Koldov

Thanks so far... Maybe I should have clarified, there is no process, no formal induction that I'm aware of, no tour of the school or meet and greet (well if there is IT isn't on the list if you know what I mean). The Headteacher isn't really involved (and wouldn't want to be), In fact there was a sarcastic comment in one the emails from the SLT (as I bemoaned the fact there was no process, due to getting an email on the day a user started a couple of weeks ago requesting account creation and a laptop) that I was the one who wanted a procedure... and I think they were saying that me giving passwords out 'somehow' without seeing the new user was going to be it! In fact the whole conversation went: SLT: New user needs email account and username/password for school network so they can use desktop until you provide laptop. ME: Yes, these were both done last week. SLT: Does the new user know? ME: No, I don't know who they are... SLT: Ok. So what would you like the protocol to be in these cases as I think we need to give it to them rather than them have to come and ask/find it. ME: No, that’s incorrect. The user’s password is given only to the user and only by me and therefore not passed around on pieces of paper or via a third party who should not know it. SLT: Ok, I understand that but as an induction we should be 'giving' this information to them, not sending them around to various people to get different information. As you said the other day it needs to be organised and done as 'properly' as possible so we just need to work out the best way of doing this for new arrivals. ME: Yes, we did. This is the ‘proper’ way for passwords. SLT: The proper way is not to send a new person to a room they don't know of, to a person they have never met. If I have a password for a new person, I take it to them, they don't come and find me. I had a long answer ready to send, but thought I'd ask on here if I am being unreasonable first... Just as an extra piece on 'info' the user started over a week ago, so it's not really anything to do with an 'induction' because there isn't one, they're already in class.

I'm having an email discussion (read 'low-key argument') with a member of SLT at the moment regarding a new user's account and passwords... or rather how this information should be communicated. I'm not entirely sure what they expect me to do, I don't know if they want me to email the passwords to them or find this user in the school somehow and communicate it to the new user personally, but previously the user would come to me and I'd create the account (not sure why it's different with this user - something about "it isn't correct to expect the user to find the information from someone they don't know, in a room they don't know and it should be 'given/provided' to them"). We'd discuss various things not to do, like put it on a label stuck to the laptop, or if they must write it down don't store it with the laptop etc. Being a small friendly school, this still happens a lot and unfortunately nobody takes it very seriously, passwords are often shared and nothing is ever done about it when I raise the issue.. Obviously they have no account as yet, so no email to send it to, or any other way of communicating it to the new user apart from me telling someone else (email or written down) or finding the new user myself. I'm going to be a little bit naughty here and pretend I don't know who this new user is or where they are, so I think I should be introduced as the 'IT guy' so they know who I am and where my office is in case they ever have any issues. But the upshot is, I don't think emailing a password or passing it on via a 3rd-party is appropriate... Thoughts? Also how do you do this?

Well, I guess as they say, 'all good things come to those who wait'... My OH came back from visiting a friend (who is emigrating) with an iPhone X (XR actually but fine for what I need). I wonder how long I can make this one last... They were also getting rid of their 'old, rubbish' computer (i7, 16GB and a GTX in a Corsair case)... I guess whilst technically correct compared to what's available these days, 'old' and 'rubbish' mean something else to those outside the small school educational IT support environment... One thing I did notice though was the single 2TB hard disk drive, which won't have helped their perception of it being 'slow'! However, I also noticed the same on a teacher's personal laptop (only a couple of years old)! SSDs have been a thing for a while right? So I'll have to start looking for something else to spend my Black Friday/Cyber Monday money on!

How old can we go? This just made me think about an old Mac Book Pro that's been sitting in the cupboard for a good few years now... 2006/2007 A1211 - MacBook Pro 2,2 "Core 2 Duo" 2.16 15" 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo - 4GB RAM - OSX Lion Suggestions to keep it out of e-waste...? Got be OK for a web browsing machine... Any point in Win 10? We're a Windows shop, so probably not worth paying for a Chrome OS license and I don't fancy learning Linux...

So I guess it's a good price if it really is half price... GOOGLE Pixel 7 - 128 GB, Snow £299.50 Save £299.50 But it's this bit that gets me: Was £599.00 (from 19/07/23 to 15/08/23) So there was maybe about a month when it was £599 and this means they can claim it is now half price! I saw the Braveheart 'HOLD!' Black Friday meme and thought that sounds about right when I looked on Camel for the price on Amazon... I get that it's still a fair whack off the average price, but the BF claim of a massive discount is only due to the ridiculous hike in the month before.

Forgive my ignorance, but I presume 'active support' means the latest OS updates (and therefore that app developers will continue to support it). Still, doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence, ending in less than 2 years (then it's pot luck or another new phone?)! I guess I've been spoilt with an iPhone, but the Google Play Store feels a bit like the Wild West (or a box of chocolates)...

I'm looking for a new phone (well if I'm honest I'm not really, I'm being forced into it due to lack of app support)... Still on the hand-me-down iPhone 5s from the OH! Thing is, I'm just not a massive phone user and I know it seems like everybody is fine paying £500-£1000 for a phone, but I guess I'm too old to think that's OK (honestly even £300 makes me shudder). Sadly for a techie, I'm just not a gadet/gizmo guy and certainly not bothered about the latest, greatest, new & shiny... I only ever take the odd photo of my Greyhounds, answer the occasional Whatsapp from the OH or text from my parents, but given the rarity of upgrading my phone I just think about the support for the OS and the one or two other apps that I might use (like banking) and I just don't want to have to pay out £ every couple of years because all of a sudden nothing works on it anymore. I don't know anything about the Google phone/tablet OS and its lifecycles/app support, and the only issue I have with a cheap phone is that we got lumbered with 30 no-name Chinese tablets a few years ago from Amazon (BM decision with no input from myself) and within a year found that they couldn't be upgraded, new apps didn't work and the manufacturer didn't support them so no new firmware, chipset out-of-date etc..

I've been with VM for many years now (since at least the NTL days), iirc when I bought my house 25 years ago we had a BT line, but I changed to NTL/VM as soon as I could. I was chuffed when I found out the cab on the path 2 doors down from me was the VM cab! We've had various issues over the years, mainly in the early NTL days and at the beginning of VM (but to be fair it's been fairly solid since) and back then I did toy with the idea of moving back to BT or at least a provider that uses their network. However, when I queried the possibility of it, I was told it would cost extra as I'd been disconnected from the exchange. There are no poles around where I live and so I guess it has always been a cable in the ground (not sure if it's even still there, but this was in the late 90s though and as we've not been a customer since I doubt any of that has ever been upgraded?) and I have no clue where the nearest exchange (or cab) is for BT. We get internet and TV from VM on the lowest possible package but it's still over £70 p.m. but I think as a new SKY customer or similar I could be looking at saving £30 p.m. The trouble is the OH is WFH and can't really have a poor service or days and days of disruption...

Don't know what the battery is for... don't think it's a motorised spray bottle!

Haha! I also tried to make a couple of maps, but didn't quite have the patience to work out all the bugs (mind you even 'pro' maps had those 'jump through into the sky and walk along', or 'getting a boost into an impossible to see hiding place' bugs)... One of maps was quite good though, I'm sure I still have the screenshots somewhere... A friend of mine used to map for DoD (I never got into it) and I seem to remember he did quite well. I kind of went off CS when it went to V2 (and Source) for some reason, it just all 'felt' wrong... But I played it for a bit, along with HL2 (plus Deathmatch & Lost Coast), Portal, CS:GO, TF2... I used to copy the BASIC code from a magazine called 'INPUT' and was fairly disappointed after a few hours and hundreds of lines of code later getting the dreaded 'Syntax Error in line 325'... Only to check in the next month's issues for the "Errata" section (as there were printing errors in almost every issue) and finding out it should have been ; instead of :

Have to say I did eventually get around to playing Half-Life, but I think the experience was spoilt by spending many, many years playing Counter-Strike first... Still, have to give it proper and due respect for being the game CS was modded from and in turn, the reason I started upgrading PCs (after I realised the computer I had wouldn't even take a Voodoo 2) and eventually led me to a career in IT! I'm going to ignore the brief dalliance I had with 'BASIC' programming on a Commodore 64 in the 80s (mainly because it actually put me off coding)... and so it only ever got used for games (which only loaded from the tape 50% of the time) and after that experience I only ever had consoles for gaming until I tried CS....

Oooof! Compared to what? I thought the OP said 'no budget'?! But I do agree I just don't think a zero funds/non IT supported version of what you want exists... at least not one that is 'fit for purpose'... Even at the very cheapest end, something like an Hikvision (I know that's a dirty word, but you don't have to network it) 2 camera system with DVR/NVR is going to be £250 (ish). You don't 'need' to be an IT tech or CCTV installer to fit it (especially if you take the decision not to network it), and although you'll have to work out positioning of cameras/power (or POE)/DVR/NVR (I'd suggest a lockable wall unit - key held by SENCO), at the end of the day you're going to get what you pay for... I know it's tempting to try and make the cheapest possible thing work, but I've been in those small schools with consumer grade no-name hubs daisy chained around offices and home Wi-fi repeaters hidden in the ceiling tiles. It all ends up being more trouble than it's worth. I also know what it's like to try and get those schools to actually pay for the decent version of those things... Sometimes you have to be straight with them and make them realise what they are trying to do requires an investment. If they are unwilling to do so, they have to understand that it just can't be done on a shoe-string and they will have to rethink their strategy. If it's taking troublesome/disruptive/sensitive/upset children off to a quiet room for one-on-one intervention and if they require that room to have CCTV for the safeguarding of all concerned, they will have to pay for a robust solution that meets the criteria and unfortunately you'll have to tell them a consumer grade device like a 'Ring' doorbell/Spy Cam (or equivalent) isn't going to cut it I'm afraid.

If you contract in consultants, you get whatever the consultant tells the HT to do... this is the bypass the IT dept. manoeuvre. They will win the battle and get what they want (and I've kept a copy of the actual email I was accidentally CC'd in on which says exactly that)... I've obviously made my feelings clear to the HT about a few things, but they aren't going to turn round and say "You know what? You're right, what a waste of money getting a consultant! I've been so blind to the fountain of technical knowledge standing right in front of me all the time! I'd forgotten what I actually pay you for and thought I knew better, it seems you really do know best"... Especially not over a primary school age child's GW password being on a spreadsheet. The teachers have 30 small children, most of whom can't remember their password from one lesson to the next, so they have a printed list for each of the resources the children need to log in to and it saves eating into lesson time. It's not a negotiable thing and I'm not going to be able to change that even if I say "OMG, passwords on a spreadsheet, but what about the H4x0RZ?!" Anyway, I don't have a lot of say in GW at the moment and I won't have until the consultant moves on (but I'm not sure how long that will be as they seem to have their hooks in the HT with promises of delivering a 'paint by numbers' computing curriculum resource), so I'm just biding my time, making subtle changes and choosing my battles wisely... So, I'll take that all on board for the future, but as for the point of the OP... it wasn't at all about changing passwords, it was just about me being able to access the spreadsheet to add/remove children, or update etc.

Phew! Lot's to unpack here... But first, it gets weirder... unfortunately also makes sense at the same time... I've looked at the shared drives in Google Workspace (Admin > Apps > Google Workspace > Settings for Drive and Docs > Manage shared drives) and there isn't a 'Year 6 - Computing Planning Resources' shared drive... but from what I gather based on the above posts 'Classroom' drives won't show up there...? I did get access to one of the Year Groups and can see the Drive/folders and it appears the consultant is the 'owner' of everything. Anyway, then the penny dropped, I believe this is actually a folder on the consultant's domain and shared by them! I remember having to allow the domain they use, so they could share the resources with the teachers... What I don't seem to be able to see for definite (and I'm not sure I'll get my head around), is where this data exists (I guess I'm thinking in terms of old school terminology, but I'm trying to figure out where the data resides - not in terms of which 'cloud' data processing centre, but in what domain/tenant etc.), I just can't seem to see it, but that also appears to be the case for the whole of Classroom... As has been said there doesn't appear to be a 'central' way to manage Classroom, so I can imagine it's all a bit Wild West and I can see it getting out of hand very quickly. As usual none of our teachers have actually been trained in how to use it, so it's going to get messy... I'm not quite ready for GAM/PSGSuite/GWfE Plus licensing as Google Workspace/Classroom is still a bit of a slow burner here and we haven't fully committed to it at all. We only really started using it again (after it had been dormant since lockdown) as the consultant had led the Headteacher into some fantasy land where it would transform T&L... but of course nobody has been trained to make that work (I think they are expecting it to just magically happen), so it's a half-hearted attempt like everything else here... So, with that being said, as for syncing, our children aren't on AD and I'm not sure MIS syncing would be the best thing to do either as we had already set-up a couple of years ago in the first lockdown whilst I was working from home (and pressured to do it in a couple of days) so I went with uploading a .csv, unfortunately as children were added by other people there became discrepancies due to some using preferred names and others using legal names. I just can't face going through hundreds of duplicates or deleting everyone and everything and starting from scratch.

Quite a bit on CSP Reboot when doing a quick internet search, but as you mentioned InTune, this one stood out (don't have time to read it thought, so might not be the issue): https://www.reddit.com/r/Intune/comments/149dwd2/intune_daily_recurrent_reboot_via_device/

TL;DR - How do I (Super Admin) access a class without joining it or being a teacher etc. I presuming I've got the privilege/role/rights/permissions, but I've seen a YouTube video which mentions needing a 'Plus' license (we are fundamental)... Back story... I've never touched Classroom and only dealt with the admin side of GW... for the Classroom side, computing curriculum resources and other bits like that the Headmaster decided on using a consultant. To deal with all the pupils passwords the consultant decided to create spreadsheets... Initially I wasn't involved, so let them get on with it and you guessed it... now it has landed on my desk to deal with! From what I can work out they have created a per year group spreadsheet with the pupils name and password so they can be printed out (!) or referred to when the children forget. However, these appear to be in Classroom (I got CC'd in on) from an email exchange a while ago that mentioned the following: "I have made a note of the changes on the spreadsheet which you can now view in the Year 6 - Computing Planning Resources. " So, I do need a central way to 'manage' all children's passwords, but also let teachers and TAs have access and at the same time. I'm also happy to leave them in the 'Classroom' but also need to be able to change them and keep them up to date when children join/leave or need to change their passwords. so, first things first, can I access Classroom?

Is the reason for the removal of the task the 10 minute reboot? I'm not sure a shutdown task would do that (reboot).... what makes you think it is the culprit (no other changes and started doing it directly after the task was applied etc.)? Probably not much help (possibly not even the issue you have), but for future reference the only reason I've known a shutdown scheduled task to do something similar (although it was actually shutdown, not reboot) is because 'Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed' was ticked... If the computer is not on when the scheduled task is supposed to run (and you don't have it set to wake before the task runs), it will run 'as soon as possible' after it is turned on again. Ask me how I know... EDIT: Just as an extra thing to look at, I just ran the Powershell command 'Get-ScheduledTask' on my server and it didn't even list all the manually/GPO added tasks, only the Windows/Microsoft ones.

Yeah, normally OK on a decent spec device if done reasonably often, but once you start on the lower end i3 (or worse - yes we still have them) and 4 or 6GB ram ones that has GBs of updates to churn through it really grinds... I think I read somewhere it has to go through each update and verify it (these examples although anecdotal go some way to explaining): "Cleaning up windows updates is slow because it's not just a matter of deleting files. The Windows component store contains a lot of hard links that need to be resolved." "Also there are normally a lot of compressed files in the component store, Windows doesn't just delete them, it has to first decompress, selectively delete, then re compress any remaining files. This I believe is what takes the longest time to perform."

Not sure if this is a general issue, or specific to OS edition\version. I have a laptop that is very rarely used at home, but I have also noticed it on machines here in shared areas that don't see a lot of action and on laptops used by staff who are only teaching maybe an hour a week. I though I had better update the home laptop this weekend and although it took a while (not having been updated since August) it eventually did its thing... Then I thought I'd do a disk clean-up. I did the 'Clean-up system files' options (as I rarely do it but knew it was an issue) and found that it had 133GB in Windows Update files! All machines have 'Storage Sense' set to on, but have to say I don't know whether it actually ever touches these 'system' files, especially if they are only ever on for a short time. The upshot is that it has been running for 2 days and hasn't finished cleaning up the files yet... I imagined it has crashed/hung, but Task Manager still shows high CPU/memory usage for 'Windows Modules Installer Worker' and the figures are changing slightly every now and then. I guess it's not an issue on my laptop as it has a TB drive, but smaller SSD drives would struggle!

Many thanks. Well, at least we've established there isn't anything 'wrong' with the settings on my Admin account! - - - Updated - - - Google support were unfortunately as I'd expected.... After I explained my problem twice, 'Amit' wanted me to: a) Do a Google Meet... b) Clear my cookies... then... c) Told me that he could access the URL... d) Gave me a different URL for the support page so I could access it, even after I told him that actually I could access the original URL anyway as long as I wasn't signed in as Super Admin... as then it automatically redirects me to the blank page and I can't stop it!

Yes, the page is blank, something is wrong there, it's more that it's redirecting me to it that's bothering me... But signed in as Super Admin if you click on this link: https://support.google.com/a/thread/38689646/implement-account-lockout-for-g-suite-accounts?hl=en Does it redirect you to this link?: https://apps.google.com/supportwidget/articlehome?hl=en&article_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsupport.google.com%2Fa%2Fthread%2F38689646%2Fimplement-account-lockout-for-g-suite-accounts%3Fhl%3Den&assistant_id=generic-unu&product_context=38689646&product_name=UnuFlow&trigger_context=a

Yeah I did the same and tried to find one that seemed like it would point to a 'Help & Support' widget/service (I didn't see anything that stood out either). I wasn't sure in the beginning what I'd need enabled (still not really sure) so I enabled everything, but must admit I have no clue what 99% of them even do...

Yes, that sounds right, but can you get to them 'with' school credentials (especially signed in as a Super Admin)? Or (whilst signed in as Super Admin) when you click on the first link does it try to redirect you to the second?

The thing that made me think it was a service or permission issue (or something not available to our subscription level), was that if I take that 2nd URL (the one it redirects me to) https://apps.google.com/supportwidget/articlehome?hl=en&article_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsupport.google.com%2Fa%2Fthread%2F38689646%2Fimplement-account-lockout-for-g-suite-accounts%3Fhl%3Den&assistant_id=generic-unu&product_context=38689646&product_name=UnuFlow&trigger_context=a I haven't used the forum insert URL function here and have highlighted in bold interesting terms... and shorten it to just: https://apps.google.com/supportwidget It tells me: "You don't have access to this service." So, if it's redirecting me to a URL which is reliant on me having access to a service that I don't have...

There's 2 things happening... and I'm not sure if they are related, maybe that's confusing the issue! Firstly here is a URL (just happened to click on it whilst doing a search for an issue) I just thought it was a normal Google 'Help' page: https://support.google.com/a/thread/38689646/implement-account-lockout-for-g-suite-accounts?hl=en If I click on this when I'm not signed in, it's OK and if I sign in with my normal 'staff' account it takes me to the URL as is, straight to the page and it displays fine as well. However, if I click on it whilst signed in as my Super Admin account it redirects and takes me here: https://apps.google.com/supportwidget/articlehome?hl=en&article_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsupport.google.com%2Fa%2Fthread%2F38689646%2Fimplement-account-lockout-for-g-suite-accounts%3Fhl%3Den&assistant_id=generic-unu&product_context=38689646&product_name=UnuFlow&trigger_context=a However, there is only the page title and the rest is blank... If I copy and paste that second URL in without signing in it asks me to sign in... so it is redirecting me to an 'admin' version of that page? The other issue is when signed is as Super Admin, if I click on the three dots next to a search in Google the pop-up box that should have 'about this result' has a 403 error in that section. EDIT: Maybe there is some sort of 'Help & Support' service or (widget) that I have got enabled as I've got 'everything' turned on in Google Workspace, all the Additional Google Services and all the Services with no Individual Controls. Is there something in there that would recognise a Google help and support URL and redirect me to a page that should be displayed by a 'widget' or Chrome add-on or something that I don't have installed?