indiegirl

Eeek!!! That quoted one wasn't right - I selected to connect with network, restarted Outlook and it just wouldn't start: "the operation failed" (aren't M$'s error messages good?) As for the M$ RPC - I haven't made any changes to ISA, and I can't see any RPC errors on the machines. It appears that those machines running in cached mode where the user doesn't have admin rights can't get into Outlook, but those who have admin rights just can't save stuff onto their calendar. I'm going off sick tomorrow...

Yesterday, I restricted access to the GAL by way of fighting with different permission settings. This morning, when attempting to save any calendar items, I get: "The connection to the Microsoft Exchange server is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action" Now, the machine is definitely connected, as I'm sending and receiving email. I've just been back in and reset the permissions that I changed yesterday. No difference. This is what happens when your line manager demands that you do something 'immediately' whilst you have three hundred other things on the go, and haven't been involved in the setup of the Exchange server. I'm not taking responsibility for this one, I was just doing my job (and succeeded, I mean - I did manage to restrict the opening of the GAL as asked!) Any ideas?

That was my other worry, I'll see what I can find out from it overnight, then decide whether to leave it in place or not. I suspect not...

I think that's my only alternative. Have enabled message tracking but it appears that it'll only take effect from now, rather than pick up earlier messages (which is what I expected). Off to do some research.... ;-)

There's one word for that: b*gger.

Any ideas? I thought it might be possible to look at the full header of the email, although it appears that apart from the standard to/cc/subject fields, I can't view anything else. All I'm after is a method of tracking down the source IP of an (internal) email... TIA

I agree with the OWA only approach. However, due to DNS issues and the c*ckups made by the NM, OWA won't work internally (yet does externally). I haven't had the time to investigate/fix this, and at the moment, I'm not inclined either ;-) I have denied access to our 'students' group within Exchange System Manager to the global address list, and also the 'all users' address list as suggested by Sysman above, and allowed access for staff. However, this doesn't appear to work - I've just logged in as a student, and they can still see the global address list. As far as I was aware, deny permissions should take precedence over allow... so I'm a bit puzzled as to why they're still allowed access to that list.

Sorry to drag up an old thread - but paullong (if you are still reading) - did you manage to sort this? We are coming up against this problem and need to be able to restrict access to our Global Address book just for the students only. I have - by practice - limited each student to a max of 5 recipients, but is there an option to hide / deny access to the global address list??

ISA - noooooooooo! It does nothing of any use to us here. The blocking is shocking (and I'm a poet), you can't block by keyword, the application blocking doesn't appear to work... need I go on? Censornet looked excellent when I saw it, Smoothwall was also a very nice piece of kit, and if I'd been in this school before they agreed to pay whatever extortionate amount it was for ISA, I'd have asked them to reconsider for something that would do the job, and better... (nb: I may be biased as the setup here is probably nowhere near perfect, and I haven't the time to properly investigate it)

I'm not suggesting for a second that any of you guys don't care about the welfare of your schools, that's not my point. I'm being a martyr and reminding the SMT here what happens when the let the NM take a month-long holiday, three weeks of which are in schoolterm, and don't provide backup. (so for once I'm being selfish in a respect) I would've voted 'no' had I been able to, so it seems daft to me to go against my beliefs and stand out there in the cold for something that I genuinely believe is only going to be put back - the rule of 85 will be removed, just maybe not now (because of the strikes). By the time I've clocked up anything near 85 years (if I last that long in Local Gov employment), I truely believe that the RO85 will be long gone. But kudos to all you guys striking, indeed.

As I've said before - no - but for two reasons, really: 1) I didn't get my ballot paper in time (I've just moved... new build property + Royal Mail = no mail deliveries :-() 2) If I did, there'd be no IT support for the school, and although I should, I'm a bit too conscientious. Anyway, if I'm not in Tuesday, I'll have double (quadruple?!) work to do on Weds...

You star... could I find that on the web? Could I B*ggery.... clearly the left brain can't function with the right brain today... Thank you :-)

I can't find this answer on Google (clearly I'm not googling it properly :oops:)... Does anyone know how to clear the service reminder on an HP Printer (in this case a 4300)? I'm pretty sure there's an option or key-combination to reset the service counter... cannot for the life of me remember it!

Just using the CTRL-ALT-DEL doesn't do it: In the Group Policy (I set this on the machine directly but I think you can apply it in your GPO), if you set the Computer Configuration / Windows Settings / Security Settings / Local Policies / Security Options ... about the 25th option is "Interactive Logon: do not display last username". Enable this and it'll be clear every time the student logs in.

HSBC Bank use Sophos (from my days there), and I have to say that v5 (which we use here) is an improvement over previous versions. As for Panda, I tried the home version of that and it ground my machine (Athlon 2800) to a halt and wouldn't boot! That was very messy. As a result, I've stayed away from Panda ever since! I would like to see an auto-cleanup with the viruses - it's very good at telling me that there's a virus on the machine through the console, but not whether it's actually been dealt with. Is this a common thing, or is something missing from our settings to auto-quarantine a virus? I tend to have to physically go to the machine to sort it out.

Yes, yes, yes, I know I should use a third party app to sort my ever-increasing problems, but does anyone know if there's a way to block attachments from being downloaded/opening through ISA? Under our firewall policy, we have a list of content types which should be blocked, but they don't appear to be! I think that this is due to the list not being called under our restricted web section. Once one creates a list under 'content type' - is that a list of allowed or disallowed sites? In our firewall policy, we have the restricted web section (set to 'deny'), but under content types 'all' is selected (and therefore seems to be all allowed). If I select our specific list from the 'selected content types' - is that going to block or allow that list? I'm a bit confused here, as you may be too!

Try this thread. Craig - it's a similar position here - such a minefield, trying to work out where to start...

Yes, by installing the new DPS supplied in the updates, the previous version is automatically removed. Well, it was here, anyway...!!

Yep, I was aware that I'd need to stop the SQL service... just off to click now :-)

Ta muchly for those suggestions. Looking at Solus, we have a list as long as one's arm of upgrades (and that's before even considering patches... 3pm today, I'm gonna just bite the bullet and go with it... spoke to my old NM at my old school who gave me a whistle stop suggestion of what he'd do in my situation, so am gonna go for it. Step one - copy the entire SIMS folder over to another area, so that if all goes t!ts up, I'll copy it back and hopefully no harm done. Step two - backup Sims from within sims itself. Step three - run Solus... and run. At least I have a weekend to sort it if it all goes horribly wrong.

Currently, we use sims for assessment manager, some are still using Nova-T, and we have a Bromcom system that pulls its data from sims as well. Other than that, it's just cover, timetables and students personal data...

*whistles* I have noooooooo idea... See? This is how good the handover to me was for the holidays (not). Don't worry - I will bug Capita until I get the right answers if I have to (apparently we pay for their support...)

How strange, This morning, my SIMS.mdf file is 800mb still, but the SIMS.ldf has grown to 1Gb already 8O That's after shrinking it to 1mb yesterday evening and backing up the database last night (all went fine). Do we think that an upgrade will fix this.. Capita almost refused to support my call yesterday as we're not up to date. I *would* do an update, if I knew how to do one successfully (murky waters for me, I'm afraid)... Any easy suggestions? I know I should run Solus (is that right?) with no users on SIMS (so after 3.30 today as everyone but me clears off home), does running Solus on the server automatically update everything? (I feel really thick where SIMS is concerned, think I'll be getting me on some courses soon)

Listen guys, thank you so much for all of your help (and replies, and views, and support) today. It's days like this that I am grateful for people like you out there with the spare time to assist. Your help has been priceless today. I can only take from this that I've learned a lot (but still have so much more to go!) on the SIMS front... but I think we can all safely say that I'm a step or two ahead of the NM now... Cheers - have a good evening.

it's not that password here either. I know this as NM changed it in the summer, and then spent 1/2 a day phoning the dude who he hauled in to set the system up to try and find out what it was. The world against me? Nah, I'm just extremely unlucky in my choice of jobs (the pattern so far is one good, one bad, one good, one bad...) things can only get better :-D