RobBaxter

Update: Not fixed... but i think i'm getting further with this... I have "Impero" the Network / Classroom management solution. Using Impero (as adminstrator) to mitigate any access stuff i have missed. I instruct the systems to load k:\testfile.doc. All 22 stations then show the Office 2010 loading dialog for word. 4 made it and opened the file. The others it seems "LAGGED" out as if the file was no longer there. In about 2 minutes to 3 minutes all the stations suddenly went "BANG", word unfroze and the document opened. This is truly weird. It's as if there is some "Spam Protection" feature built in which i can't find for love nore money ... Anyways still trying to isolate where the issue actually is!! R p.s. Repaired 3 Roaming Profile Glitches in the process ... at the very least its spring cleaning!!

Okay ... i'm at my whits end so lets hope something knows a simple "i know whats wrong". So i have a Windows Server 2012 DC which is serving User Home DIRs and Share Files. Dell R610 with a DAS MD1220 connected. So i have a standard share which is all privileged nicely. We have \\server\ShareFiles (the share path) mapped to K:\ which contains all our lovely shares that fill we useless detritus over the years. == Here is the problem == Teacher A places a file in K:\Students\4F\editandreturndocument.docx Teacher A asks class to "Open the File" and "Save As" to their own workspace, fill it out and return it. Class of (22) children click the file (or any file shared for that matter) and every station cant (it crashes waiting for the file to open) a file just previously accessible is now "inaccessible". It is obviously caused by some kind of limit. But 2012 server standard does not seem to have one, and yes it is licensed. Unlimited connections allow to the share, unlimited users allowed. It is certainly not confined to simply share files either \\server\userhomes\students\ is also effected. So if you say login as a group login say "year1" (babys not so good with the logins ) then they all take a solid 5 minutes to login over the previous 30 seconds. Offline Files are OFF, Folder Redirection On. This is driving me up the wall. If you know of anything that may cause this, please post, at this stage i will try anything. My Microsoft Certs do NOTHING! Proving useless!!!! Respectfully requesting out geeking

Good to know! New modules it is then

Hi, I am thinking of replacing some old switches. Now while the switches are of reasonable cost the fibre modules are almost the same again. Now i don't pretend to be an expert in "Core Comms and Switching" and my "Brain" says keeping the brands the same is probably senssible anyway. But for example, would it be possible to use say a Netgear 1GBit Fibre module in a HP Procurve Switch? Obviously i can check standards. If i can "without risking stability" get away with not having to purchase modules that would be great. But, if i have to buy them its not the end of the world. Your advise would be greatly appreciated if you have tried this . Thanks Rob

Oh thank god for the demise of SBS. I remember installing a "Flavor" (cant remember which) of that about 5-6 years ago. It's fine as long as you dont want to make it attualy do anything . This is why i praise my school's agreement. "Licence Headache = removed". That is as long as i can count

I think the staff here would have a heart attack. They still don't like Office 2010 and ask for 2007 back! We also have a school inspection next term (it is due) so if i go windows 8, they would most likely hang me

Fantastic idea, I can also kill 2 birds with one stone here always wanted a smooth wall to replace my tiny watch guard pos!!! My bursar wont let me have one until the watch guard breaks or wont do the job. :D Insolently, concidering the number of schools with smooth wall, makes this "case study" of sorts even better

Hi all, nice to see activity here. Your all right let me clear up a few "bits". First off, not i'm not really "bonding" them i'm load balancing across them. Again your right, its only a "total speed of" rather than a "i can download at" speed. I have the business unlimited packages (of which we unless doing really well, won't even get to their "fair use policy". Again I agree, lease lines are far far superior, but if your like me, where getting a lease line to school is somewhat "out of the question" then this seems like a good alternate solution. I am undecided as to which "router" to use for the "shall we say connection balancing". UBM 1500 ADSL Channel Bonding Router is one i'm looking at. If you have a link to "bonding / load balancing" routers then please post them . Failing a suitable appliance i can always setup a Linux box to do this with 6 or so network cards

Hi All, So, here at school we have been having a little brain storm over how best to "get with the times" when it comes to internet speed. For the most part with the introduction of many "cloud" services, such as Google Apps in education or maybe even Office Live (not that i use this), the internet connection you have at school is becoming one of your most vital assets. After my boss/bursar bought a new School Information Database and wanted to have staff access this web portal from home I began the quite reasonable "thats not gonna work boss" issues. At the moment we have 1 single ADSL line which services the whole school, it's not really been an issue for us, but especially now that i'm implementing so many new things I had to look at alternate solutions. WELL, bloody hell its expensive. Most companies want to charge in the region of £4500 + VAT for "bonded ADSL" solutions and don't even get me started on lease lines. But i think i found the solution. We have just ordered ourselfs a brand new BT Line with Infinity on it, the price is £60 (inc VAT) for 1 month (which includes your line rental and unlimited Bandwidth). I should get 33.6mbit down / 5.8mbit up (with my Infinity Line) which is awsome to start with!! But i'm not stopping there!! Once the 1st line is installed and is tested of 3 months for stability / reliability purposes, i will then place an order for another 3 BT Infinity lines. Of course these are £60 each. So thats a £240/month Price tag or £2880 a year. That figure for us is about 1/4 of the cost of a lease line per annum. AND what is the beauty of this imo is it's completely internally managed. If this goes the way I think it will, i should get 134mbit/s down and 23.2mbit/s up using 4 "Bonded" BT Infinity internet connections. I think this "for schools at least" this is the answer to getting the most "Bang for our very limited buck" so to speak in regards to "internet connectivity". I have 2 IT Suites and 40 students using the internet at the same time over 1 single ADSL connetion is laughable really. Google Earth would make you crindge and laugh at the same time. Now bonding is not new, but what I want to test "for all of us" is if BT Infinity Bonding is really a answer once it's available in your area. Because if it really does work the way i think it should, it really is a cracking choice. I will be documenting the whole process from begining to end along with testing metrics and stats. My plan here is to do the "leap of faith" on the behalf of our band of edugeekers. By the end of this "year" at school, I hope to be able to say one way or another with reasonably proofs and infos if this a suitable solution!!

wait... this RDP server is a member of your domain right as a "Station" be it server 2008? I don't get this ... can you PM me the full nslookup commands you droped so I can see what works and what doesn't if you for any reason don't wanna post it as a reply. Thx Also remember on a DC "Domain" is pointless, since the DCs don't have "Local" accounts in the same manor, they all work on a Active Directory only basis. Or at least that is my current understanding. I suddenly realize i have not looked at that in ages so i't not so confident. Also remember that just because something is "Server" version of windows, does not make it a domain controller and obviously you are 100% right not to let your RDP server be a DC also, that's asking for trouble.

hums ... this has be worried

the DC most likely has network discovery on, and as such when you ping by name its attually not doing and DNS work what so ever Go to your DNS Server and check for the record. or nslookup nslookup rdp.yourschool.local 10.0.0.10(Your DNS Server IP or Name) Need to see your DNS server can reply in the first place

Fail at self... read Rob Sometimes i'm an idiot. Frankly quite abit, you will need Sharepoint CALs for all the users and a Server Licence for the attual server. Thats the way its done under select licencing. I would asume about £20 a CAL and no idea on the server. I have a school agreement. Personally maybe look at doing a Agreement Licence switch over ? I know they might me Satan, but Viglen have a ladie working for them "so even if you don't buy :P" who is a very decent licencing expert. FYI our School Agreement is held with Viglen as the reseller at the mo

Ahahahahahahahaha! CLASS! Dismissed!

Google Apps in Education (Because it's used that heavily) Google Chrome (I.E. Outlawed, but install) Office 2010 Solidworks (to be replaced with Creo Elements) Audacity Deserved mension... "Logic Studio" but its for the Macs

be carefull tho, in order to maintain the aspect the projector normally speaking must be correctly squared. (don't ask) but i had a right little nightmare with 10 projectors which all had to be re-installed and aligned. Doh!

Yeah Well this particular quote was for a long lense throw projector about 2 years ago, to go from one wall to another wall of a "Hall with a silly high ceiling". They wanted close to £10k for it, which we felt was not quite "On the money" so to speak, but to be honest i never followed it up, so the quote could have been a rip off

Wow... what ya know ... i found that i had some DNS screwups also... *facepalms* thanks for that!

Wow! hahaha... i had a look at long throw projectors and found them to be so super expensive that it just was not feasible. I realize for the most part we are "slaves" to the teaching staff, but in this case i think i would reserve my right to tell them to take a hike or pay it out of their won budget! hehe

We deal with Canon (Direct), Rico (through a company called "The Digital Office") we have no issues with either company. Not really an endorsement, just who we use.

@internetuser NICE! In our environment we don't need such functionality due to the way we as a school operate, but still that's super cool. I like things that "just work" and even when they don't they take the initiative

We don't save any money and its no more expensive (really). However, it's not my "Problem" anymore, because they have engineers for when they jam / break (within 24 hours) and i get all the toner / replacement parts and a whole new machine on failure. We managed to get a good deal out of them also. I have to be honest... doing printing yourself is kinda "sadist" these days because its such a damn nightmare. Also quick tip: Canon if you ask them will basically give the printing away to you! Just hammer them for the best price, our price (can't say because we said we wouldn't by agreement), is so low that its not a case of "compertision" but who has the lowest "costs" Oh... and once you have a few Canon Photocopiers ... speak to Rico, they will match anything you have down on paper with canon, and there color devices are perfect imo for schools!

Dear All, I was stunned today, I can't actually believe what i saw when I went to my own website today @ rwbk.net. I found a parking website. I thought "ouch... did i forget to renew, i can't have forgotten, its December it renews!!!". After I log in to the ukreg / fasthosts i see that as a) it has not expired, b) it seems to be fine. After my checks rwbk.net resolved to ... Pinging rwbk.net [213.171.195.105] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 213.171.195.105: bytes=32 time=57ms TTL=245 Now "because i use this for email and dev routing only" I on purpose do not add a A:Record for rwbk.net, thus the ping should return unable to resolve hostname. So you can imagine that when (after 2 years of behaving its self) and i saw that, i thought i had been compromised and of course then panic. After a prudent hour of changing passwords and SSH Keys (always a nightmare). I phones fasthosts to learn a totally unacceptable truth of what went on. In December 2011 they instituted a new "mechanic" where website that do not set A Records on the root domain (must be reconfigured) and thierfor direct rwbk.net (to which www. is a cnamed subdomain) to there parking website. Without you permission i might add!!! To add insult to this, when you click on ... ... ok ... now I wen't totally over the top ballistic at the poor level 2 help desk technical adviser at fasthosts on what gave them the right to effectivly "Poison" my DNS without permission. I have used ukreg (aka FastHosts) as a domain registrar for about 8 years now. I never had a problem, but this "issue" is just such a serious problem in general on how the internet can be "abused" by people in positions of power i thought i would put this down. I now have a wonderful flag with them of "don't edit ANYTHING" on this account without expressed customer approval, so i hope that this makes sure it never happens again. I will make certain of that, by transferring my domains away ASAP to someone i trust. This is just a heads up to anyone using Fasthosts and might be like me and have a few DNS names that you dont use for "web" and purely service domains, they WILL have done you too :S

Hi, I use sophos too... I had a right biatch of a time getting all the stuff to work and play nice. Once of which was a similar issue to that which you seems to be experiencing. I reinstalled the Sophos Console first off. Also its the "User" that is in the configuration of sophos which requires access. I find also over wireless, that sometimes, it follows a "Wireless Network" security setting and therefore doesn't work at all. Try logging into a laptop as the user you have to access the share and try viewing to the sophos installer in the deployment share.

I use GoDaddy too. https://kingshott.herts.sch.uk/owa/ They have full instructions on how to install it. The only "minor" issue, is that if you sign the certificate on a external domain. Outlook will report that the certificate for dc02.kingshott.local in my case is valid, verified but working on the wrong domain. In order to stop this, you need to add your external domain to your local domain as a alias and import the certificate as trusted... "hums... very poor explain there!", I'm english but my dyslexia getting the best of me this morning :S