Sirbendy

T'was indeedy! Why do you ask?

Astra-F's rule all others..heh...90k? Baby! My '97 1.6 auto's on 111k now, no major "fail to proceed" problems in my ownership - even the iffy gearbox electronics issue and blown headgasket made no difference to it's willingness to not die at all.

Yep..we get ex students back and forth all the time to say hello, check we're not dead and generally come and have a cup of tea in the office while we have a catch-up.. Some of the younger ones are scarily similar to their elders at the same time..but at least they all know who I am..heh.."we heard about you.."..

Indeed..we got our superstacks changed out after a similar problem.

Aren't some of them funny...I've just had 6 in to reset passwords,and I've been able to guess 5 from the faces/mannerisms after having had so many of their older siblings pass through here in the last 8 years. "Hmm..lets see...lisps a bit, sticks tongue out when thinking, quietly spoken, looks to be a bit of a 40watt bulb..ah..must be a member of the "insert name here" family.." Anyone else find they tend to do that little internal monologue?

DEP on flowol? News to me....we're running 2.90, all on XPSP2/1..no issues. Local installs though (if you can call it that - since it runs from a directory, it just gets copied to machines that need it.

You've been in my mother-in-laws box of goodies then?

Free DVD ripper for me...does Divx on the fly.

We found it was the solution our cleaner used to wipe the desks that upset ours..we requested she change it, and no more issue.

Surprisingly, I don't recall doing so...but they won't elaborate, so...sod 'em.

I just install it on the base system when I create a build, along with the multi-user serial patch. That way it's deployed with the OS.

Ah, the CDServe... God, that takes me back to my last school.. Funny little box. We had a 15 DVD drive "tower stack" unit as well..what a pig it was.

we don't fit them to "own build" machines we deploy, but for Dells etc that ship with them, yes..I pull the power. The kids are too dense to think of a paperclip..and I swear none of them even know what the manual release is. As to rubber bands..heh. I used to have to replace them on Amstrads 3 inch drives..what fun.

My partner suggests this: http://magiboards.co.uk/cat.php?sc=3 Made by magiboards in Telford, an IP board. She wrote their website..heh..

Here's how I do it, and I've yet to have it fail on desktop or laptop. Install XP, install your apps etc, get the whole shooting match fettled to your taste. Then go into device manager, click "Computer", and update driver. select to pick your own, and then pick "Standard PC". Let it reboot and do all the "redetect hardware" jazz. At this point you have an utterly non-ACPI setup. Basic of basic. Will boot and run on anything at all. Create your Sysprep.inf (or copy it over if you already have it). Make sure in there is this section: [unattended] OemSkipEula=Yes UpdateUPHAL=ACPIPIC_UP,%systemroot%\inf\hal.inf InstallFilesPath=C:\sysprep\i386 TargetPath=\WINDOWS The "UpdateUPHAL" line is the important one. It tells Sysprep that on completion of deployment, it's to go and use the most suitable HAL it has. After doing this alteration, start up command prompt, and go to the sysprep directory. Type "Sysprep -bmsd" to build the mass storage driver list. Copy any machine specific drivers to the designated directory you specify, then disable swap file, nuke hibernate and clear down sys restore etc, reboot. Once it comes back up, I fire up Sysprep and Reseal. Then ghost it once Sysprep is done. This has seen me through the last 2 0706 and all my new 0707 revision builds, deployed on Intel and AMD, Single or Multicore core, P2 through to X2/C2D, all without issue. I just wish the LEA would pick up on it..heh..their builds were often failing to boot on certain hardware types, and they used to release different images for different hardware. My 0707 R4 build beats theirs to login by 30 seconds, runs a hell of a lot faster/smoother, and comes in at just under 2gb ghost size..their 0707 release to "non-own build" schools comes in at 6. We'd never go back now.

Heh. I'm starting a moving process hopefully on the 22nd...no phone in the new place according to BT..previous tenant moved it somewhere else. So now I've got to have a new line/reactivation there, and then get the line in my existing flat ceased (as it was when we moved in), as well as my Tiscali provision. Then I'll have to set up an ISP at the new place ASAP. Luckily though, my contract on the flat isn't up for 2 months yet, and we can run it and the new place side by side, so it should be a smooth transition. I hope. Tiscali can sod off as far as I care...I'm looking at Eclipse now. The complicating factor is my missus (web dev) has 3 large contracts underway for mid-march/april..and I don't want there to be any hold-ups in the transition if at all possible.

ruddy media artisty types...psh. Macs only look cooler.

We use Streamline.net for the school sites, and I use site5 for home use. No complaints for either..

don't forget to invoke the old trusty "mercury risk if the lamp goes pop" mantra.. if we have a total destructive lamp failure, we don't even open ours..straight into a sealable bag, and off to NEC for refurb and lamp replacement under warranty. We also tend to clear the timers if we have no lamps or no suitable immediate time to do replacements. Or, in the case of Sahara projectors..we ignore them until they go bang and crackle a bit, then we tend to drop them in a bin and stick NEC VT4x in their place.

My Missus works in a design firm that love Mac...she insisted on a Dual Core Dell PC instead when her Mac G4 tower failed...boy, was her boss surprised at the cost/performance difference. He's going to get more PCs now. We had a situation like that with Dell not so long back...out of 90 PCs we bought, we had about 10% failure rate on 17" TFTs, and all but 5 have had replacement PSUs under warranty universally due to failed capacitors. Dell denied any such issue until I tore all the PSUs apart, photographed and sent it in, and cited various docs I found on the net detailing the "bad caps" situation of the time. They then came back with "any PSU with serial beginning TH is a failure or potential fail...we'll replace them for CN series." Seemed to affect the GX60/260/270 range..

I've now been banned from the Tiscali forums again... I think Eclipse might be a good move. I've contacted them and asked if I can specify "no hardware needed" if I move to them...they got back to me within an hour and said "no problem", and were very polite indeed. It looks ever more tempting. I've now discovered that a previous tenant in the new place we're looking at has moved the line from BT in 2001...no idea who it's with now, and £125 to get back on BT. That's after contacting the District council and post office to find out what the house number is as it's been removed and named instead, so we weren't on BTs system under that info. Why is nothing ever simple?

I use the universal MS network boot floppy disk, and then use Nero to put it to a bootable CD, that also contains the DOS Ghost exe. Works every time.. Google "Xp virtual floppy disk" and create a virtual boot floppy using the universal MS network disk at: http://www.netbootdisk.com. Winimage it, and then use Nero to create a bootable CD, then just drop the ghost.exe onto the CD as well.

Nah, VMWare itself doesn't give a fig what it installs on. We have it on a Xeon, a P4, A Sempron64, and several Core2's...the VMWare emulated PC remains the same, and they all run the images fine. I personally use Virtualbox, because I find VMWare a tad bulky.

Which secondary? You're not under Telford and Wrekin are you? We had that setup until very recently..

I've always worn smart black jeans and long/short sleeved shirt (depending on weather). Ties only on official occasions. Jeans hold up so much better on the floor. When the NM started, he always wore a black suit, suit trousers, white shirt and tie...that lasted 2 weeks of whingeing about the dust before he gave up.