gshaw

Checked if the BITS service is running OK? SCCM running on 2003 or 2008 R2? Is your distro point on the same server as the site server or separated out?

Indeed! I wanted to build something into my show car but the smallest TomTom has such a tiny ribbon cable on the screen you can't really take it apart and relocate components... in theory the Pi would be ideal for this but it'll need... - touchscreen - GPS module - TomTom-alike open source navigation software Would be awesome though I like the idea of compartmentalising each component so they can be placed wherever needed then linked back to the main board separately... gives so much flexibility at that point...

Primary school - playing a game on the BBC Micro (black and orange keys ftw) with some cartoon dog running along a beach Later primary school - getting an afternoon on the Acorn Archimedes to do a WWII project on Pendown (remember that?) and saving the files in the system folder so no-one would find em! Secondary school - when getting information online meant passing around (read fighting) for the Encarta 95 CD which scratched to hell, amazed it worked 6th form - paying 25 quid for a 64MB USB stick and thinking the future had arrived when mass storage previously meant carrying around a box of floppy disks Nothing beats RISC OS even to this day If anyone has one of these in a cupboard me want lol... http://www.retro-computing.org/exhibit-photos/243/lg__MG_5394.jpg

Dunno what EMC hard drives are inside but that's all I'd put our SAN... the higher-capacity drives are NL-SAS for our VNXe

When we did our GPO I set everything to disabled even if the setting was implied by another (e.g. even if I've disabled Offline Files I still disabled the configuration of it as well) Never had it pop up on our XP machines so it seems to work

How comes no-one seems to be doing it via the MS-supported sysprep method? When we do ours I'm going to use a VM, snapshot before running the sysprep command then once I've got what I need revert the snapshot back to re-use next time round... will post results when we do it

Makes for a good excuse to order a batch of SSDs and end up with machines that will still feel very nippy for pretty much peanuts (assuming they have SATA controllers)

Not had good experiences with them then? I don't have one but seemed like they were fairly well regarded for basic block storage if you don't expect anything fancy...

Hi James, Was going to set this up as a separate thread but seeing as you've posted recently might as well add here... will we ever see a Recycle Bin function in SkyDrive? We've experienced a few students accidentally deleting items and it seems a big feature that needs addressing (seems odd to have version control yet no accidental deletion recovery?) Even if the recycle bin was only for 30 days (or even 7 days) it'd be better than the current point of no return (lack of drag and drop to move files about doesn't help imo) What with Windows 8 making it a core feature surely this will only get worse over time unless there's some way back from the big red button? Also what's the deal with SkyDrive on Office 365? Originally I believed Sharepoint would replace it but I read somewhere SkyDrive is an optional component you can use with 365... if so how does this work with ADFS?

I think I can sum up my feelings about the design direction of Windows and Office in one sentence... I hate minimalism

They also have the address bar in a sensible place, tried using the Metro browser this morning and it's just stupid looking at the bottom of the screen to enter an address Reinventing the wheel for the sake of it... Fair do's, still not the most natural combo in the world to use on a daily basis but better than the awkward mouse movements Because I run a machine with bundles of RAM and loads of apps open, I don't particularly want a huge cluttered looking taskbar with every app I *might* need on there when the indexed Start Menu let me do the same thing nice and quickly without switching to full screen mode... it's such a jarring experience on a desktop to use an interface that has no value to me outside of a tablet On an average day I might be doing a report, then might need to jump into Photoshop to quickly edit a graphic for the website so I'll fire up an Explorer session. At the same time I'll need email, then a bit of web browsing. Also run vCenter, all of which I might want quickly. Again why do I need to change an efficient way of working for an inefficient one for the sake of Metro? They are but see the point about the taskbar \ Start Menu list... a) you're obviously not running dual screens b) how big is your monitor, on 22" and above it's a bit of a trek from one side to the other! As for the http://www.extremetech.com/computing/121015-windows-8-may-drive-me-to-linux/2 article yes he missed a couple of points with the Alt+F4 and logon screen but again initially you don't think to press a key to remove the lock screen... only discovered that when wondering if CTRL+ALT+DEL would work instead of mouse dragging the background out the way. Also no response about the mismatch in the UI of the Start screen shuffling along with a mouse swish yet apps requiring horizontal dragging?

Thanks all, going to drop them down to 2GB I think

Edit: install just finished on the Q1 but Metro apps won't run as screen resolution is lower than 1024x768... that's a massive chunk of netbooks and other similar sized devices Microsoft has ruled out... funny thing is Metro looks fine on it so what difference another 100 or so pixels would make is beyond me... @Arthur Tabs... having those at the top makes less sense than the URL bar which, as I say has been in the same place on every browser on every platform since the dawn of time... inconsistent with every other device out there which doesn't seem like a great idea tbh Windows key... great if I want to open the (full screen) Start screen but not so clever for the charms, window switcher etc Auto multitasking... as I used in my example, I open the webcam app... I close the webcam... device stays active even when I want it gone... very irritating Pinned apps... so I either have to have a huge taskbar filled with pinned apps or on my desktop (which I can't see when apps are open) unless I want to have my entire screen taken up to launch use the Metro UI... riiiight. I don't want to break my concentration to the app I'm currently working on to launch another but with the Start screen it's a case of "type in Word, concentration... want another app... START SCREEN HELLO LOTS OF APPS... back to Word... what was I doing again?" This isn't just aimed at Microsoft, I hate Ubuntu's Unity equally (was enough to make me switch to Mint) Lack of Start Menu also looks to have killed jump lists, which I find incredibly useful And as far as the mouse gestures go the Windows 8 gestures appear to fly in the fact of all previous mouse-related feedback Microsoft gave about not needing to be too accurate with your movements and aiming clicks to get things done. Using 8 at the moment feels like I have to get the pointer in exactly the right place and do exactly the right movement to get things to happen... once this install finishes I'll see if it's better on a tablet (I suspect it is) but on a desktop it's just plain annoying. As for the suggestion of increasing the pointer speed... lol is all I can say Just can't see how it's making my productivity better at the moment over 7 when used on anything other than a tablet... must try harder Microsoft...

So none of those hotfixes have been rolled out as standard updates? Absolutely shocking if not, especially as some look so generic e.g. the Group Policy Preferences slowdown...

It's brave from Microsoft but as it stands a bit foolish... would definitely work better as an option for desktop users aka Media Center style plugin. I guess you can see Microsoft's quandry... leave it as an option and no-one will move to it or force the issue and take the criticism... it's a no-win situation trying to shoehorn it onto both devices with the same interface by the looks of things. As a general theme I really don't get the design logic at the moment, first Unity then Windows 8... how does forcing you into a full-screen app launcher help concentration when trying to quickly open up a second app? As it stands 7 has it spot on with the indexed Start Menu... I'm in Word and quickly need Photoshop... takes 1 press of the Windows key and either (Photo...) + Enter or click the pinned item. In Unity \ 8 it's the same process but with a huge fullscreen of apps shouting at me, by which time I'm distracted and the second app launch is no longer seamless... guess I'm the only one who sees it that way...

Just had a brainwave having glanced sideways at our Q1 and Q1 Ultra while testing Ruckus... they're getting the Windows 8 treatment tomorrow

I thought that at first but used up 36GB on one host for the first time the other day... having VMware lets me play with too many shiny things

Just been going through some of our VMs to check they're running with the optimum amount of RAM and noticed that our primary DC is barely using 1GB of RAM (currently allocated 4GB as part of the standard template we use) What are others running their DCs with, thinking of dropping it down to 2GB (same applies to a few other servers e.g. a 2003 DHCP server has 2GB probably only needs 1GB)

This ^^^ Disk IO will kill you very quickly if you put the wrong ones in... get a capacity planner sorted as part of the project so you go into the spec with your eyes open

In worst case scenario sometimes you can swap the wi-fi card inside the laptop for an Intel version which will wok, probably a last resort though...

SkyDrive integration is one of Microsoft's trump cards over Google, tbh it could've been done with Windows 7 but it's most likely been held back to give 8 a killer feature

You can change the background colour (still have to use their nasty patterns though, why not an image?) and the tiles still seem to have a mind of their own, some are green, some are blue, some are purple others orange... it's an insult on the eyes How is dragging an app around quicker than a close button? Might be for a tablet but more effort than required with a mouse. Also don't like having to swish the length of the screen to get to the UI elements in the "hot corners"... glad I'm not testing on my dual 22" screens as aiming at the corner of the primary screen would be a nightmare! On a plus side it did pick up more drivers on the x100e than 7 does so there's a positive thing Don't want to hate 8 but MS don't appear to have thought this one though...

Installed it on my x100e over the weekend, writing a full blog post about it but main things I've noticed... a) Metro feels like a Media Center-esque overlay on top of a standard Windows desktop, quite a jarring experience moving between the two b) interface isn't consistent, on Metro you can move the tiles across by mousing to the edge of the screen or pressing Pg Up \ Down... in the Store or Wordpress app (both Metro native) this doesn't work and you have to drag scrollbars... frustrating much?! c) you can't close Metro apps from the UI, no doubt this is meant to be as part of some simplified multitasking idea but incredibly annoying when an app has turned on a webcam and it's sitting there recording you the whole time! Luckily Alt+F4 closes the apps fully d) most of the UI is rather unintuitive, was wondering how to get the options up in Metro apps e.g. IE and randomly right-clicked on a webpage... voila? e) on IE Metro version why is the URL bar at the bottom?! Even Apple have it at the top, where it's been for... y'know... 15 odd years e) Metro itself is subjective but without doubt I hate the primary colours \ monochrome icon look with a passion... there needs to be a theming engine for this surely Not sure if Consumer Preview = Beta but if it does MS are in trouble as it feels like a UI experiment at the moment, no real cohesion there as it stands imo

The idea of a UI with hidden options that aren't immediately obvious to the user seems counter-intuitive to me. Unless that's deliberate to force users to a certain way of working...

Been so busy with Moodle I've only just seen this! Just looking at that Ars Technica article... right now I've got a nice and stylish Windows 7 desktop, high bit colour icons and for an "upgrade" I get this insult on the eyes... 2 different primary colours is bad enough but >6 is painful to look at... really hope there will be a way to skin that to remove the colour glare. Downloading at the moment so can't yet say what the UI experience is like but it doesn't look radically different to what I've seen before... is it fair to say it still feels disjointed on a desktop but good on a tablet?