jmak

We're buying Dell latitudes and recently we've been getting 5 years onsite and warranty. We've added accidental damage cover at a very reasonable price too.

My IT superpower is remembering my failures and finding the post on Edugeek where someone helped me fix it. [emoji4]

Here be AI

Why is email being sent to admin accounts? It sounds like a bad idea to me.

From the Promethean T&C's: https://support.prometheanworld.com/sfc/servlet.shepherd/document/download/0696f00000Np0pQAAR?operationContext=S1

I knew I remembered seeing it somewhere. I had this exact issue and people on this very site helped me fix it: /showthread.php?t=229694

^^ This Our rule is that any account used for admin of any system must not have any email account associated with it.

It's not a system I run, but I quite like the system we have. It's a thermal printer and a Raspberry Pi. The Pi gets a constant feed of who's in the building from the entry system. When the alarm goes, the printer automatically spews out a list of who's present. Both run off a UPS and it's by the door in the fire cupboard. No worries about ink running out or printer needing servicing.

A daft exchange I had with copilot in April this year (2024). I was looking for a time more accurate than the Microsoft time server and the first part of the conversation was a completely random time (not just a different timezone), so I asked:

That would make me see red

Did you mention she's retiring at the end of term? "Doesn't like technology" + can't/won't be trained = not suitable to work in education, especially in a leadership role That's a slightly flippant comment, but effective use of technology is essential to efficient running of an organisation, for the pupils in their future careers and leadership should lead - otherwise everyone can use it as a valid excuse.

You need to use this as an opportunity to sell "cloud" and OneDrive. What you can never trust is local storage. It's vulnerable to theft, damage, loss, cyber attack. Or accidental encryption! We have documents and desktops synced with OneDrive by group policy (same is possible with Intune). This gives users virtually interrupted access to their data in the event of anything happening to their PC/laptop. Most of our users would be fully up and running in minutes - the exceptions are specialist applications and other complicated custom configurations - but even they would have quick access to their data.

She (and any user) _should_ be able to find the key themself. Log into office.com Click on your initials/avatar and choose "View account" Click on "Manage devices" All the devices they've signed in to should be listed and if you select one, you should be able to see the Bitlocker recovery key. (Bizarrely, I have about 20 devices listed which I can see keys for, but not my own work machine despite trying various methods)

Yes. I've seen it happen for users who didn't set up Bitlocker - I didn't believe the user until I read that Microsoft admitted that one of their updates could cause it. It actually happened on my personal PC which had Windows Home edition installed which in theory doesn't support Bitlocker. Some Dell updates announce that they temporarily disable Bitlocker - it wouldn't surprise me if that triggers a request for the key, even if it's re-enabled successfully. Also, Microsoft have admitted that this month's structure updates can cause it: https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/24/windows_update_bitlocker/ According to M$ it mostly affects users who've setup device encryption - which implies that sometimes it affects users who haven't.... Two takeaways for me: 1) Make sure Bitlocker is enabled (so that you don't get caught with no opportunity to know the key 2) Make sure your users have stored their key in their Microsoft account and know how to use it

I have tested what Steve suggested rather than used for a full deployment, but... If you do as he suggests and grab the hashes (I'd have to look up instructions on that bit) and then add the devices in bulk to Intune, you can do your clean rebuild afterwards. As soon as they're connected to the internet, your nice clean machines will be Intune managed.

I played with it today and couldn't believe how bad it was. I'd been using Google Gemini to investigate Copilot licensing and thought it might be worth going to the source to cross check. I had to ask three different ways to get it to differentiate between Copilot Pro and Copilot for 365 and as soon as I mentioned "tenancy" it got sidetracked with information about leasehold properties. When I asked about what I actually got for £300 it told me that was a digital riddle... I can't remember the exact wording - it was actually pretty funny, if totally useless - because I had to speak to a customer for 10 minutes and when I went back the entire chat history was gone. Utterly useless and reminded me why I stick to Gemini I do want to work out setting it to not use corporate data as training material.

We still have users who won't migrate to the organisations preferred productivity site which is Microsoft so some of the admin teams need to be able to sync between Google and MS calendar to manage appointments. I know what the correct answer is, but that has been overruled [emoji1751] So... Any recommendations for apps to sync between the platforms? We're using Sync2 at the minute, but it seems to struggle with shared calendars and write often seems to stop working and need resetting. TIA

It's worth it to save the pain of not having to report a list or stolen laptop to the ICO because it's almost guaranteed to be a data breach. Also note, you need evidence that the device was encrypted and that's where managed Bitlocker scores. All of that is just a side effect of the main event: you no longer have to worry about confidential data causing harm to an individual or the school when someone loses a device.

We're having an issue with an Exchange online shared email account where recent (today's) emails are being archived. It started yesterday morning, then apparently stopped yesterday evening, but restarted this morning. My current guess is something that one of the users has set. I've removed all users apart from one and it looks like the problem has gone. The only change I'm aware of is that one of the users got a new iPhone yesterday. Is there a setting I need to check? Alternatively, is there somewhere I can prevent changes to archive settings being changed?

This became something I need to do as of yesterday - I'd be interested too

You need to put the ISO in a location accessible from the deployment server and then in the MDT workbench, right click on Operating Systems, click on Import Operating System and choose the option Full Set of Source Files. Clock next and browse to the place you saved the ISO. Follow the steps through and then remember to update the deployment share.

In my last school (primary) I divided up one class set of 30 into five sets of six. This worked because often the class was split into five groups, so one was quite often on a task that required a computer and they were almost always available. There tended to be one lesson per day where all the laptops were in one classroom (weekly ICT lesson per class). That required almost no input from me: the teachers and pupils had personal interest in their laptops being available and for each teacher or was easy to keep on top of the location of six laptops. It also had the benefit that they weren't just used for one ICT lesson per week - they actually ended up in use most of the time. Most kids used a laptop most days - which also meant that half of ICT lessons were spent getting 30 kids logged on.

@PotNoodleTech is right. If you're worried about them off-site, you could look at Intune management which gives you the possibility of locating them and remote wipe. If you want to gather evidence to back up classroom management, there's dedicated software out for something free you can turn on logon/logoff logging in Windows to confirm who was using the laptop at what time.

Sick response man. Everything moves so fast I'm dizzy. Totally dope to have you onboard. I'm glad you mentioned luck. I'll be sure to take my four leafed clover with me!

Eufy is a very reliable brand and they get great reviews! They offer great value especially if you value price over strong suction. They're particularly suitable if you also have smart blinds installed.