using Firefox 26, Chrome and IE 11. I thought it was something to do with Windows 7 or the fact I'm not on the domain (don't remember this being an issue before) so I tried it on a Windows XP machine that I had just formatted and re set up. It was fully up to date but I get the same error again even though I'm logged in as an admin. And again I tried the usual three browsers. Does anyone know if this is a browser thing, a Windows thing or something else configured on the network or the server? Thanks for any ideas Kevin

Hi all, I am trying to deploy images to a number of computer rooms here in the college. I have captured image from one PC in each room that is fully up to date and set up. When I PXE boot any PC I choose my Win7 install boot image and then it lists all the images I've captured over the last week. All except one. The one that is missing is for the sound engineering computer room. A few years back they had issues with scratching on many of their recordings so the tutor discovered that if you set the computer back to being a standard PC instead of ACPI computer (click plus beside Computer in device manager, change the driver to standard PC) then this solves the problem...which it did. The pain is that when you shut down the PCs they sit there saying "it is now safe to turn off your computer". Anyway, I found an article from Microsoft (An ACPI APIC UP HAL operating system image cannot be deployed if a Windows 7 boot image or a Windows Server 2008 R2 boot image is used in the deployment process) talking about problems with the window7 boot.wim file not displaying non ACPI images or something to that effect. I downloaded the hotfix, its a self extracting zip/exe file but when you run it says that its part of a mutildisk fix and to insert the second disk?! The instructions say to extract a cab file but as the downloaded file doesn't extract properly I can't get to that cab file. Is there anyone out there with the same problem as me or even a solution to extracting the hotfix correctly. The image file is 50GB as all the music software, plugins etc were installed before capturing the image. The deployment server is Windows Server 2008 R2, the boot image was taken from a Windows 7 disk but I tried one from a Windows 7 disk with SP1 as I read somewhere that the problem was fixed in the that wim file but still the same problem. The machine that was captured is a Windows XP SP3 machine and I tried to deploy the image back to the original PC and to a few others around the building in case it was a HAL issue but I'm at a loss now. If you need any further info let me know, any help is much appreciated as I'm at hair pulling stage now Thanks K

Hi guys, Thanks for all the replies. Some seem to think its handy but most seem to think its not necessary. Are there any disadvantages to doing it? All those who said its not necessary on clients never really gave a disadvantage to the set up, merely that it was not needed. Thanks K

Yep, I set the DHCP reservation in the DHCP via the MAC address of the device and then leave the PC to automatic so that it requests an IP address from the server but as there is a reservation the server will always give it the same address. Switches, servers, printers are set up at the device with manual static IP addresses.

Hi all, From previous help you have given me I see that some people start off by saying "if you have static IP addresses on all the PCs in the computer labs then....". I was just wondering what the advantages to having static IP addresses are and are there any drawbacks to setting the PCs to have the same IP address all the time. Being a self taught server maintenance guy I only have experience of Group Policy when I've needed to do something specific rather than having trained in it and knowing it in a general sense but I would imagine it would make things easier in relation to GP? Am I right in that assumption? I had the MAC addresses for 90% of the PCs in the college from another project last year so I set about creating reservations in the DHCP management console. I have done this for 180 of the 240 PCs so far and I've tested a couple of labs and they all take the IP address I set up for them. The VP here in the college wants me to set up VPNs which I have no experience of but will research over the coming months. Would static IP addresses be beneficial here too? Basically, what are the pros and cons of Static IP addresses through DHCP reservations? Thanks for any insight. K

Thanks to all again. I forgot to let you know how it went. I implemented Michael's suggestion of stopping the browsers from running and it worked perfectly. As I mentioned above there are only three browsers installed and the students don't have access to install anything else so that worked for me. I was then able to quickly turn off that group policy after the exam on the Saturday morning so all would be ready for normal classes on the Monday. Quick and easy. Thank you people.

Thanks to all who posted. Appreciate the time ye took. I'll let ye know how it goes.

Hi TomC, excuse my ignorance but what is TMG. Is it third party software or something built in to Server 2008? Thanks for the info

Thanks Davitt, that sounds like and interesting solution and not something I was aware of. I might give that a try the next time but as the GP solution from Michael is something I'm a little familiar with I'll try that for now. Thanks for the suggestion and I'll let you know how it goes if I get around to trying it.

Cheers Sted, Its something I thought of alright but I would rather something that is turn on and offable to quote a famous turtle so I'm going to try Michael's solution. Plus at 4 pm the day before the exam a quick solution through GP is handiest for now. thanks

Thanks Michael, sorry for delay in thanking you, had a busy week and only getting a chance to implement this now. I will try your suggestion of preventing browsers from running. I know there are other browsers but those three are the only ones installed and as students can't install anything I think that should cover it. I'll let you know if it works. Here I am at 4pm trying it out...typical

Once again I need your zen like experience people. There are 8 computer labs/rooms in the college. We have a Server 2008R2 domain controller for AD, DHCP and DNS and Untangle Lite running on another HP server doing the filtering. The Untangle boxes takes a feed from the internet router into one network card and is connected to the main network through a second network card. There is an exam on Saturday morning and the students will need to save data to their home folders for later collection by the teacher and they will also need to print to the lab printer which is done through the server. However, they can't have internet access. Is there a way through group policy to isolate this computer lab so it doesn't have internet access but does have normal domain/network access while leaving the other labs alone? This is a part time course exam so it is the only one on in the college at that time. I know I could just unplug the router but the daytime/fulltime exams are coming up in a couple of weeks and I will have to do the same for some of them. I read somewhere else that you could change the gateway that the server puts out in DHCP but this would affect all computers....or is there a way to change the DHCP settings for one set of computers? I didn't think so but then again I'm not qualified in servers, just teaching myself as I go along and certain things are needed. I also read somewhere that I could use GP to put a random proxy into IE but Firefox may be on some of the PCs or Chrome so if I change the policy for IE would any other browser automatically pick up on that? Any ideas or pointers would be appreciated. Thanks K

I know this thread is old but it helped me out today. Time was wrong on one PC and that solved the access denied issue. Cheers Mr Bios K

Hi Matt, Thanks again for getting back to me. Wasn't expecting a reply so wasn't checking. Would you believe I did pretty much what you were suggesting. I used cacls not icacls though. It worked anyway so all sorted. Thanks again for your help throughout the issue. Once again the edugeek site has saved me a lot of reading and hair loss K

Hi Matt, I only realised afterwards that you were talking about the excel sheet that comes from WiseSoft to create users. I was using the Bulk Modifier program so that explains my confusion. In the end I ended up running the bulk modifier and saving the excel sheet that was created with just the home folder column in it and saved as a CSV. I then ran a batch file to run through the CSV with a for loop and run a MKDIR command on every entry it came across. This created the folder based on what was already in the home folder attribute. I thought this worked but today I discovered that students don't have access to that folder. As it was me under administrator who ran the batch I am the owner of the folders and the Teachers group also have access which is inherited from the folder above. Back to the drawing board I guess. As the students are all using the accounts now (I happily told the vice principal to go ahead) I have to find some way to modify the permissions in the folders or delete them and create them again another way with the correct permissions....or manually change the permissions on 1015 folders! I'm hoping for an automated way. Thanks for your help to date. K

Cheers Matt, I'll give that a try.

Cool. How did you get Wisesoft to create the folder. When I was checking the forums on the WiseSoft site David himself said that it doesn't create the folder. K

Hi Matt, Thanks again for that. Its a little over my head but from what I understand does the folder not have to exist first to put something into it? Most of my server knowledge is dealing with problems as they arrise so I may not as fluent as most of you guys here. K

Hi matt, Thanks for the relpy. Forgive my ignorance but what is the "documents" bug? K

Hi all, That time of year again, we are creating new users. Last year we used some software call BAC (Bulk Active Directory) which was able to take in an Excel file which was a modified version of what the main office uses. This created all the users but didn't create the home folder. I was able to highlight all the new users and add \\server01\studenthome\%username% and that created the folder once I click ok. The home folder was firstname.surname. This year the principal wants the logon name to be the student ID but teachers won't be able to easily find their students' work when looking up the folders in the student home directory as they would all be numbers. I know, I know, if you have at most 30 in the class then it can't be that hard to have the names and numbers on a sheet of paper and find them that way but ye all know that teachers won't be happy with that. After looking through the forum here I found a few people recommending WiseSoft Bulk AD. I downloaded this and discovered it only edits the details of existing users. So I used the previous program to create four test users based on details in an excel sheet. Then I ran Bulk AD to edit the information for these four users in excel. I used a CONCATENATE function to create a folder that had description (we put course code in here) then student id and then student name. This created a unique folder that was easily identifiable by teachers. However, it only updated the attribute for home folder. It never actually created the folder. Finally, the question...does anyone know of a way to force the creation of the folders based on whats in the home folder field? Or, is there a better program for my needs but it has to be free or very cheap as there is no budget to make my life easier. I could go into each user and delete a letter from the home folder entry then put it back in. This activates the apply button which when clicked will create the folder but obviously this defeats the purpose of automation. Also I need to have this done by tomorrow so I'm afraid suggestions of Powershell can't be accepted Thanks for any help guys. I'm so close but yet so far. K

Thanks ChrisH, I'll have a look at that and see if that will help. Sounds like a good plan. Cheers K

Thanks Bezz, I have scheduled the server to do a restart tonight at 10 when no one is here and I won't be back to check it out until Monday so that should be enough time to leave it. I'll let you know how I go...thanks. K

Thanks for the reply Bezwick, I have made that change, it had said "Secure Only". I restarted the DNS and DHCP services. Do you think the DNS issue is the reason for both problems or for just the ones where the IP in DNS and DHCP don't match? I picked on three PCs this morning that I knew weren't responding to the shutdown command or to pings. The third one is the only one where the DNS and DHCP entries were different but they all don't respond to a ping from the server. After doing what you suggested and restarting DNS and DHCP that third PC still has a different IP listed in the DNS table. Its timestamp says 06/12/2010. Should I (or can I) delete all the entries in the DNS table so that they refresh or is a restart going to update the DNS table? Thanks again for help on this. K

Hi all, An interesting one for you today, hope someone can give me suggestions on what the problem might be. I have a server 2008 R2 setup as DC. There are around 200 XP Pro clients with a couple of Windows 7 clients thrown in for good measure. I thought the network was ok as the clients can get onto the internet, access files on the server, run group policy etc etc as they should. At the moment I am researching shutting down the clients automatically and starting them up automatically. I have setup batch files to run the DOS command "shutdown /s /m \\pcname /t 90". As far as I was aware it was working fine except for the odd one which I presumed during testing was a problem with no network connection. After this happened a few more times and for nearly 50% of PCs in the latest computer lab I've tested I decided to investigate a bit further. As it turns out there is no network connection issue with the client as it can do all things it should be able to on the network (net, print, group policy, file access etc) and it can ping the server. However, when I try to ping the client from the server it returns with "the request timed out". If I try and ping each of the PCs with the problem from each other they get "request timed out" also but they can ping other clients that are not displaying the problem. The other thing is the shutdown batch files work by PC name not IP address (obviously as the IP changes) but the error I get back if I ping using the PC name can be either "request timed out" or interestingly "reply from IP addres of this PC: destination host unreachable". I have discovered that the IP address in the DHCP table and the IP address in the DNS table are different in the cae of the "destination host unreachable" so that would explain the error but why this happens in the first place is a wonder? If I turn off the PC, delete the entry in the DHCP table and reboot the PC then it will respond as normal to a ping from the server or a shutdown request. Can anyone help with this as to why a client cannot be pinged from the server even though it can ping the server and the server's entry for that PC in the DHCP table is correct. This seems to happen to at least 2 or 3 PCs in a computer lab. Thanks for any help you can give. K