gshaw

Being student machines I'm guessing no Outlook users on there? That seems to be the most crashy app, followed by Word Edit: just checked, one of our affected machines has the January update installed. That said the exact KB3114486 isn't present WSUS lists it as Installed, plus running the manual updater also says product is already installed; can only assume there's been some newer updates since that also encompass it. Either way, back to the drawing board...

Anyone had any joy with this? The crashes went quiet for a while but have started again with a vengeance Tried different versions of graphics drivers but no joy. Looks like Office 2016 is going to be the way we'll have to go...

MDT has been working well for us so far, also running Update 2. No Gold image for us with 10, building straight from the install media as number of updates are fairly minimal and likely to remain that way as we can just update the source as new builds are released.

For us the mobile kit is for rooms where there's more students than there is space for desktops, also allows more group working and whatnot. We really like the Dell Chromebook 11 at present, lightweight yet solid build. Windows wise we struggle to find something around the £200 mark that's got SSD storage, 11" screen (10" is too small) and that doesn't look / feel cheap (HP Stream I'm looking at you haha)

Had a funny feeling a thread like this would pop up after seeing a new version of .NET appear, Microsoft haven't disappointed... the sloppy quality updates continue

Was wondering if to approve 4.6.1 when it appeared on WSUS, glad I haven't yet if this thread is anything to go by!

I asked the same question at the end of last week, was told Google Drive support is coming in the next few months.

Are you just using copyprofile for a customised Start Menu layout? We've found that copying the LayoutModification.xml during our MDT task sequence does the trick. OS|DC: Windows 10 : Deploying a customized start menu

Windows tablets \ Chromebooks are looking like our next main purchases. Moving towards more mobile kit in some areas but Microsoft are doing a great job at promoting Google at present with some of their recent announcements

Couple of quick questions for those doing sync to Google as their cloud storage method: what kind of storage usage are you finding for home drives? Given that cloud is "unlimited" how will you tackle ever-increasing local cache requirements over time? has sync been reliable thus far? If it breaks will it affect all users given that many are sharing out from a single account? how quickly are changes replicated between cloud and local, i.e. will it always update in the time a user takes to move from, say a Chromebook to a Windows desktop? We'd like to at the very least drop all our Documents shares for the next academic year, trialling iamcloud this week but wondering if the speed is going to be acceptable if it's basically the same method as the WebDAV scripts I've been trying so far.

Hi all, just set up GADS today to populate our Google Apps domain, would anyone be able to spare a few minutes to sanity check my config? Been using this as reference along with the Google documentation (which isn't that great and has dead links) Gappsconnect Blog. : Introduction to Google Apps Directory Sync (GADS) by example - a beginners guide I have 3 OUs I want to sync within my specified base DN (there's 5 OUs in there I don't want). The structure is as below (using different names to my live environment) I want to sync FIRSTOU, SECONDOU, THIRDOU but not any of the others. USERS - FIRSTOU - SECONDOU - THIRDOU - UNWANTEDOU - UNWANTEDOU2 Org Units Set up 3 mappings in LDAP Org Unit Mappings so the long LDAP DN maps to a simpler Google Org Unit Name Set up 3 search rules using LDAP query (&(objectCategory=organizationalUnit)(Name=FIRSTOU)) to specifically pick the OUs to sync No Exclusion rules User Accounts Unique Identifier Attribute set to objectGUID Don't suspend existing users not found in LDAP (I have a couple of manual users in GAfE I don't want to remove) Create two search rules for each OU using Base DN to specify the location each time: one rule to sync active users and the other to suspend those with the Account Disabled checkbox set in AD as per article above "Do not sync if the suspensions would exceed..." exclusion rules will need to be temporarily increased on initial sync I'm not syncing groups (yet) but if I do it'll be via the same Search Rules method to specify the exact groups I want to sync into GAfE, or an OU if it comes to needing that many. It seems to be working fine using the simulation and log file, users going into the correct Org and disabled accounts being marked as suspended. Anything else to watch out for before I hit the trigger? Passwords will be using GAPS but for the time being we're piloting so will just reset users as we go along to get it going. Manual account exclusions Looks like I may need one more Org unit manually created in GAfE for any non-LDAP accounts we want to use, then add that as an Exclusion Rule in Google Apps Configuration as well?

Ah interesting, will try that out Edit: yes that did the trick, can't see a way to force it in admin console though...

We've been trialing some Dell Chromebooks sitting alongside our O365 tenancy, which have been working well so far but hit a slightly odd issue with accounts and Wi-Fi connectivity, wondering if anyone has solved it? Config is: set up a per-device Wi-Fi network including proxy settings, auto connect etc. sign-in screen defaults to our GAfE domain users can sign in with a personal account On a managed account everything works as expected, default apps appear, Internet works fine etc. On a personal account the user can log in but web browsing times out, no apps in the launcher etc. Wi-Fi network is connected. Have I missed a setting somewhere?

But that MoU only runs to 2018 so "full term" is in reality fairly short term. It's the huge unknown after that which is concerning.

Thanks for setting this up, good to see there's a communication channel direct to Microsoft via Edugeek MS do seem to have sidestepped the question over price increases from 2016-2018 though, the way the main blurb reads you'd think our current pricing would be staying the same? What happens after 2018 looks to be anyone's guess, quite difficult to plan around an unknown like that.

I think MS should be providing clear pricing examples e.g. show the exact figures for, say 100 FTEs renewing both 1-year and 3-year agreements until 2018. So much vague information around isn't helping anyone.

Azure AD DS seems to cover some elements, it's clear the direction MS are aiming for... https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/services/active-directory-ds/

This ^^^ The smart education vendors would do well to start building their offerings using Azure web apps and database services, which seem to be much more cost effective. The days of slapping a random product on a Windows server with SQL & co. look to be numbered. Will the software companies react as quickly as the change is being forced? Can only see it adding expense as, for example a cloud MIS now has to pay hosting & development costs whereas previously the platform has been practically free. Common thread here already is this change is taking MS out of people's transition plans entirely, is this what Redmond were aiming for?

Or reconsider all MS stuff entirely if there's no guarantee of long term pricing... that Chromebook / GAfE trial I'm running becomes even more relevant now.

Any ideas what this Transition Agreement has in mind for back-end systems? We can guess the future of Office \ Windows to some extent but what are MS expecting we're going to do with our servers in the short-medium term?

At an O365 deployment session at Future Decoded they mentioned that the Office 365 apps have a shared computer deployment option that doesn't count against the 5 copies. Should be a recording of the session somewhere that describes it in more detail.

Always comes down to money doesn't it, although if MS push this too much they may end up forcing many into the arms of competitors instead

This is how I see it going as well, looks like MS are abandoning their own "hybrid cloud" mantra and trying to get everything on subscription via Azure \ O365.

Exactly, we're planning VM host replacement and if licensing is going to jump up that much we may as well stick with VMware and move other services away from MS where we can. Unless this licensing hike comes with a crazy cheap Azure discount it's hard to see how MS products can remain viable in education. You say that but Azure AD join is out there now and MDM is being moved into O365 so that migration is already underway. The ones that are the real killers for us are all the back-office systems that run on SQL and Windows. That's going to be a big shift and if MS pull the rug out from under us you'd have to wonder how many people will move away completely rather than go into Azure due to lack of trust alone.

Our FTE count is 470 😨