Jollity

This kind of stuff was supposed to be included in "Unpacking laptops and setting up in trolley - 6hr", but I had not considered all the aspects you point out. It also occurs to me that I will likely have to do this on two occasions, once for each suite, so I will split it up. Yes that would probably be worth adding. I have had a heck of time with getting some older printers to work properly with Windows 7, though fortunately the printers here are pretty new. I had not thought of data loggers. I think science do have some. I was thinking they could make do with using them on the science room's PC for the time being. However I probably ought to get the software into the image if possible, so they probably should be done in advance. I do not really want to run them alongside each other because I think it would cause support headaches. For a start, the saved files from ActivInspire are not compatible with ActivPrimary. However removing the shortcuts to ActivPrimary may be enough to prevent it being used. A Ruckus wireless system has already commissioned for installation at Easter. The trolleys will be kept in one place as there are too many stairs and narrow corridors to move them. Thank you for the tip on checking the power requirements. I should put in some time for planning and discussions on exactly where we are going to store the things, including checking issues like that. I see your point. Aside from buying desktops, which is almost certainly not an option, do you have any suggestions for ameliorating the issue? Perhaps insurance would cover it, though I am guessing that would be prohibitively expensive. I will double check, but I have not found any such software yet. All that seems to be in use is web-based stuff, standard software like Office, and TextEase. Roger!

Probably OEM for Windows itself from whoever sells the machines, then Select Licensing from a supplier to get Office - Select is a volume license system, but you don't actually need volume to take advantage of it as a school, as the educational software suppliers lump all the schools together. That is how we have done it so far. I possibly should check whether the latest terms of the OVS licensing would make it worthwhile, but my predecessor concluded the school was too small to make software rental worthwhile. Sorry if I was snappy. Reports of the problems with laptops make me nervous at the moment. Yes good point. I am planning to reuse some in the pre-school in an isolate network, stash some and dispose of the rest, but I have not put in any time for hauling them around. AV install should probably be on there, though it seems to deploy fine to Windows 7, so only half hour or so. MIS software will not be on the laptops I don't think. TextEase seems to be the only non-web based curriculum software that is used at the moment, but I should keep an eye out for other things. Though you have just reminded me I should check the scanner drivers work on 64-bit Windows 7. Could be right. I will bump that up a bit. I was using a broad meaning of "deploy" to include all the human factors of training. I was also including time for testing it worked with our set up and resolving any problems with it. However it is probably over-generous, and I did not know they provided a MSI - that should certainly cut the estimate. Do you happen to know if the MSI clears up ActivPrimary as well?

Fair point: there should be a training session or sessions in the first week. The multiple weeks was to indicate the requirement for extra support when staff hit problems, but it would probably be better to split the item in two.

Imaging would be WDS. My meaning by that step was setting up the machine from which the image is taken: installing all the software needed and setting up the (per-machine) settings correctly. It may have been better to say "preparing the image".

Glad to hear. That would include clearing up the existing monitoring solution as well, but I take your point and will cut that estimate somewhat.

I take your points. I have read many similar views here. The issue is space. The site is tiny and they really want to rip the ICT suite out to make room for another classroom. Even if I strongly objected, I do not think I could get a change from laptops - the decision on laptops was already taken when I joined the school and they have already purchased the Wi-Fi system. I think that part of the plan must be treated as a fixed point.

I have been putting together a plan for replacing our XP computer suite with (hopefully) two suites of 20 Windows 7 laptops. We have Windows 7 on a few machines, but the network is not well setup for Windows 7 yet. Small school so only about twenty staff involved. I do not have much previous experience with imaging or using wireless laptops for whole classes, though I will have some outside help. We also need to replace our classroom management: current frontrunner is Impero. It was suggested that I run my list of tasks involved and rough time estimates past those with some more experience. The time estimates seem generous, but I always think that about my estimates and it rarely works out that way. Anyone got any thoughts? What have I missed? Determining most suitable, best value laptop model – requires consultation with SMT, staff and governors – 20hr Ensuring group policy and other settings set up appropriately for Windows 7 – 4hr Setting up Windows 7 default profile and mandatory pupil profile – 16hr Resolving compatibility issues of SoftEase – 6hr (potentially a lot less if all works fine) Migrating school over from ActivPrimary to ActiveInspire - 20hr Investigating alternatives to Impero - 2hr Installing Impero - 3hr Testing Impero – 4hr (spread over a month or so) Potentially if Impero found unsuitable – installing and testing further monitoring software – not estimated Unpacking laptops and setting up in trolley - 6hr Preparing laptop for imaging - 12hr Setting up and testing image – 4hr Deploying image – 4hr (largely unattended) Training staff in use of laptops, Windows 7, Office 2010 – 8hr (spread over multiple weeks) Preparing image for current suite machines for use in pre-school – 6hr Setting up and testing that image - 2hr

Ooh, most promising so far. Certainly have to give that one a try.

They do sound interesting. Have the actually come out yet? I cannot find them on the Lenovo site.

Thank you to everyone who replied, I will have a look at the suggestions. Subsonic does look particularly neat. I am not yet sure if it will do what we want, but the potential for streaming a home music collection to a smart phone is a really nice idea.

That sounds nifty. Not quite what I was thinking of, but definitely similar. I had not thought of using hard links - I will admit that they make me nervous. I do not any practical experience with VLEs. Is there a standard for a repository interface?

That does make sense. When you said "no matter what imaging method you use", did that include methods like Clonezilla, which is pretty much a bit-for-bit copy, as I understand it? If so, do you have to use Sysprep in those circumstances as well? I will definitely give it a go.

Thank you to everyone who responded. I will definitely rule out netbooks for both suites, though I still quite like the idea of having one as netbooks. I can see I would need to make sure that the expectation for netbooks was that they were for web browsing and basic word processing only, though those do seem to be the main uses of the current suite. I have a theory that the extra portability and battery life would make them less hassle to integrate into a lesson: less weight to carry around, less desk space, less chance they need plugging in. Does that hold any water? I saw suggestions elsewhere about upgrading the RAM to 2GB, have you done that on yours? I overheard a conversation at BETT about the keyboards on some brands being harder than others to pull keys off. Anyone else had that experience?

Seems as if I had definitely better push for a trial. If we do go for a touch screen, I will let you know how it performs. Due to the cost, we would not be considering one if not for an inconvenient window which means we need to have a free standing screen. The Promethean mobile IWB is really expensive, comparable with a 55" touch screen. I will email Millgate about Clever LCD, Luke - definitely an alternative to consider.

That sounds really handy. Do you ever have problems with bits of the drivers getting missed? So you could pull a system hard drive out of one Windows 7 machine, stick it in one with a different lot of hardware and it will sort itself out? That is certainly an improvement.

I last experimented with imaging back in the days of RIS. I gave up as I found I would need about 4 different images to cater for different HAL types. I will shortly be needing to get to grips with WDS. I heard that WDS images do not have the HAL compatibility issues. I was wondering if there are any other issues to watch out for which would require different images for different hardware. How do you handle different driver requirements? I remember setting up a driver folder for RIS.

Yes do bear in mind, caffrey, that posting "nm, fixed it" means that one day some poor techy is going to have the same problem, find your post and curse you to your own personal circle of hell for not actually posting how you did it!

Anyone use a CTouch Interactive display? We are considering using an interactive display in place of a projector-based interactive white board, and had a quote for one of these.

Sorry I never noticed this thread got updated. At this point I would try using a packet sniffer like Wireshark or Microsoft Network Monitor. I would try to catch one of the HTTP GET messages going out for which no web page was returned. I would then compare that to a successful GET message, for example sent out with the proxy entered manually (which you said always worked).

No one? I am surprised because this seems like something that ought to exist somewhere! If I were to get around to building one myself, is it something that anyone else would be interested in? I was wondering whether any VLEs have some kind of media browser built in.

Due to fairly severe lack of space, we are planning on replacing our aging ICT suite with (hopefully) two suites of netbooks or laptops. Anyone have any thoughts on the relative merits of netbooks vs laptops? In particular, how does the longevity compare? I am a little concerned that the low specifications of netbooks will go obsolete quicker, but perhaps that is not important if the hardware of either is only going to last three years anyway. I was interested by a couple of comments in this thread suggesting that netbooks got damaged less. Anyone else found that? Or the opposite?

We have a directory full of video and music clips gathered from various sources. We want to make it easy for staff and students to find what they are looking for by grouping clips into categories, where a clip may be in multiple categories (eg "year 1", "year 3" "science", etc.), and providing a description of the clip. A built-in media player and easy to use search through descriptions would be good too. So we are looking for something like the iTunes or Windows Media Player media library, but stripped down, locked down, and designed for use by multiple users. Anyone have any ideas? Currently one of our staff is maintaining a set of HTML pages that provide a simple way to navigate the clips, but this is rather limited and a considerable effort to maintain.

Have you tested with the pac file boiled right down to the minimum? Say: function FindProxyForURL(url, host) { return "PROXY 10.112.5.193:80"; } That might help diagnose whether the problem had anything to do with your particular pac code.

A good way of dealing with a single long path, without needing any extra tools, is to mount a directory somewhere along the path as a virtual drive with subst. This can the shorten the path below the limit. For example: subst X: C:\myreallylongpath\ del X:\therestofmyreallylongpath.txt I think you can also use a special prefix "\\?\" on paths on the command line to get around the limit. For example: del "\\?\C:\myreallylongpath\therestofmyreallylongpath.txt" Bonus weirdness: a dot at the end of a file name will make it undeletable through explorer.

If the messages are shown only once for each profile and then not shown subsequently, then there is almost certainly a setting in the user profile that marks the messages as having been shown. You want to find this setting and set it in advance. It is most likely a registry setting, but might also be in a file, probably in the profile's appdata/application data folder. The simplest method is often just to have a look under the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software for a key named after the software or its manufacturer, then look for likely settings in the values. Once you have a candidate value, you can check the registry before and after the messages appear to see if the value changes. If you cannot find the registry value by guesswork, then you could try using Process Monitor while the messages appear. This is a tool from Microsoft that shows all registry keys and files being accessed or changed.