Warwick_Tech

From experience I would steer very clear from Unifi for Video/NVR - they moved all the newer firmware cameras to be bespoke to their NVR and it was terrible - to the point where it melted and we got sent two replacement units (Which we still have in a cupboard if you're interested) I would say it's an ok solution for a small site, even a primary but anything more than 25-30 cameras and it just isn't good enough. If you're happy to install and configure yourselves, Synology Surveillance Station is my recommendation, speak to them and they will quote you a bespoke package that honestly, just works and is compatible with all sorts of cameras - except the Unifi ones if updated beyond a certain firmware version!

Can anyone recommend a good company to do a full install of a videowall? We're looking at prices initially, we've been quoted for a; 136” width LED Wall Fully Installed - 217” width LED Wall Fully Installed - Anyone used a good company recently?

Had a request from my Exams officer - "The old version allowed you to add a printer, the new version only lets you select existing printers, therefore I am hesitant to close the program to add one until I have a sheet in my hand" You can guess my response about autosaving, opening their home area on another PC etc. but was told there isn't time for that! I assume this may be quite time consuming as the old version used windows 'add a printer' but this new one has a bespoke box? Cheers!

Hi All, Looking for advice and opinions - We've recently been tinkering with InTune and rather than essentially re-inventing the wheel and creating a load of lockdown policies for student devices (The import from GPO feature is good, but limited) how does everyone feel about S-Mode? We've dabbled in the past and found it great for PRU, and arguably as tech becomes more cloud based this seems like a logical step - granted with InTune you can add web shortcuts and even some Win32 apps (apparently) so that covers AV, maybe even Chrome, though since Edge when chrome based it's a lot better - What are peoples thoughts? Mobile devices in S Mode, desktops still in full 'fat' mode

shame - It takes a specific teacher and teaching style to make them work; but this is exactly what our MFL department want to encourage 'engagement without distraction' so I'm happy to set them all up (Also they then dont ask me for tablets)

I'm not sure they're cross compatible with the promethean software, but thanks all the same

Would you be willing to part with them?

Hi All, Just a quick ask, unlikely as it may be - If anyone has any Promethean Activote systems taking up cupboard space or gathering dust and wants shot of them we are after some to use in select departments. Just on the off chance.

Hi All, Our SIMS is now 'read only' as we have new contracts - This being said we still need read only access, but the server is currently held together with goodwill and sellotape, of which I've run out of goodwill. This being said, without support from ESS (or maybe for a one off charge) how could we go about moving the SIMS SQL database to a newer server? we could use the free version of SQL as only 4 people would be using it, but is it just acase of moving the bits across? Failing this, how can we access our SQL database without the SIMS GUI, or is this even possible?

Hi All, So after another headache of a day, it seems the 'Setup Schools PC' app is applying some local GPO's - As you may or may not be aware of local GPO overwrites Intune policies, so therefore Windows Hello has not been working in my tenant - Setup Schools PC's disables the GPO for whatever reason. So, this leaves me with a tricky question - I could wipe the local GPOs from the Intune machines, giving full control to Intune but this arguably will keep applying, rendering local GPO's useless on these machines. Throwing it out to the room, what do people think?

I don't suppose anyone knows when using Disk2VHD if I have several drives, do I need to run it once for each drive, or run it all at once? The way I have my VM's ATM is one drive is the OS, and the second drive contains all the data.

Good ideas, the issue is I can't load the 20TB file onto the new server as it's only 10TB (grr) I have done a defrag and cleared as much as possible, I suppose in theory Disk2VHD will only create a disk that size as it uses mapped drive letters (C: D: etc) and the unallocated space has no drive letter.... Yes, we may have cracked it... maybe

Hi All, So we are in the process of converting our last few Physical devices to VHD/VHDX We're using a mix of methods, from Disk2VHD to Windows Server Backup (Restore the VHDX and then create a new Generation2 machine and mount it) But, our main issue is our old file server is over 20TB - of which only a few TB are now in use (Isn't the cloud wonderful) Long story short, I've got a smaller Server for it to live, but I can't find anything definitive on disk space and calculations - Does Disk2VHD or other Physical > Virtual services render the 'empty' data as HDD size? I have shrunk the partition down to a few TB so the rest is 'unallocated' but will this work? What I can't have is a 20TB VHDX file as that won't fit on my new system. The backups say it's only the few TB, but honestly I can't find anything concrete on this. Someone suggested if there was a way to shrink VHDX files, but this will only shrink the file, not the drive size inside (?) Anyone got anything definitive?

It looks familliar, like an early 'rugged' RM tablet or data logger...

Hi All, So we recently hit a big snafu with Intune, it seems our 'device' licences were actually 'user' licences so because they were based on our OVS agreement we only got so many according to FTE count. This has made me reconsider moving to A3 or A5 licencing as opposed to VLSC and OVS The only thing that makes me hesitant is the following - * While O365 logs in as the user and therefore all their licences apply, windows is still a different beast - call me old fashioned but using a MAK key and having done with it is far less complex than having windows detect the user, then licencing them according to O365 status. * What stops the user from licencing all kinds of devices (including personal devices) and running out their 5-device limit? With shared desktops all over the site it's reasonable to assume students are logging into 5 devices a day with 5 lessons - So how does that work? * When Jimmy buys a laptop from curry’s we don't want them to use their school licence as this leads to issues when they graduate and it's disabled. Can anyone who's made the jump help answer some of my concerns?

No, just takes me back to > I think there's more going on here, as I can't seem to get it to recognise these are even profiles... what makes less sense, is as I say the base wipes all of them...

Oh - Yes it should be profiles NOT used in the last 2 weeks but to be fair, it's not even removing those

Still no joy - - - Updated - - - Just running print $profiles returns: No file to print Though that's the same on my PC...

Good question, it just quickly returns to the > without showing an error, but it doesn't work as no profiles are removed, even ones over the 14 day limit; remove the -14 days property and it will chug through and delete everything... Silly question is there a switch to show the output of the script so I can get more detailed info?

Hi all, given it's 2022 approaching 2023 (yikes) the idea of a main hall projector is quote 'totally old school' Does anyone have any ideas on alternatives? I think a TV 100"+ would be expensive, and video walls vary wildly in quality. Anyone have any ideas?

No worries, I did try with the -verbose switches, but tbh I'm not sure what they did anyway. I have the feeling it is working as it just goes back to the > prompt, but I think the switch for adding days it's what's causing the issue.

Hi all, Someone recently contacted me RE Delprof and I shared some alternative scripts with them, however I wanted to merge these scripts together; One works as it should, deletes all profiles - (well, except some weird ones for whatever reason, but 99%) Anyway, the second script sort of works, but misses even more profiles, BUT it has the time stamp for selective profiles So I thought I would combine them, but it doesn't work - anyone have any ideas?

Thanks for the heads up, we use them for licencing but not much else, I've found support for other products varies.

Hi All, Navigating a minefield at the moment; we’ve been given several MS advisors and an education team, but they all seem to be either not interested in our projects or not quite get the scope of educational users. Does anyone have any good contacts for MS support or a third-party company that can assist with developing cloud services (Azure and Intune specifically) as we have these setup, but the issues we experience seem to be beyond the scope of regular support and any guides we find are either to long winded or not applicable to our specific needs. Anyone want to talk Intune? We've got it, licenced it, got devices on it, but they just don't want to do even basic things like update licence keys This all came to a head when a member of SLT couldn’t connect their SP to a public WIFI in Spain and spent several hours moaning to MS support, whose answer was our security was ‘too tight’ so now they (SLT) want to make all the machines non-managed /rantover