gshaw

Was going to do RD Gateway but the Web Access portal was a nightmare so the only way round that would be publishing .rdp files on the website (not sure how well that works?) Was going to use Adito but our new Palo Alto has a VPN component built in so chances are will be using that now

Mainly 2008 R2 VMs but a couple of 2003 physical machines to move over or for little management software VMs where compatibility could be dubious

How much were you paying for those?! I think we're going to stick with x86 this year as it's first year of migration to 7 and I don't want any unexpected headaches from 64-bit driver \ software support. All our machines are 2GB RAM so no loss there...

About 30-45 minutes here with 100Mb rather than Gigabit connections. SCCM does it all for you and if the client is already on the machine no manual intervention required just advertise from the time you want deployment to begin and enjoy

I'd watch the disk performance as well, a well used Moodle site can hit disks heavily as could web filtering if you've got a reporting system in with it. Maybe virtualize Fog, Nagios and Xibo but I'd leave your VLE on a dedicated server. Also if you're going virtual will you have a second server for redundancy? Lots of eggs in one basket otherwise...

During summer it'd be part of the usual works anyway so not a biggie. Like I say probably won't do it but does make you question why a consumer can buy parts cheaper than an OEM system builder but what can you do...

Is that a joke or someone who actually does business via that... thing

Yup already know that... even with retail licenses and better spec (64GB SSD + 4GB) RAM there was a saving of around £50 per unit which even with 10 units isn't to be sniffed at. Probably won't do it in the end as not sure if we have the time to mess around building them but does leave a sour taste in the mouth that the manufacturers are actually paying more for the components than retail so we end up with a lesser machine for more £££. Seems like the OEM supply chain really hasn't caught up with new technology or SSD manufacturers are really missing a trick to kill off HDDs in the business market. A very frustrating situation all round really, the kind of thing that drives me nuts as it's not a technology issue but irritating business and licensing practices

I get that, what I don't like is when manufacturers pretend they're doing deals for education they don't offer the best value by giving us licenses we don't actually need. Microsoft aren't entirely innocent either, a very clever £20 \ unit price increase by dropping the Vista Home Basic SKU and replacing it with 7 I'm looking at self build as well, on one hand it doesn't feel like a great idea but on the other I'm getting much better spec for £50 \ unit less hmmmmm Or there's VDI but I'm waiting for a few more people to have it stable before committing big chunks of money to it... 2 servers (minimum), even with DAS, thin clients and Kaviza is still a fair bit to lay out in one go.

Stone have offered Home but prices have shot up quite a bit so having a look around to see what else I can find to see if it's an issue with the market generally... problem is this is only for 10 units so getting custom builds elsewhere is an issue. Looking for £300-£350 a unit but it's proving difficult, in part I guess due to MS ripping everyone off with the Win7 Home licensing and also due to the hard drive prices. What's odd is that the "education" offers still come with Pro... that makes very little sense to me. Found some Lenovo ThinkCentre Edge boxes on offer but they have the same awful Realtek NICs in as one I trialled recently so need to factor in £20 per unit for a proper Intel card instead (odd choice from Lenovo there as they usually put Intel NICs on their boards) Also from another thread I can't see why SSDs are still coming in at a premium considering the HDD price situation, just seen a 64GB Crucial M4 for about £3 difference to a 250GB HDD yet manufacturers are still charging £20+ more per unit for it?

That 64GB Crucial is very tempting for desktop machines here, not sure what manufacturers are buying HDDs in at but none seem to offer an SSD option without adding £20 per unit upwards... seems odd when you consider your average 160 \ 250GB HDDs are going for £50 odd in most online stores And yup switch those old HDDs for something better and you'll see performance gains... do the machines support SATA if they have IDE drives though?

Quick qu with SkyDrive, if you fill the 25GB does it create an equal 25GB local copy? Just wondering as I've got an 80GB SSD as my system drive and there doesn't appear an option to redirect where the SkyDrive app cache goes (defaults to C:\users\username\Skydrive)

I'll take 25GB free with SkyDrive and no Google snooping in my files

Annoying trend I've noticed recently when quoting on PCs is that all of them have come with Windows 7 Pro licenses and it seems more difficult than it needs to be to get the lower licenses. Seems pointless paying out twice when we have EES to upgrade Home > Enterprise... unless on the big brands Pro \ Home work out the same cost once it's all bundled in? Anyone able to shed light on the subject?

Yes you're correct, existing users keep their LiveID as a separate entity but new ones don't get the service at all. Given the choice of inconsistent provision or none at all I'd go for the latter option and stop advertising SkyDrive to students on 365 but you don't lose what you already have data-wise. That's what I was getting at above but maybe the phrasing wasn't the clearest

Have a look in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products and do a search for Flash, chances are there's a reg key left over from a previous install. Remove offending key and installation should then work as normal Worked for us on the recent Flash update to 11.2 where it borked the uninstall of 11.1 and gave the irritating "InstallAX.exe not marked for installation" error

I doubt that somehow, will probably need an additional login but if it just sits in the local profile folder not such a disaster for now. Bear in mind you lose SkyDrive once you get transitioned to Office 365 anyway... (Edit: see further comments on the next page for more info, you don't lose existing SkyDrives but new users on 365 won't get the feature in future)

Finally

Megaupload to sue for damages?

That's awesome

Which version are you using, 2007 or 2012?

Whatever you do... document! The best thing I've ever done was set up our IT Sharepoint site; everything I do is logged on there... user requests, change management, knowledgebase, backup schedule and so on. That way when you come back in 6-12 months wondering just how you set up that awkward bit of software or what you did to the core switch config you'll have it all there for easy reference Btw virtualise, EES licensing, SCCM for deployment \ management and have a look at VDI (although I still don't feel it's hit that maturity \ value for money sweet spot yet)

Unless you happen to be Google

I'd be blaming the website managers rather than an over-enthusiastic fan... and the authorities wonder why people have such a disdain for copyright law... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-17767236 Norwich City call police after 17-year-old fan leaks new kit pictures - Odd News - Digital Spy

Spot on, remember the joys of SCCM before they added in Unknown Computer Support for PXE There was a good reason I stayed on SMS 2003 for about a year and a bit before moving to SCCM. As with a few other releases recently I'm going to sit and let someone else take the pain initially as 2007 does what I need to get 7 deployed this summer. Looking forwards the Android management functionality of 2012 seems very useful though.