Koldov

I'm in the process of setting up a Hyper-V VM with a view to getting our SIMS server transferred to it next year. Unfortunately I've stumbled within the first few steps wand I don't want this server one to end up as messy as the last! So, I have some really basic questions... I have downloaded: SQL Server 2016 Standard Edition with SP3 - Per Server/CAL and not the 'per core' version (not sure what difference it makes). I presume this is the correct one as we license SQL server as "Servers SQL Server - Standard 2022 (1)" under our OVS. When I go to install it one of the first steps is to enter a license key... it asks you to choose either an evaluation version or use a key (the one that comes pre-entered ), I checked if I could enter my own and looked on MVLSC to find it... but it says 'this product does not require a license key'. Apart from wondering why a product that doesn't require a key asks you to enter one... anyone have any other advice to get a simple SQL server installed or any other surprises/gotchas/best practise/choices...?

Well this went OK (ish) in the end. For the Gen1 > Gen2 I came across an article that seemed to suggest it was as easy as updating the OS, using MBR2GPT, creating a Gen2 VM and attaching the disk..... It was really scarce on actual in-depth/step by step detail but seemed to suggest it was possible. So I gave it a go and although it gave me some concerns (boot failure) it eventually came back up. I have a feeling the VM settings needed more tweaking things like it may have needed 'boot from file' to be set manually but it seemed to work this out after a few tries.

It was too complicated too block the inheritance unfortunately (the GPO that has those settings is a bit of a monster and also includes Firewall/RDP settings). Apart from lots of hits on the inter webs making it seem like this is a common issue, it seems it might be somehow linked to other issues with Domain Admins and the settings app. I've found there's loads of things I can't do in there but can run the equivalent from Control Panel or even find the relevant exe and using 'run as'... Anyway logged on as local Admin instead and once I'd edited the registry for vbs_auto to open in WScript I could run the slmgr commands.

Thanks! Yeah I knew I was pushing my luck trying to do it remotely, but I'd done really well up to that point (although there were a few nail biting moments). In fact apart from that one incident (which I have to admit was a click too far as it was getting late and I'd been on it solidly for hours) it was quite a success! Just for completeness I managed to fix it by actually deleting the dedicated NIC in the host (the right one this time) and letting it reinstall. Then once I opened HyperV manager it was available with its new name to attach it to a VSwitch.

I'm desperately trying not to need to go into school this week but... Working remotely and unfortunately it's nearly midnight and I've made my first 'serious' error! I've manged to go from 2012R2 VMs to 2019 and Gen1 to Gen2 (although there have been a few scary moments and quite a few things I needed to deal with) I'd got up the nerve to do the host (2012R2 > 2019)... Again there are a few things that aren't quite right, but the major issue was that during the 2019 install it seems to have installed new drivers for the NICs, it also seems to have renamed them somehow... luckily not a deal breaker for the host OS, but it killed the VM networking. I thought I could deal with it but have gone round in circles... Essentially the NICs were originally Broadcom #38 and Broadcom #39, now when the host OS installed new drivers, for some reason it renamed them QLogic #39 and QLogic #40 and the VSwitch wasn't attached to a physical NIC anymore! What I thought was that I could just create a new VSwitch attached it to the renamed physical NIC but the choices in Hyper-V manager show the 'old' names (Broadcom #38 & Broadcom #39) and not the new names (QLogic #39 & QLogic #40) and I couldn't remove the old VSwitch. After hours of research and not really finding anything similar, but eventually managing to delete the old VSwitch I tried to create a new one and stupidly unticked 'allow management OS' and then obviously chose the wrong one... Although I thought I chose the NIC not used by the host there must still be some link and once I hit 'apply' I was instantly disconnected... So it's gone midnight and I'm going to have to do the 'walk of shame' into work tomorrow so I can work on the physical host and at least get that back up, the trouble is I don't even know how to fix the Hyper-V issue. Why is Hyper-V manager still showing the old NIC names and is there anything I can do that doesn't involve me uninstalling and reinstalling the Hyper-V role...?

I've done an in place upgrade of one of my VMs (first one) and I've come across a well-known issue (well according to the interwebs)... It's asking to be activated and yet the 'Change Product Key' doesn't actually work! Internet wisdom suggests using an Admin CMD prompt to enter 'slmgr vbs' commands, unfortunately I have a GPO file association to open vbs in notepad. To make it worse CScript/WScript are also both disabled... I've tried regedit, file association, registering etc... but it doesn't seem to want to change! Oh and it appears when using Run and SLUI 4, it cannot be activated by phone (?)... Other than reinstalling the whole OS which I'm not keen on as it very nearly didn't make it (OS upgrade and also VM generation change... plus it's a WSUS and Print Server) , does anybody have ANY other way to activate?

Yeah I have, but the in-place process is better (even supported) I read these days. Also having the option of a roll-back if it was unhappy for whatever reason is a bonus. Completely wiping it for a fresh install and having to then resort to restoring from back-up when it fails is all extra steps/hassle. I'm concerned 2019 might not even fresh install on such an old server (although hopefully it has every driver I'd need - 2019 drivers not available to download from DELL) if not it might use the running versions of 2012R2 drivers for the in-place....

Subbed to this as I am thinking of trying to get SIMS moved from P2V in the near future... not sure if this was ever eventually fully supported by Capita, but if so I'd look into it for the Summer.

There's a lot of confusion with all the information being blasted out now about lowering boiler flow temperatures, turning down radiators and placement of thermostats... It will mean some people are using more energy to heat less effectively and rooms with the thermostat in (and rooms with radiators turned down) never reaching the temperature needed to turn the boiler off (or taking much longer to reach a decent temperature)! In the pre-modern boiler times I used to have an hour in the morning and maybe 2 or 3 hours in the evening, then when we had the new boiler fitted I used to have the thermostat in the living room (actually quite near the radiator) so when that hit target it stopped heating, but we've also always suffered with terrible condensation (no, we don't dry clothes on radiators/boil water on the stove/shower with the door open)... So much so that we suffered with damp/mold. So, we've now been very strongly advised to keep all parts of the house at a minimum 18c at all times (I used let it drop well below this) and I've recently had radiators moved to all external walls (how we found out condensation was forming under floor and on walls). So the heating is on permanently and costing me quite a lot (great time to find all this out) and the research on permanent low level or blasting for an hour or two is hotly debated, but for the fabric of the building low level constant heating seems best (just not for my bank balance)...

Did you follow any sort of guide for the Gen1 > Gen2? I thought there was an MBR > GPT conversion to do first which for a SERVER 2012R2 means doing it from a PE environment (which I'm going to struggle with on a prod server!).. create new Gen2 virtual machine and connect the VHD to it?

Slowly getting everything up to date but obviously a bit cautious with prod servers... 1. I have an old physical host on 2012R2 (DELL PowerEdge T610 - Dual Xenon E5620 - 24GB RAM) I want to in-place this to 2019. 2. It is running 2 guest VMs (1 x 2019 DC and 1 x 2012R2 Print Server, WSUS and a RDS for the Headteacher to use SIMS from a Mac). 3. The 2012R2 VM is unfortunately a Gen1 but I plan to get this to a Gen2 and in-place it to 2019. Whatever I do is going to be a bit of a pain, so to make it as simple as possible I'm looking to: A) In-place Physical host 2012R2 > 2019 B) Convert VM Gen1 > Gen 2 C) In-place VM 2012R2 > 2019 From what I've read so far, this is all 'possible', but is there a certain order I should attempt this? Host before VM? Gen1 > Gen2 VM before in-place 2012R2 > 2019 VM?

How do you separate those things now on a 'flat' network? Networking isn't a strong suite of mine so forgive me if I'm being a bit naive and not understanding the problem... When we joined LGfL we were told we would have to change our I.P. addressing scheme, this was a pain and cost us due to having a network support contract which is break/fix only and not config and it was way over my head at the time (we were also later told that it might have been possible to keep our I.P. range)... However we told the network support engineer to set up our switches exactly as it had been (with a few tweaks), just within the range of the new I.P. addresses so everything Curriculum, Admin, Printers, Servers, VoIP, CCTV have their own VLAN. Wireless networks are also split into Admin/Curriculum SSIDs and also a separate Guest/BYOD with an ACL (this was created by our network support engineer at additional cost though). Our broadband connection is with Virgin, but our alarms are separate on BT lines so not a problem.

Had a similar thing with a recent MFD exchange/deployment... Business Manager had arranged it all, for over half-term when I wasn't in! I was seriously expecting carnage on the first day back (and told the Business Manager so whilst berating him for arranging it when I was on holiday... How are the drivers going to get installed? Who is going to change all the GPOs for deployment?), but when I walked in everyone was happily printing away (didn't I look a fool)! Turns out the engineer just pulled all the information from the old one and copied it to the new one (including machine name, I.P., Job Accounting numbers... everything), it was even using the same drivers as it wasn't much of a step up in terms of model from a Kyocera TASKalfa 5052ci to a Kyocera TASKalfa 5054ci (I think the drivers are pretty universal anyway, although I had installed named ones and not Universal, they cover a lot of models in the .inf)... and I haven't bothered to change them as everyone seems OK!

Thanks, unfortunately we don't have one and I don't have time to order one, but it did work through the USB to the Mac-Mini with internet sharing! Luckily these are older iPads, but I still had some issues with the wipe and reload... something is not quite set-up the way it should be and I think it may need some looking at. I kind of expected a zero touch experience but when wiped it came back with activation lock and I couldn't clear that from Meraki Systems Manager. With AC2 wiped it, created a Blueprint I put the Meraki SM profile on and a Wi-Fi profile from the 1 good iPad I had, even did it as a restore from back-up of good iPad (but later found the 'back-up didn't actually have anything in it), but when it restarted it just ignored it all every time and set-up as a new iPad (but with activation lock meaning I had to manually input an apple account)... I don't know if the AC2 configuration/profile error is because they are managed by Meraki now, but it just seems really messy. The iPads are also in ASM as well, so I figure if I can get a Wi-Fi config file on in AC2 then it should just all happen automagically, but it isn't... They don't even auto-join the Wi-Fi... Virtual beer awarded! I found this out myself luckily, early in the day yesterday... I went through the various options of getting one of the sync and charge trolleys unlocked from the wall in a classroom, emptying 30 iPads and up a few stairs to my office, setting up the Mac-Mini, but instead just decided to move the Mac-Mini and do 2 at a time.... so I plugged the first 2 in... I'd resigned myself to doing this for most of them anyway as for some reason they were previously refusing to update over Wi-Fi anyway and AC2 seemed to able to do it. While I was messing about with the first one and getting nowhere, by the time I'd got to the second one it had already just picked up the new Meraki profile itself and reverted to being able to join any Wi-Fi (but defaulting to the one set out in the profile). So the next time I just plugged 2 in and waited... sure enough after a little bit of poking and the odd restart, one by one they started to pick up the changed profile! I did have 'share with USB' already ticked in the 'Content Cache' part of the sharing settings... I looked at just the sharing part but got put off by the warnings of 'This could bork your WHOLE NETWORK and your ISP might block you'.... So, it took me all day and lesson learned (until I forget and do something similarly stupid)... Every day is a school day...

TL;DR - I don't use Google Workspace admin very much... to save me from endless internet research which I don't have time for today... is there a quick and simple way to allow users in a specific OU to share documents with an external group of 'personal' users (but hopefully using their single named domain @ Anotherschool.co.uk) - iirc all external sharing is currently denied. A while ago our Headteacher decided he would like to use Google calendar for the school's internal calendar. On his own (without any input from I.T. obviously) he decided he would create all the teachers a 'personal' Google account and add them to his calendar. He also decided in his wisdom that he would create these 'personal' Google accounts using the email address we currently use for our email... which is O365 and comes from a 3rd party provider and uses a domain that we don't own... To add to this confusion when lockdown happened (after school was closed and I was sent home) it was requested that I create a Google Classroom for the whole school... (yeah right) followed up with an email the next day asking if I had done it yet and what was taking so long... Anyway, I obtained a new Domain, created a basic education GSuite, added the teachers and SLT, got the children added, tried to set-up rules for sharing, security, apps and everything else... Now this was nearly 3 years ago and after lockdown it was pretty rarely ever used again and hasn't been looked at since it was originally set up. However, even after trying to persuade them otherwise SLT still use the 'personal' Google accounts the Head created, but it causes issues with Google calendar and those trying to access things that the SLT try to share with those who don't have the 'personal' google accounts and I try to steer everyone into using the School Google Workspace accounts, for many reasons (security, audit, no adds in Google search, YouTube restrictions etc.) and so they don't have to open two browsers or switch accounts to use Google Classroom... Now I am being asked to find a way to allow SLT to share documents from the 'personal' Google accounts SLT use, with those who use the school's Google Workspace and I also had a very confused TA come and ask what she should do about the link she had been sent from the Head about adding herself to the calendar... obviously the email was sent to her O365 email account and she isn't signed into Google with the corresponding Google account as she is signed into the school's Google Workspace account! I'm not explaining it well, but honestly it's just a mess... and confusing for those who don't use computers much.

So, I've messed up on the iPads (again) and I can't see an easy way around it! We have Meraki Systems Manager and I was trying some settings out, I thought it was a great idea to tick 'Enforce SSID whitelisting iOS 10.3+'... It came with a warning that "Devices may only connect to networks that were set up in a configuration profile" That's OK I thought, I have the Wi-Fi settings including SSID in the 'Meraki profile configuration'.... well 10 minutes later and all the iPads went offline... Now, Meraki is no good to me anymore as none of the iPads are connected to the network/internet anymore and there is no option to join them manually as the iPads now say something like 'Your iPads can only join Wi-Fi networks configured by your Administrator'! Thought I would check and nearly all the iPads have the Meraki profile with Wi-Fi settings in but it isn't doing anything, I looked at them with AC2 and there is one other iPad that has a Wi-Fi profile and this is still OK... However I can't find any way to export that profile from the iPad to apply to the others, but that might not even work as even though I do have a Wi-Fi profile saved on the Mac, when I try to apply it with AC 2 it gives me the cryptic error: The profile must be installed using a device management tool. [MCInstallationErrorDomain – 0xFB4 (4020)] Which I can only find one hit on the internet for that search term and Apple failing to answer with anything but 'look at how to install profiles with Configurator'... https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253857755 Now nobody can use iPads and I'm not looking forward to tomorrow...

Depending on the age of your students... one thing I've found invaluable is using them! The younger ones are very suggestible (not always a good thing I'll admit), but some of them can also be quite tenacious and very ummm.... persistent! Luckily we have just had the 'Big Switch Off' assembly... So a quick.... 'Hey guys you know your teacher is really, really, busy right? So do you think you could remind them to turn the projector and speakers off at the end of the school day? Then we can all help SAVE THE PLANET!' Seems to have worked on one or two of the worst offenders...

Seems to be more of a Mac problem rather than iPad specific, but as my knowledge of both is limited to say the least I wasn't sure of the best place to post. We have a Mac Mini sitting on the network and although it has never really needed a huge amount of effort (getting it to work in the first place was a struggle iirc) it has kind of sat there and been forgotten about... I'm pretty sure it did quite a bit of caching initially (figures were up in the GBs so I thought it was doing its job OK) and then once we got a load of new iPads I just presumed it would carry on regardless without any intervention. We have 30 older iPads now (on 12.5.5) that are just used for a Breakfast Club and I noticed some of them have managed to update to 12.5.6 (because 'Automatic Updates' is on in the iPad settings I guess). So I tried to set off the others with Meraki which failed (as it always does - although saying 'Success' in the 'Systems Manager' portal), then I tried to do it manually. This also failed but gave the message "Unable to Check for Update - An error occurred while checking for a software update - Cancel/Try Again". I can update them manually with AC2 on the Mac Mini (downloads iPad iOS, unzips and installs), so I'm not convinced it's anything to do with filtering/firewall. But here's the strange thing... I did remember I had changed the DNS servers I.P. and had not updated the setting on the Mac Mini... I changed them and rebooted it but nothing miraculous happened unfortunately, so I'm not sure that was the problem. So, digging further into the 'Sharing' settings and 'Activity Monitor' shows that it appears the Mac Mini has completely forgotten it was ever a Content Caching server.... The 'Content Cache' storage used is: None and the data served is also none (all 0 bytes - although it only goes back 30 days)... There doesn't appear to be any way to change the update settings now on the iPad as it just loops the message 'Checking' every time I go into that setting. There is also nothing I can find on Meraki to enable the iPad to Check automatically. I'm not entirely certain I have it set up correctly (although I haven't changed anything in the sharing settings), but a previous post (a few years ago) suggested that everything should be on the same network/VLAN but this isn't viable as the Mac Mini is obviously on a server VLAN via ethernet and the iPads are on a Curriculum Wi-Fi VLAN. This might be a red herring and I didn't want to include it, as it used to work set up like this and Apple says there are options for 'complicated' networks, not that this should really be 'complicated' how else do you get Wi-Fi iPads to update from the Cache... put the Mac Mini on a Curriculum Wi-Fi VLAN? That is no better than allowing them to update from the internet.... although I did try it briefly and it made no difference... Anyway, I have it set to: But I have tried 'Local Networks' and 'Custom Local Networks'...

Something similar here, I don't use WOL as it's such a small school everything is just as quick to do manually - so I always make sure all these settings are unticked.

Do they only go to schools with LA provided broadband? Our school doesn't use a proxy, 'luckily' our LA music service lady doesn't have her laptop that well secured and she can just untick the proxy box. Depends on how 'locked down' it is, IIRC many, many years ago we used to have an proxy but we had 2 .vbs files on the desktop one for 'school' and one for 'home' to add or remove it.

Not really server related as such, but just looking through our Chrome ADMX and noticed the setting for 'Safe Browsing' is deprecated... which I presume means it will disappear at some point and be replaced with something else that they're working on. Can't find much about ADMX on t'interwebs as it seems mostly based on Chrome OS or using the Google account... IIRC I read something on sending webpages viewed to Google 'for analysis'...? Is there some other setting now to ensure this is enabled, or just wait until it vanishes and is no longer applied?

This happens on both DCs. We have a further Administrator permission, do you have the following (in 'Security > Advanced)...? Server 2019

Is this to do with Broadcom VMQ...? http://www.edugeek.net/forums/thin-client-virtual-machines/228674-hyper-v-networking-issue.html

Thanks, yeah I'd seen the ones on ebay (and various web-stores I've never heard of, apart from aliexpress.com lol)... I've hacked the connectors of a few PSUs in my time, but really don't fancy the hassle/danger of killing it completely anymore these days (in fact I've got to hope the whole thing isn't fried as it is). Given the age of the PC and therefore the age of the components I was hoping not to go second hand/refurbished if I could help it as the replacement is just as likely to go pop, but it seems there is very little choice. I've only seen a couple of threads on other forums and no solid advice unfortunately, seems the 10-pin connector is quite rare (due to the age and possibly actually unique to Lenovo, because everybody else was already going with 8-pin connectors). Always annoys me when manufacturers decide to go against the general way the trend is going. Like the faceless shadowy grey figure in the background, whispering in the ear of the engineer... 'don't you think we need a 10-pin connector there, we don't need to follow the rest of those manufacturers'.... Engineer decides it needs a 10-pin connector... Shadowy figure slopes off rubbing their hands and grinning to themselves.... 'and they will have to purchase the replacement from us, because nobody else makes them..... Better still when they can't get the replacement anymore, they will have to buy a whole new computer'.... MUAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!1

Well there's a few threads this post could have gone (annoying things, I'm looking at you)... After having some work done in the house (meaning everything in storage for a few weeks) I finally got my 'man-cave' room back. Guitars and amps all back in, desk and computers all set-up... Turned on one of the PCs, got into post and pop! Dead.... Took the PSU out and into work today, plugged into the tester but no joy. Spec from the label (no well-known/major manufacturer name): 625w - Bronze +3 +5 = 175w MAX +12 = 475w MAX TOTAL = 610w It has the following connectors: 1 x floppy 5 x Sata 1 x 10 pin 1 x 6+2 pin 1 x 6 pin 1 x 4 pin 1 x 24 pin The sticking point seems to be the 10 pin CPU connector: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkStation-Workstations/s20-and-new-PSU/m-p/5046400 I bought this from @ICTDirect_Dave years ago and haven't actually built my own in ages, so to save me going down a major internet search rabbit hole... does anyone know what I need to replace it with? I thought I had a spare, but when I actually found it I realised it was an old Corsiar CX500 (so only 500w) and doesn't have a connector with 10 pins... Links would be helpful, name brand and a Black Friday deal for extra points!