azrael78

I have no idea how long we've had a network - before the time I started as a junior tech. Probably around 1996 - from what was left when I started, it was all 10BaseT old BNC stuff. Server being NT 3.51 - rebooted (and rebuilt) almost weekly from what my old boss used to tell me. I started employment in 2001 and have been there ever since. Now there's no trace of BNC, NT 3.51 and it's truely come on in leaps and bounds in the last 6 years. In 2003 I was given the dubious task of planning it's current form, doing all the AD provisioning and such and that was the first time I'd ever HEARD of Active Directory. (I'd heard of LDAP tho) Now it's working well - or as well as any school network can work given the user population. Our next big 'jump' is to go Server 2008 R2 sometime and then Windows 7 sometime after. Many older members of staff still remember the mess it was waaay back... do they say it's better now? Nope... to do that would defeat the purpose Az

I haven't tried SCCM but I'm running SCOM and I've figured it out for the most part and I HAVE to do other things... but SCOM is a complicated beast. But once it's mostly in and working, you can more or less leave it to it's own devices and make checking the alerts part of a daily maintenance task. (We are almost at that part - yay) Az

"You call THAT compensation?!?" - yelled the customer.

No problems mate - glad it all works

No idea mate - from what I gather the patch is just a single file that gets updated. Can't recall the file... lsa.dll? Something like that. Can you not just inject the file straight into the image? Az

Just the computer room OU policies. Loopback policies take per-user settings and apply them per-computer. So your target for such a policy is computer objects (usually in their own OU). It's a nice way to enforce that computers in 1 room have a different look, set of icons, wallpaper etc... than any other room. You *could* let teachers choose their own wallpaper for a room... but I think that'd be a bit crazy. Az

Unfortunately no - we only got hit in 3 suites and it was quicker for us to run around and patch them remotely. I guess you could hook into the login script with a few parameters - try running the patch with a '/?' on the end. Aside from that, unless you have SMS or something - you may have to do it manually. As for your images - I'd update them too Az

Edit: If you are doing this on a Per-PC basis, then redirecting the start menu only works for the User, not the PC. So you would want to modify each GPO to include the following: Under Computer Config: Admin Templates: System/Group Policy: Policy - User Group Policy Loopback Processing Mode -> Merge. This should do what you want, redirected start menu based on the PC you login to. HTH, Az

'I also find I really like hardcore Rave - how about you Bob?' - said Wurzel. Bob took time before replying, but finally - he spoke...

That's exactly what I was thinking. If the clients are SP2, this may not be an issue but we recently got hit with this on our SP3 suites. We installed the hotfix and it seems *touch wood* to have gone away. Hope it's the same for you Az

A large talking raspberry who stated that today was...

Try this on a client: 1) Clear event log entirely. 2) Login - note whether it fails or succeeds. 3) Note the time at which it did the above. 4) Keep trying to login until it does the opposite of #2. 5) Examine the event log to see if anything odd appears, also check userenv.log. What clients do you have? XP SP2? Az

I was under the impression that using the 'all-in-one' solutions are a bad idea. I don't see much point going for Kaspersky Internet Security and then turning off the firewall etc... then using ZoneAlarm. If I can get a GOOD all-in-one then I'm happy to do that. Az

Not seen that one before but for the sake of security, disable the task (don't delete it) and then run a full AV scan over the server. It doesn't look like something legitimate but with so much software in use everywhere, it's hard to tell sometimes. At the very least, run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware over it. Just to make sure you don't have anything nasty lurking. Az

Until BSF came for them...

1,400-ish students, 150-200 staff. 1x IT Manager 2x Snr IT Techs 2x Jnr IT Techs There is no 'NM' - not really, the duties of an NM are split between the 2 senior techs. Running Server 2003 R2, 2008, Hyper-V. Windows XP SP3. 700 PCs tops - around 60 of those are laptops and 20 netbooks. Az

LOL... ironically I had someone ask me about that earlier today. I told them that if it sounds really good, yet no review sites have heard of it, then odds are - it's actually awful. If in doubt - google it, see what others say, even if it's disgruntled forum users Az Edit: Just a thought but do any of you actively protect against spam at home? If so - what do you use? I'm currently using what's in NOD Smart Security but if I'm dropping that - then I'd loose anti-spam too.

On login names, before we did the ole 'firstname.surname' approach - we had a kid with a login name of abigwookey. Az

You make 2 very good points there. It's not as if Kaspersky IS too expensive either. Anyone have any thoughts/feelings about BitDefender 2010? It came in top at toptenreviews.com - closely followed by Kaspersky. Az

Interesting stuff so far My experience with NOD is this... as of 2.7.x it was great, it did all that was needed. Then I made the leap to 3, thinking 'Great, I can grab a firewall and not worry about running a seperate one... etc'. I get the feeling now I'm paying for that mistake. Don't get me wrong, I loved NOD at 2.7.x but 3.x (and I even tried 4.x) just don't seem to offer the same kind of speed and efficiency, not to mention the peace of mind that 2.7 offered. I'm happy to run seperate AV, Firewall etc... no issues with doing that, just thought an 'all-in-one' solution would be more efficient and less memory hungry. As for paying or free... meh I'm easy with either. If it's good stuff I don't mind paying as long as it does the job. I'm doing some sniffing around myself and I'm slowly leaning toward Kaspersky or GDATA - both seem to have high scores in the 2008 tests and seem to be ranked in the top 10... but all that's a matter of perspective and opinion. While I feel NOD is still good, it just doesn't seem to do as good a job as it used to do. As for a firewall - I have a configured router that I feel pretty much keeps anything out. It has only one 'pinhole' in it which allows me to remote in from work if I need it, but to do that, I need to use remote management of the router... it's a Netgear DG834UK. I do appreciate the info though, particularly the free/paid suggestions and choices. FYI - I'm not running Vista or 7 (yet) - but I do plan to dual-boot with 7 in the future, so whatever I choose would have to work with that. Any other suggestions or thoughts would be welcome - in terms of school... well I'm currently looking at Forefront (as we are licensed for it) and I'd rather try Forefront that go to CA eTrust 8.1 ITM Cheers, Az

I'm sure this question has been asked before but time does move on... What AV solution would you recommend? At the moment I'm using Nod32 v3 with Smart Security but I do feel that perhaps it's lagging behind on what it can and cannot detect. It's an AV product that should include Anti-Virus/Anti-Malware - some kind of Spyware protection and perhaps a Firewall, but a Firewall itself isn't really necessary. In terms of a total solution I'm currently running NOD alongside Spybot SD, Anti-Malwarebytes and Ad-Aware Plus - Anniversary Ed. Although I also find Ad-Aware a bit of a PITA at times. So the real question is - what do you all run in terms of the following: Anti-Virus Anti-Spyware Anti-Malware Firewall Have I also missed something that I should be using? Any info back would be appreciated Az

I'm able to take my annual leave almost when I please, as long as I'm mindful of workload and my boss agrees then it's all good and they are usually pretty good about it. Only times I can't... September. I'm one of those people who likes the summer holidays/half-terms so I can actually get on with things, so I prefer to take my leave when the kids are in. Az

Hey there, I'm looking at giving Windows 7 a try, however I'd like to be able to switch between 7 and XP on my laptop before I decide to jump to 7 full-time. I know I can dual-boot between the OSes but I'd like something a little different. I want to clone the XP install and upgrade from XP -> Vista -> 7 on one of them, keeping the other seperate. I don't want either install to be able to 'see' or affect the other. I'm sure I need a Boot Manager for this - but I have no idea of which ones are good/bad or how I'd actually accomplish this. I know how to clone XP to another partition without issue, it's just the whole 'boot manager' process that confuses me a little. Any help or advice here would be appreciated. Az

Server 2003 R2 had the FSRM role - are you telling me that 2008 or 2008 R2 DOESN'T have this?! If not - seems like a huge step backwards. Az

Absolutely right... bleh... kinda got a bit off-topic there didn't I? I can perfectly see your point regarding the MCSE - the problem is I'm in a rather sticky situation in terms of career progression (or lack thereof). It's all good though, what will be - will be. Az