sfoord

I can't see any problem with install Open Office for your department to use, as has been already said it like any other piece of software. From what you have said your NM seems to be saying he would not install any Open Source software at all! There is a lot of OS software out there, which the LEAs will tell the schools to install, for example Audacity is used by most music departments with the blessing of the LEAs advisors.. I have installed both MS Office & Open Office together on a number of schools network will out any problem. Open Office is easier then most education software to install on a network anyway. I had one special school I had the same request from 2 members of staff who want to use open office this is going back about 4 /5 years ago and the school was still running NT Server, so I downloaded the portable open office installed it onto a network share and put the icon on the staff desktop, about 5 min work. All the files are installed into that one directory & the program runs from there without install any files on the clients. Ok not that fasted to open but for only 2 users fine!! Also easy to upgrade as only one set of files to do!! Now will Windows 2003 I would just use an msi to install it over the whole network. I would asked your NM to do the portable open office to a network share, or a portable open office install to a directory on each PC in your department, that way no files are install into the reg or windows system folders on any of the PCs and any problem you just delete the directory and its gone. Hope this help.. Ste

We have 2 Samsung CLP-600N on the network and they run fine on Windows 2003 Server SP2 with XP Pro Clients. Do you have the network version of the printer or are you running it off a print server? What version of windows is the server running? ste

Install cables, etc normally costs roughly £200 - £300 per day for 2 people. IT support is anywhere from £120 - £800 per day depending on who does it & what level. Most companies don’t like giving hourly rates as very difficult if someone else supplies kit, cable etc and there’s a problem with it i.e. order wrong stuff etc. Think you will find that most good Companies with only give you whole job price!

Thanks Geoff Works great on my pc at home:D Will try it tomorrow at school with a logon script. Never seen Nircmd before looks very useful Thanks again Ste

Setting maximum is normal in most primary school because the teachers control the volume by the speakers controls not the pc's volume control. I must have spent lots of time fixes sound problem which are due to muted volume controls & volume controls set to minimum. So trying to find a way to reset the volume at login, it does not have to be maximum but normal its set to that. Setvol.exe will let you set the volume to any value you want, but only for the master volume and not for example the wave volume.

Does anyone know of a program you can run at the command to un-mute the sound & reset the volume to maximum on all the volume controls not just the master volume? I use mute.exe and setvol.exe in the logon script at min but they only re-set the master volume not the rest.

We had the same problem with 3com switches and ghost. After talking to 3Com we fixed it by disabling Broadcast Storm, IGMP & Spanning Tree. See screen shot.

Have seem that type of error before.. Normal cause by a fault nic or blown port on switch\Route. When the DNS & DHCP on a windows server gets lots of error it cause them to crash & are unable to restart, until you clear out the DHCP, DNS Databases manual. First thing you need to know is what is causing the problem.. only way is to check each item in turn with everything else unplugged. i.e. Check server nic with laptop\desktop pc with crossover cable. See if you can talk to each over it. Then when you know the server works ok attach it to the route with nothing else attached and try to talk to it.. Take quite a long time to check though everything, but it the only way Hope this helps Ste