AnnDroyd

There seems to be a bit of publicity about issues surrounding the encryption of laptop data present. Is this something that we should be applying to teacher's laptops if they are taken out of school? If so, is there a way of encrypting data using native Windows tools or does it require third party software? I don't know much about it but presumably the principle is to store the data in such a way that if the laptop is stolen, the contents of the hard drive cannot be retrieved and read?

Apart from blocking google altogether, is there a simple way of preventing students accessing all the other junk that comes with it? There seem to be so many different routes to google toolbar, desktop, updater, etc. that a simple blocked URL doesn't do the trick.

I need to get my SQL server into single user mode so I can restore the master database. I've read about the -m switch but this doesn't seem to work. What's the easiest way of doing this? Can it be done via the SQL management studio?

How do schedule such a backup to take place one per day, for example?

Thanks for that. Only problem now is that it wants a bak file, but ours is compressed into a zip file. If you open this zip file, windows won't allow you to extract the contents of it.

I've just done a fresh installation of SIMS and used created a blank database. Obviously at this point, none of our data has been restored to it. In order to recover the backups made using dbattach (as per capita's recommendations) I need to get into System Manager. What login details do I use to do this? Presumably there's a default admin/sysadmin account that allows me to do this.

For no obvious reason, my SQL backups (sims and other databases) have stopped working. When a Veritas(Symantec) backup job starts, the job just shows its status as (queued). Eventually it gives up and fails. I'm using Backup Exec 11 and SQL 2005. No aware of changing anything since last Friday, when the last successful backup ran.

When a user clicks, Start > Shutdown, they are presented with a drop down list of options which includes: shut down, log off, restart and hibernate. Is there a way of modifying this list so that restart is no longer an option?

We don't know exactly, but whatever they do results in the computer being unusable due to a "netlogon service not running" error, and we have to re-ghost them.

We do it the other way around, ie. teacher on a wireless laptop connects to a class of wired desktops. This works fine, with the only problems every being caused by a few students who have found a way of stopping the net support service and disconnecting themselves.

We give all teachers access to view most information about students, but not make any changes. They also have VERY restricted access to staff info. Basically names, staff codes and timetables. Obviously there's a security risk of making any data available in the classrooms but this is required. Got to keep things in perspectice here... most of SIMS is just names and addresses. Hardly the kind of stuff requiring military level security!

As dhicks mentioned, a similar question has been asked elsewhere. Out of curiousity, what is the reason for not putitng them on the domain? If you lash up some kind of way for them to connect to the network, the end result is pretty similar, but without the protection of group policies to restrict what they can do.

We use webdav (web folders) to give access from home via IIS and it works superbly. Very reliable and easy to use. No need to be spending money on third party solutions when your Windows 2000/2003 server already contains all you need.

I can't disable offline files on an XP Tablet PC. Been to tools, folder options, but the offline files tab is missing. Offline files are also disabled in group policy for all users and computers but when I log off, it still tries to sync the home directory.

Anyone suffered any ill-affects of Fasthost's recently security scare? I tried to log on to an FTP site this morning to find my password being rejected. Apparently they have reset a lot of their customers passwords because someone has recently hacked into their system and obtained customer account details.

I've tried to install this on our networked PCs and found a wierd problem. If you log off and back on again, with a roaming profile, the toolbar still appears in Word, etc. but doesn't function. You have to reinstal it whilst logged on for it to work. Next time you log on, the same thing happens. If you log on locally, using local profiles, this issue doesn't come to light. The workaround I have in place at the moment is a package that runs as part of the logon script to reinstal the toolbar everytime a user logs on, but obviously this is a hopeless bodge! Any ideas how to sort this out?

Does anyone else use the facility within SIMS to create you own groups and permissions? We have simplified things considerably by creating 5 custom groups, basically providing: 1) Read only access to Student Data 2) Full access to Student Data 3) Read only access to basic staff data 4) Full access to basic staff data 5) Full access to everything Everyone then fits into one of, or a combination of these groups rather than using the very complex system providing by default. However, I am told that Capita won't support this. Does anyone know if this is true? It would seem odd to provide this facility if it is unsupported.

I've made a Ghost AI package to deploy Macromedia Studio 8. When I deploy it to a workstation then run the applications, Dreamweaver opens up a "Windows is Configuring" box, then asks for source files. WHy doe this happen and is there a solution to it?

After upgrading from Backup Exec 9 to 11D, I've found that I can no longer restore from backup sets created with the previous version. Is this by design or is there a way around it?

Currently doing our September upgrade on a system already migrated to SQL 2005. The server's been showing the database upgrade tool window in a semi-hung, non-responding way for about 30 minutes now. Is this normal or should I decelare it broken, reboot the server and start again?

I doubt it too. Personally I think any kid caught trying to get into a BIOS should get challenged as to what the hell they think they're trying to achieve. There's too much emphasis on locking things down and not enough roastings for scruffy Asbo's who try to break stuff in the first place!

Really wierd problem here. I've got a laptop that needs reinstalling. FOr some reason it won't boot from an XP CD. It'll boot from 2000 and install, but won't do XP. I've tried different CDs and have the same problem. It also won't boot from the network - eliminating the obvious workaround. Any ideas how to either fix this problem or get around it?

If you log on with student access rights, can you successfully browse to this location?

That's not going to work then. Unless your users are domain admins, they probably won't have access to the C$ share.

Presumably this isn't what you are specifying? What's the path of the wallpaper you are entering into the GPO setting?