jmak

Hi @computer_expert I'm starting again, so I have uninstalled ADK, MDT and WDS and deleted the deployment share. Do you mean after installing the ADK, copy the KB application into C:\Program Files and run it? Edit: I think I've found the answer to this. Using https://www.deploymentresearch.com/building-a-windows-10-21h2-reference-image-using-Microsoft-deployment-toolkit-mdt/

Thanks for the suggestions. I had already tried copying the DLLs into the location you mentioned as I was trying to keep the existing deployment share. I think I'll try starting from scratch tomorrow.

I've spent all day failing to fix this. OS deploys but won't boot. I've tried physical machine and both a type 1 and type 2 hyper v machine with no customisations. Variations of verify BCDBootEx errors I found some stuff about a big in the ADK, relating to not correctly identifying whether it's UEFI or legacy boot, but I installed the patch and get the same errors. Any suggestions? Currently looking at doing what I can to automate a vanilla OS deployment by WDS and then running MDT from within the running client to add further customisations. Very clunky workaround though and I'd really like to get MDT working properly. Thanks in advance.

And now I've come up against this issue: http://www.edugeek.net/blogs/simpsonj/2377-mdt-adk-failure-5616-15299-verify-bcdbootex.html Now I remember why I didn't change anything once I had it working at my last place. MDT and WDS are great when they're working, but it's painful getting there.

Update: Microsoft changed ADK* so that Windows PE is an add-on Now that I've downloaded that and installed on my deployment server, MDT finds it and generates a boot file. Hopefully I'll soon be able to give an update that WDS now picks up the task sequence.... *In 2018 - it's been a while

I'm trying to set up MDT and WDS, but I'm obviously missing a fundamental basic step. I can deploy a Windows image from WDS and it installs and boots as it should to a test physical machine, but I'm missing something with MDT. I only imported x64 OS as that's what I have available to me at the minute. When I try and update the deployment share it fails as it doesn't find the x86 boot file. I guess because of that, it doesn't pick up the task sequence, so none of my customisations get applied. I think the deployment is still ignoring MDT completely, but I'm not sure what the missing link is.

Previous job I worked in a billing dept of a large (millions of customers) business. It costs less to collect the payment from DD customers. I don't see why that shouldn't be reflected in the charges. Same for people insisting on paper statements. I'd get annoyed if they didn't charge more for customers using a more expensive service. Why should I subsidise them?

I have the Octopus app on my phone and you can change the direct debit amount and date. In theory. I keep trying to put it up but they keep reverting to £60.42/month [emoji2371] We owe them several hundred pounds as we had a dumb meter and it took us a while to get round to telling them we had an electric car and electric heating [emoji57], but they've never asked for it. We were making inroads as at one point we had a direct debit higher than our usage, but they're making it difficult to give them money right now. I'm not inclined to chase very hard....

So around £20/year

This. I bought a Chromebook for a family member in January this year. There was an updated version of an Asus I'd bought in 2019 with EAU 2024 which has been a great machine. Most places were still selling the old version. The model name was the same, but part number was different. I tracked down the new version which cost £40 more, but EAU is 2029.

Class dunce reporting for duty. How does marking the lids reduce damage during lesson time? I can see it's a theft deterrent, but for damage you'd need the log of who had used it.

You can find the end of auto update date for any Chromebook model on this webpage: https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en All Chromebooks get 5 years of updates from release to market (not date of sale). I'm terms of what to do at the end of auto update, I'd suggest Flex OS. If you want to manage them in your Google Workspace Admin Console, you'll need to buy another management licence, but they'll continue to get updates indefinitely. Flex OS has a list of supported hardware, but I haven't found anything it doesn't run on yet.

I was trying to give some options given the state of school budgets. I'm not suggesting Celerons with spinning rust and I'm not suggesting buying a full set of lower spec machines, just getting hold of something to test. I know with the budget I used to have, insisting on i5 with 8GB would be at least double my budget per machine. That's why I was putting together a strategy towards no servers and making everything cloud based so that there was less demand on local processing. Quick boot times and reliability rather than ultimate performance was my goal.

Prices seem to be going up a lot at the minute. We mostly buy Dell latitude 5000 series (not a school) and I always recommend i5 and 16GB RAM. In the last 6 months these seem to have gone up from £600 and a bit too almost £900. We're going to have to look at alternatives as while I think they're good for future proofing and surviving a hard life, it's difficult to justify that spend for normal office work. Maybe we'll downgrade to the Vostro series. Having worked in a primary school previously, I can't imagine getting a budget that would let me anywhere near that kind of spec. I'd test some machines with i3, 8GB RAM, 120GB SSD (with a strategy that stores everything in the cloud) and a chassis that will allow memory and hard drive upgrades in the future. Either that or look at Chromebooks or Windows SE (I know that isn't what the OP asked for) and a complete change of IT hardware strategy and look at having all of the curriculum delivered with cloud based services. Budgets are going to make hardware refreshes really hard.

If you value your time/sanity, sign up for a subscription to O365. I don't like giving money to Microsoft any more than the next person, but unless your mum lives with you, you need something that'll more it less look after itself It's what Microsoft want you to use, so it's better supported for domestic use.

If it's for lights, check out quinetic switches: https://www.quinetic.co.uk/ I use one where the light switch is on the opposite side of room to the door. Works really well and a lot simpler than smart switches - possibly not quite as cool....

That's the situation for the Adobe 2017 licence. As @Roberto says, the terms and conditions for each licence will vary, but it will be specified. There's sometimes a difference between quality updates and security updates. If you have cyber security insurance or you're going for Cyber Essentials accreditation, you'll need to make sure all software you run is still receiving security updates.

Normally what happens is that they stop supplying security updates, which means you're forced to buy an update if you want to be compliant with say, Cyber Essentials. I don't actually think it's unreasonable - how long can you expect a company to find development on a product that's not generating any revenue. I'm currently having to explain to people that the perpetual licence they have for Adobe Acrobat Pro 2017 is a perpetual licence - but that just means that Adobe will let you use it forever, not that they'll support it forever. They offer 5 years support and the ended in June. Now they need to cough up for a new version.

The last laptop trolley I had had a built-in timer so that the laptops and chargers didn't just warm the room up overnight.

That's what I used to do. Unfortunately, where I'm working now the Microsoft accounts are created after the user has validated their login to the SSO platform and the login to that is generated from the HR system which only happens after contacts have been signed. I don't have access to the O365 admin console to add an account manually.

We're running some interviews and want the candidates to do a test using Word and Excel. Now that we are using the O365 client, an organisation login is required, which the candidates don't have. Do you just create a test user and then delete it afterwards or do you have a workaround that allows you to use the O365 client without a user logging in?

You'll might also find that it gets worse and worse. The more they trip the more sensitive they become.

Pretty sure with Spiceworks you can set it up so that you don't need to sign in. You get a semi-custom URL for your school and iirc users had to enter their email address, but not sign in. Obviously you wouldn't want the URL to become widely known or it'll be full of spam. Users could also email the address I set up. That was similarly set up to only allow emails from the school's domain.

Anything modern should be fine in terms of working with a Chromebook. At home I've had three Chromebooks (all different brands) and an ancient laptop converted using Flex OS and two hp printers. All of them found each other without any intervention from me. I did completely fail to make the Flex OS laptop work with a >10 year old Canon printer, but I think of I'd been allowed to connect that to the router wired it would have been fine too. I'd recommend a laser printer if you can get one in budget and you're not mainly using it for photos. I have far fewer issues with it as it doesn't dry out or get clogged up through lack of use.

Presume as no one's replied it's as bad an idea as I feared....