Koldov

Sorry, should have been more specific! They have individual laptops and took the visualiser from the old room to the new one... same laptop, same visualiser - that's what I'm finding hard to work out. I just can't seem to find any way to see what's happening.

We always struggled with this... but it was the opposite problem! All the teachers had a classroom camera (not expensive, but not really cheap ones either - Sanyo VPC-X1200/Sony DSC-W620). As soon as we got iPads for the classrooms, almost all the teachers ditched the cameras... with various excuses such as battery life (never recharging them doesn't help) and believe or not... quality! I guess it's in the eye of the beholder considering the iPads we got back in the day were iPad mini 2 with a 5 MP camera, the Sanyo were 12.1 MP and the Sony 14.1 MP.... So, they all got 'recycled'.... Still at least now I don't have 100s of ridiculously high res photos being dumped on the server every day!

EDIT: TL;DR - If a USB device is blocked by GPO, where is the log for this event? Caused myself some confusion trying to troubleshoot this issue... I went a little bit OTT with a belt and braces approach to this topic as we have both Sophos 'Peripheral Control' and the usual GPOs in place. However, it gets overly complicated working out individual hardware IDs for Sophos and blocking all 'removeable storage' as a generic thing in the GPOs. Things like cameras have to be set to camera and not mass storage, the school Galaxy G8 phones have to be separated from the personal Galaxy G8 ones and then blocking the phone/modem part whilst allowing the photos to be transferred, 3 different models of iPads etc. Anyway... I have a teacher whose visualiser will not connect, to make matters worse it has been working fine for the last couple of years at least since I implemented USB blocking, but they recently moved classrooms and took the visualiser, plugged it in and it now no longer displays. The USB connection does briefly flash up, and I know the visualiser is fine for the following reasons: It works fine as an administrator (this, I think rules out Sophos as there is no provision to exempt admin users), but I haven't changed anything in the GPOs which I thought might rule them out! It works through a VGA connection directly to the projector. Unfortunately the teacher likes the USB connection which allows them to use the associated software, my problem is it's impossible to troubleshoot as I've locked the laptops down so hard I cannot open Event Viewer or Device Manager whilst logged on as a user and logged on as admin everything is OK... Trying to get the laptop is impossible and trying to fix it in the middle of a classroom is a nightmare... The thing is the Visualiser is a big Aver model and it's quite a bit more than a USB camera on a stick, it appears to have mass storage capabilities, so I can see why it might be blocked. What I can't work out is why it was OK and only now isn't working, I can't seem to find anything relevant in Event Viewer when I log on as admin (it must log a blocked USB event somewhere?) and I can't tell which GPO has suddenly decided to block it. When I do log on as admin I think it's being recognised as its various components so ideally should block the 'Mass Storage' part, but allow the 'Camera' part... is this how it should work?

Thanks for taking an interest. I did get the OK (well, the comment was "Cwl iawn") from the original vocal artist for my remix of her track and got the explanation of the lyrics meaning. I've uploaded the track to Soundcloud again for a while (hope you like alternative rock!): https://soundcloud.com/user-30578642/dywedodd-fy-nhad-wrthyf

OUTLOOK 2021 LTSC A few of us use Outlook (the actual locally installed Office application) to manage emails as we have multiple email accounts to deal with. Some of these accounts are from our 'main' email address provider and is from a 3rd party, although it uses O365 (some have 'O365 A1 Plus for students' and some 'Exchange online plan 1 for students' licenses)... The other account is from LGfL and I'm not sure what they use as a back-end, but it pops up what I can only guess is still a basic auth box, for email address and password and works fine. The 3rd party ones use some sort of front-end so when it needs a password a big box (browser ?) with the front end and 3rd party supplier logo and a 'log-in with' link appears which I click but then although the box changes to what should have a log-in section, there is no log in section... It says 'a new window will appear if you are not already logged in' but nothing happens... It's driving me mad because I don't even know where to start troubleshooting! Is it a Back-end (O365) setting, Front-end (3rd party interface) or a setting in Outlook using a browser for the auth page that I don't know how to change!!! Also, this only happens for one of the multiple accounts as it seems Office has somehow kept all the other accounts auth/credentials (although I can't find them stored anywhere in credentials manager - maybe registry?)...

Hmmmmm, actually I hadn't really thought of it that way round, as I'm going to need to do an in-place anyway... I just had it in my head that I wanted all the roles onto VMs first. Still the ultimate aim though I guess, but I suppose I could do the upgrade first. I just thought it might be safer to have everything off the server OS before I mess with it... If it does go well it certainly seems like the easiest option. A few questions for those that have actually done it.... As it's the physical VM host, should I shut down VMs first or leave them running? As it's the physical VM host there's no 'snapshot' option, it did a full WSB of the C:\ drive last night though... so I guess that would be enough to restore it?

Thanks, I'm still toying with the idea of allowing the I.P. and/or name to move to the new server. All the shares are mapped via servername, so it would save me redoing them all... and the VMs have a dedicated NIC I'm not sure which would cause more carnage, leaving as is, or changing....?

Due to the upcoming demise of 2012R2 I am looking at options for the migration. However the server in question is a bit of a workhorse (usual small school/small budget single server doing all the roles). It was originally, file server, SIMS server, Print Server, DC, WSUS, etc. Now I have spent a long time getting most of these roles of onto VMs and now I'm left with GBs worth of data with some complex legacy shares involved. Before you reply, please bear in mind I am not going to get Azure or Sharepoint up and running before the October half-term so please don't suggest it. I have a new 2019 Server VM up and running, so just need the best/easiest/quickest way to get all data over and with all share permissions intact. Storage Server Migration looks interesting: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/storage-migration-service/migrate-data If I read it correctly it will pretty much do everything for me (even changing the new server to the old server name and I.P.), the thing that will make it more complicated is that as there is only one physical server the VM obviously sits on the host (which is the current file server). I will also have to attempt an in-place upgrade to the host at some point as there is just no way to move the data around anywhere to enable me to flatten it and do a fresh install. Robocopy Storage Migration Service (new?) File Server Migration (old?) DFS

Yeah maybe I've only got half the conversation, because I can't possibly believe that a 'security' company is asking me to plain text my MIS details over email.... Especially username & password... I don't even know which one they are asking for, surely not SQL/SA...?

Well, as predicted it's all been agreed and signed off without even a courtesy discussion with me about requirements... and now I've started my well earned couple of weeks holiday the emails start! Oh no, I'm not actually in the loop, these is second hand information from EntrySign passed on to me by the BM! I am supposed to email him the the following information (which I presume he will then forward on to EntrySign): Obtain IP address automatically? IP Address: e.g. 192.168.1.54 Subnet Mask: e.g. 255.255.255.0 Gateway: e.g. 192.0.0.1 DNS servers: (list multiple DNS addresses on seperate lines or seperated with commas)e.g. 192.0.0.1, 192.0.0.22 Please confirm your MIS connection details below: Server/host address: SQL instance name: SQL database name: Username: Password: Type: Local/on premises or remote/hosted. Oh and I also need to install and configure the following: Teamviewer to allow remote access. Is it just me? Why do I feel so uncomfortable emailing this kind of information? Why don't I want to enable any kind of remote access? Am I being unreasonable not wanting to do this?

TL;DR - Do I just put the updated MSI in the share? Ashamed to say I've never looked past making the GPO, shoving the MSI in a share and letting it do it's thing (aside from the occasional troubleshooting issues installing over Wi-Fi)... then usually the program itself takes care of its own updates. However, we have a VPN client from CISCO (via LGfL) that has recently had an updated version made available (after I poked them following the post from @penfold ). http://www.edugeek.net/forums/security/233517-exploit-released-cisco-anyconnect-bug-giving-system-privileges.html We have a very limited subset of the SLT who are allowed to VPN in and so testing is nigh on impossible (especially as they're all off on holiday) but I recently had a WFH user on-site who is rarely in school (unfortunately I was on their laptop remotely from home doing updates/SIMS move etc.) and thought I would let the VPN software update so signed in - as that's when it usually updates itself from the LGfL servers. But no update happened... I've contacted LGfL who assure me nothing is wrong their end and have been told to just basically uninstall and reinstall the updated version... I mentioned that my user was WFH and they cannot uninstall/reinstall as they're standard users and they said that was the problem (like they need admin to do the update) which I've not really seen but I can't say for certain as updates are rare and I've usually done them during maintenance where I'm signed on as admin, but my RDP session was admin and it still didn't work... The update went fine on my work laptop a couple of weeks ago, but again... I'm admin. So, basically 2 questions: 1. If you know the software, is it your experience an update needs admin to run..? 2. If I was to leave the update until after the holidays (because I don't think it will get much use during) do I just drop an updated MSI into the share and some sort of GPO magic will happen (or a setting that I can change) that means it will realise there is an updated version and do the update (or am I hoping)...?

After a bit more research I added 'Connect Timeout=30' to the FMSCONNECT.ini and it connected! So I'm still feeling that this VM isn't quite as snappy as I'd like it to be... anyone got any advice for that?

I think I'm going to try to reinstall FMS on a client (luckily it's not SIMS and there's only a few FMS users). From the SIMS (FMS) setups folder there are 3 installation programs: FMSApplicationSetup.exe FMSInst.exe FMSSQLApplicationSetup.exe Which one is for the client?

Yeah thanks, I've found that and it was incorrect, changing it does reduce the error from the previous screenshot to this (with correct server.)..

I've moved SIMS and FMS over onto a new VM but I'm having trouble connecting to FMS. SIMS work fine and I can log onto FMS from the client on the server, so it seems there is something missing in the workstation install. The workstations haven't been reinstalled, but the FMSCONNECT.ini has been updated to the new server. Is there anything else on the FMS client installation that needs changing (Borland and OBDC is something I've seen mentioned on other old threads about it, but I don't know if that needs reconfiguring - or how)?

One strange thing is though, that the sims.ini has these two lines in that I guess relate to the old server? Where should they be pointing to? Server or Client? The thing is I haven't got them in my shared .ini and it looks like they've been added in (by the old server?) and there isn't an option to overwrite as there is for the connect.ini... SIMSSQLAppsDirectory=D:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL12.SIMS2014\MSSQL\Binn Folder=SIMS Applications [FMSSQL] FMSSQLAppsDirectory=D:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL12.SIMS2014\MSSQL\Binn What function do these two lines have?

Yeah SOLUS 3, funnily enough when I had all the admin computers online, I just used 'Uninstall Agent' from the old SOLUS console, then added them in to the new SOLUS and it mostly worked OK, it didn't push out the new connect.ini, but I could do that from the new SOLUS as well, so then it was all good. I don't see anywhere in the Windows/Sims.ini or Program Files/connect.ini to specify anything about the document server though.. should it? Anyway, think I've sorted it now, edited the Document Server properties in the SIMS client (which I've now researched and a client overwrites the config on the server) and it looked like some old firewall rules needed changing over as well!

Just to note, when I changed it to the new server, HTTP didn't work, but TCP did... any issues with that?

OK, so found two interesting things... The actual path for the SETUP in SIMS (CLIENT) is: TOOLS > SETUPS > DOCUMENT MANAGER SERVER I can see from a SIMS CLIENT this is still pointing to the old server, but I might be able to 'edit' it, although I think I can delete it (or untick the 'ACTIVE' box).. Then should I be able to just add the new one, right? Will this be a global setting as I'm just doing it from a client? The other thing is that I seem to have managed to split my SIMS install with half of it going to the Server's C:\Program Files (x86)\SIMS folder (Discover Client, FMSSQL, SIMS.net) and half going to the D:\Program Files (x86)\SIMS folder which I set up to use for SIMS (and though I had installed everything to)...

I though it had gone OK mainly, as I had the VM set-up for a month before I did the final transfer of back-up database... I only have one user to test and so far there seems to be: 1. A long delay whilst logging in (appears to run OK once in) 2. Reports - Unable to find a document server. Please check in Tools, System Setup Anyone got an idea what could have gone wrong? I'm hoping there's a global fix for the document server issue, as I don't want to have to tell each individual user to start messing with settings... I also can't find Tools > System Setup So far on an internet search I've come across the helpful: If you are working on the main admin PC in school and get the above message please check the service is running Go to Start | Run | then type services.msc and enter. Scroll down list to find Sims.net Document Server Double click to open and check the service is ‘started’ If you are on a workstation please check the main admin PC can run reports. If they are running on the server then on your workstation Go to Start | Control Panel – open ‘Windows Firewall’ and check that this is switched off. This should also be switched off on the server – please check in the same way that it is. Which is actually only helpful because I did try from the SIMS client on the server and it also cannot find a document server (Document Server Service is running).

Like most things in a school, this has to be SLT led/driven/enforced and the teachers really need to be onboard, also a helpful member of staff that can remember simple instructions is a must if they ever do decide to use it more than once... With LessonBox unfortunately there was no real push from the SLT and nobody was interested in it. The few times they did use it, I was the one that had to drag it from one end of the school to the other open it up, connect a camera and press record, then go to the class after the lesson and pack it all up (to be fair it was a bit more complicated than that, what with extracting the video and putting it on the server)...

Yeah I've seen those lifts in a hospital where the doors open both sides, I'm guessing at some point pressing only one 'floor' button might mean the other side's door won't open (got to be something convoluted like that)?

AHHHHHHHH!!!! Think I've found it! DNS records for the domain had an email forwarding section that I must have set up many years ago... I guess it was to initially route any emails to that user on that tenant/domain to an email address that I actually use. I presume that sent the email into a bit of a loop considering I was sending from account 2 to account 1 and yet the DNS for account 1 had a record to forward anything sent to account 1 to account 2... confusing! Anyway, I've deleted that record so I'll give it an hour or two and see if it's fixed.

Yeah done both of those and that's what my research has led me to, hence this bit... So I thought I'd done what I needed to clear any kind of cache at my end and as it's an LGfL mail account, I can't really see where else I could look for this

Bit confusing so I will number the accounts 1, 2 & 3 1 = New account (domain/tenant - not new, but just created mail on it yesterday) setup DNS for SPF, DKIM and DMARC (all OK except for DMARC). 2 = LGfL mail account 3 = Other O365 account As the title says, this error appears when entering the email address FOR account 1, FROM account 2 (in Outlook or Webmail), if I send anyway it comes back as undeliverable... I can receive emails FROM account 1, TO account 2, however if I reply to the email I just received... same thing - undeliverable! I can also send to and receive from that address from other email accounts, account 1 to 3 and 3 to 1. Just to note, the account I cannot send from is LGfL and I'm not sure if they use a full O365 backend, or Exchange, or if that even makes a difference as I guess it's basically all the same thing. I have removed auto-complete in Outlook and unticked 'cached mode' ( neither had any affect ), but as this also happens from account 2 when I access it on the web to account 1 , so I don't think it's an Outlook client issue.