Warwick_Tech

Sorry to Hijack - We use NetSweeper too; but found out you can turn it off via control panel; LGFL weren't much help so are you aware of this loophole, and if so can you share what setting you use to disable this ability? (You can turn it off on the taskbar too, but this requires UAC)

Thanks Steve, That sounds like the best way - Call me dense; how do we do this? 😀

Hi All, I have been given the non-enviable task of exporting *cough* "everything" out of SIMS in preparation for maintaining accurate records, server outages etc. This is a big ask, but does anyone have any report templates I can use? Realistically I'm sure they only want Exams data, proof of employment, proof of attendance etc. for FOI requests so these would be fantastic if we could somehow pull them into a CSV or similar. If not, how on Earth can we get hold of this data without a giant 'report export'?

So SIMS used to go into 'read-only' mode if there was a licence issue (EG expiration\connection error) however I've been told by a colleague their SIMs has effectively been locked since their licence expired - To prevent losing access (even accidentally) realistically what can we do? I know money rules the world and competition between MIS systems is fierce, but it seems kind of unacceptable to lock people out of their own data? Has anyone had anything similar?

That's how I knew it worked lol

To bring a thread back from the dead - I'm trying this method with extentions; it works on both Edge and Chrome; https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/block-google-games-doodle/jcfaaaijdgdmoehalinacnficpfihnoe Push it out as a 'forced' extention and away you go

Cheers all; It seems yes if we look at Arbor we can do TES and Parentpay through them directly and drop the programs; MyEd now have a Wonde option with some limited functionality that we don't use so we're going to do this - At least it ticks a few more things off my job list

Hi All, for *reasons* I am trying to move our last 3 bespoke data extractors off the Server; These are: * ParentPay (MIS Sync) * MyEd (Keeping Kids Safe) * TES Room Booking I've spoken to a couple and they seem to be mis-understanding my request - Rather than use their bespoke sync tools I'd rather use Wonde or Groupcall, which are supported by cloud services such as Arbor https://support.arbor-education.com/hc/en-us/articles/360011606557-Arbor-s-Third-Party-API-Integrations If we have a completely cloud based MIS, do we really need these bespoke programs? Anyone who has got Sims next gen/Arbor can confirm?

I think this still causes the pitfall as it works via 'user' rather than 'device' - an exteme scenario is to upload all our device #'s and only allow them, but it's not really a great solution...

Yes - So I found that method where you can create a 'trusted IP zone' and then only allow the Intune service to run from there (conditional access) but this does mean if someone uses the school WIFI even if it's a personal device it gets added so it's not 100% foolproof -- My thought was to seperate out the external IP's for guest and LAN traffic, which we do; but then we can't add Intune devices to the main system as easily because they are OOBE when given to the staff. I fear this will all come down to cost and chromebooks really are dirt cheap for what we need...

Ok, so poll and discussion time; Traditionally we've always been a Windows school; however, with the crunch of finances and the need for more and more mobile devices we are now looking at 1-to-1 or bulk buying laptops/tablets As we all know, MS Surfaces are ok for Intune, along with cheapish laptops, but Intune really isn't the 'safeguarding compliant' solution we would like it to be, so now we're looking at Chrome Books. Does anyone else run this sort of mixed environment? Do you prefer one over the other? What's the best way to deal with the massive influx of pupils needing laptops, and the mixed policies around personal devices? I've been referring to this spreadsheet recently and the lovely 'grey area' in-between. My major concern is Intune has no real native way to prevent users joining personal devices and then picking up licences, BitLocker etc. - We've already had one instance of a parent trying to claim money back from us for taking their personal laptop to a repair place and being charged £100 for a factory reset. I can only assume through chrome books have the same? If we open those doors of allowing joining chrome books; what happens when they inevitably leave school? It seems this needs some real involvement from the DfE as to an actual solid plan that keeps the school, parents, kids and the DSL happy! What're your thoughts?

A previous colleague wrote a powershell script to automate updates as long as you have the latest .hex file - assuming D is your plugged in MicroBit Copy-Item "\\[location of Hex file]\0249_kl26z_microbit_0x8000.hex" -Destination "D:\" Start-Sleep -Seconds 180 $path = 'D:\FAIL.TXT' if ( -not ( Test-Path -Path $path ) ) { D:\DETAILS.TXT } else { Write-Output "failed attempt trying again" Copy-Item "\\[location of Hex file]\0249_kl26z_microbit_0x8000.hex" -Destination "D:\" Start-Sleep -Seconds 180 Remove-Item D:\FAIL.TXT -Recurse -Force -Confirm:$false D:\DETAILS.TXT }

Hi All, Just seeing if there's interest really - we have a large(ish) batch of C02 Detectors left over from Covid, all boxed and brand new - Would anyone be interested? Might suit a primary or small secondary as they can be wall mounted and give alerts for C02, temperature and humidity. Regards,

Logical - Let me see if we can whip out the HDD's and I'll chase higher up if they're happy to donate. Regards,

We have a couple going for scrap in a few weeks; but I thought they were just generic tablets? I can certainly see to send the scanners in the post, but the actual tablets might be difficult due to GDPR and would need to be wiped completely...

We share an office with the Server Room so our aircon is on 24/7 365 -which makes it interesting when I go out of the office wearing a jumper to quickly realise my mistake; The aircon on the first floor has been broken for months and would cost several hundered thousand to repair, and no one wants to stump up the bill - ground floor aircon seems to be off right now, but was on over Christmas... The biggest issue is everyone opening the South facing windows AND the aircon on maximum, causes the aircon in the server room to fail most hot days so now we have our own dedicated one making two in our office. Our new BM decided it was a great idea to buy 100+ portable units for the main classrooms and you can figure how that went and how many of them are now trashed in a corner vibrating warm air around....

Why disable the guardian service and rely on the service starter? It was my (admittedly possibly wrong) assumption all the service starter did was restart the Guardian if it failed it's 3 base attempts (?)

No more than usual - I was contemplating if I should setup a sheduled task that just restarts the service after 10-20 minutes, but maybe I'll add that to the todo list.....

Thanks all for your replies; After working on this for a while it looks like there's a '64 bit unified app' that answers all these questions - I'm going to play with this today.... https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/DesktopDeployment/singleinstaller.html ---------------- Edit: Using the 'Pro' installer from here; https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/acrobat/kb/download-64-bit-installer.html So the command line Setup.exe /sAll /slf /re /msi DISABLE_FIU_CHECK=1 TRANSITION_INSTALL_MODE=3 Works for others but not me; maybe my machine is different!

Wholeschool unfortunately I could push it out via the EXE, but I like to use the old-fashioned MSI options in GPO to manage software versions etc. - maybe it's time to look at a scripted solution instead

So I'm getting mad at Adobe (again) as they do have an MSI for reader; but it installs a very old version (15 I think) and then does it's updates - Using several sources I have made it to where I have an updated MSI - https://community.spiceworks.com/t/how-to-deploy-acrobat-reader-with-gpo/1007665 And this works (hooray) but now It won't update manually (or automatically) and any special options I set in the customisation wizard like skipping the EULA fail to apply; Is this a case of making a new MSI for every reader update? The reason this was all flagged was disabling Javascript by default inside Reader, as per a recent hack on a well known imageboard (whatever that is) - I've managed that, but now have tons of versions of reader all over the bloody place! Grr.....

Here is a small .exe file (13kb) that does nothing by itself, but when you drag and drop image files into it (single or multiple) it invokes the 'Print Pictures Wizard' and allows staff/students to easily print contact sheets or select special features for photo printing in Windows This is especially useful if you have blocked 'right-click' in W11 as file explorer no longer contains any 'print' buttons in W11 (thanks MS) The usual 'I take no responsibility' applies, it was written in Visual Basic using .net 4.5 - 80 lines of code taken from a 'Power Basic' script and converted to VB using ChatGPT It can be hosted on a network share, copied to locations, or shortcuts created, and it still works if you drag and drop onto the shortcut. Enjoy! Imports WIA ' Windows Image Acquisition Library (WIA) Module Module1 Sub Main() ' Get command-line arguments passed to the application Dim commandLineArgs As String() = Environment.GetCommandLineArgs() Dim wsImages As New List(Of String)() Dim lArg As Integer = 1 Dim lPic As Integer = 0 ' Command-line argument processing (simulate drag-and-drop of files) While lArg < commandLineArgs.Length Dim wsFile As String = commandLineArgs(lArg).Trim("""") If IO.File.Exists(wsFile) AndAlso wsFile.Length > 4 AndAlso (wsFile.ToUpper().EndsWith(".BMP") OrElse wsFile.ToUpper().EndsWith(".GIF") OrElse wsFile.ToUpper().EndsWith(".ICO") OrElse wsFile.ToUpper().EndsWith(".JPG") OrElse wsFile.ToUpper().EndsWith(".PNG") OrElse wsFile.ToUpper().EndsWith(".TIFF")) Then lPic += 1 wsImages.Add(wsFile) Else Console.WriteLine(wsFile & " does not have an acceptable image extension" & vbCrLf & "Only drop .BMP, .GIF, .ICO, .JPG, .PNG, or .TIFF files") End If lArg += 1 End While If wsImages.Count > 0 Then PrintImages(wsImages.ToArray()) Else Console.WriteLine("No images passed on command line") End If End Sub Sub PrintImages(wsFiles As String()) Dim WIADlg As WIA.CommonDialog = New WIA.CommonDialog() If WIADlg IsNot Nothing Then Dim Vec As WIA.Vector = New WIA.Vector() If Vec IsNot Nothing Then For Each wsFile As String In wsFiles Vec.Add(wsFile) Next Dim v As Object = Vec WIADlg.ShowPhotoPrintingWizard(v) Vec = Nothing End If WIADlg = Nothing End If End Sub End Module ContactPrint.exe

Group Color Pages Grayscale Pages Duplex Pages Simplex Pages Total Printed Pages Jobs Cost Avg. Pages Avg. Cost [All Users] 63508 508941 400504 171945 572449 40854 15463.83 14 0.38 1000+ Students 150+ Staff - Mid+ sized Secondary I thought it would've been a lot more somehow....

when old the user has been deleted they will sit in limbo for 30 days, depending on your retention policy this is the window you have to transfer their mailbox in it's entirity: Restore a Users Mailbox https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/purview/restore-an-inactive-mailbox ------------ Login to Exhange Online Connect-ExchangeOnline -- Find Mailbox DistinguishedName or ExchangeGUID Get-Mailbox -InactiveMailboxOnly | select Name,DistinguishedName,ExchangeGuid,PrimarySmtpAddress | Export-CSV C:\Temp\Mailboxes.csv -NoTypeInformation -- $inactiveMailbox = Get-Mailbox -InactiveMailboxOnly -Identity [iD String] In the previous command, use the value of the DistinguishedName or ExchangeGUID property to identify the inactive mailbox. -- $inactiveMailbox.LegacyExchangeDN -- OPTIONAL: Add="X500:" to Attribute editor, Proxy Addresses in local AD - Wait for Azure to Sync -- New-MailboxRestoreRequest -SourceMailbox $InactiveMailbox.DistinguishedName -TargetMailbox [target user@domain] -TargetRootFolder "[Custom Foldername]" -AllowLegacyDNMismatch ===== If you recieve an error about duplicate entires, find the current users alternate Identity via PS: Get-Mailbox -Identity "[user@domain]"

I was assured the same by a team member - EdPro Desktop is still a popular and fully supported product; however I think when/if V3 extentions come for Chrome/Edge it might signal the end of EdPro in favour of cloud services. Mind you, ATM Google are on the chopping board in America for being 'to powerful' which doesn't apply to other companies who's CEO literally hangs out at the White House...