djones

I am just about to begin setting up a new 2008 R2 server to take over from a lone 2003 DC/file server. I plan to reuse the old 2003 server (reinstalled with 2008 R2) to run WSUS/WDS/Inventory/Sophos... I intend to use Hyper-V as host and then have a single (at the moment) 2008 R2 guest. There will (probably - still sorting final specs) be 4x 300Gb SAS drives in RAID5 so what would be a sensible partitioning scheme? My initial thoughts are 50Gb for OS and 500Gb for Data leaving the rest ~250Gb odd for further guest use, testing new client deployments etc. Has anyone found/used/written any useful guides to setting up/using Hyper-V, initial 2008 R2 tips and tweaks, etc ? Dave

I wouldn't bother.

Shouldn't they been on non-overlapping channels instead such as 1, 5, 11 or possibly 1, 5, 9, 13? I always thought that APs should have the same SSID but be on different channels to avoid conflicts. I'm definitely no expert on wireless though! Dave.

This one seems to be the exact one! Quick search for 'blackboard' on Google Images brought it up on the first page. Wonder if they have permission to use it...

All teachers and HLTAs with their own laptops plus a few spare for supply staff, random staff uses or interview candidates, etc. All staff (inc. SLT) are 'made' to understand that 'their' laptop is school owned and is therefore on loan and supplied with the same standard install as all computers in school. Accounts are restricted so no additional software can be installed. Updates are administered via WSUS, Sophos, etc and as teacher laptops tend to be on all day (or at least a decent period of time), this works fine. These are then re-imaged yearly to ensure all rubbish that just builds up is cleaned out. Not having desktops means that staff *have* to bring in their laptops which in turn, ensures that updates are applied. Dave

Sorry! Veeam are no longer supporting ESXi.

Ok, getting quotes at the moment. (Thanks Simon/Chris (CP) for the speedy responses!) Leaning towards HP ML350 G6 with 8Gb and 4x 300Gb SAS (Raid 5). Is there any benefit to using all HP components e.g. RAM and HDDs? Just playing with prices from various places and can save *a lot* by using other components like-for-like. I obviously don't want to compromise reliability but cannot see the benefit of spending more to maintain the brand throughout. Am I missing something?

No longer supporting ESXi unfortunately.

Recreated all printers and all seems well again. I did notice that the drivers for our B/W copier previously installed were PCL6 and after having read loads of issues with these I opted for the PS drivers instead this time. Fingers will remain crossed! Thanks for the help. Next....!

Thanks, appreciate the response! I have the latest deployed but thought I'd ask anyway. Dave

Regedit didn't work so I went for the printers. Reinstalled/updated drivers on the server, removed and reinstalled printers on user's laptop. User logs in again and loads printers successfully. Unfortunately, although this has worked on this one laptop/user, it hasn't worked on some others and I can't work out why. I also rebooted the server today and noticed a 'Spooler SubSystem App' error so I've followed You cannot add a printer and you receive printer spooler error messages in Windows XP and wiped out all printers. I recreated just one of the printers (our photocopier) using updated drivers and repeated the steps in KB 324757 on another laptop. This appears to have worked but I can't explain why. Can anyone shed any light on possible causes/explanations? The server did run out (completely) of space - could that have messed anything up? Dave.

Any idea on time scale for v1.5?

Ok, printers seems to be the definite culprit - not sure why yet. Had a quick fiddle today, updated OKI drivers on server and seems to have done the trick (fingers crossed) on the one laptop/user I have tried - famous last words. Will find out if it has stayed working tomorrow!

Probably not very - will check.

What would be the best/easiest way of deleting a key from a users HKCU? This is linked to the problem in this thread. I want to try deleting the key on one user and then, if it works, use it for multiple users at once. However, I can foresee issues with permissions, no access to regedit (normally), etc. Am I going to have to disable the relavant GPOs or will scripting this in some clever way work? Dave.

Yes (in that they cannot be deleted until rebooted) but I've always experienced that so have always assumed it was normal! In any case, I'm not sure I would know how to go about narrowing down the culprit.

No and have tried opening Word in safe mode (@glennda: I presume safe mode does the same thing as winword /a) but still crashes which is why I am leaning to a corrupt Normal.dot. I am going to try deleting 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11\Word\Data' and all tmp files to see if that clears the issue. I am just slightly concerned that renaming the affected files using Office 2007 solves it - there could be a lot of corrupt files!! I don't understand!

Network speed has dropped recently - not sure of the cause yet - but not drastically. One reason for moving away from roaming profiles. WSUS used to manage updates so yes, we are up-to-date - I did wonder whether a recent update has screwed anything but I haven't seen anyone else complaining about anything similar/related. Nothing obvious in the event logs.

Indeed, sorry - was thinking aloud! All computers use a single standard WinXP SP3 image with Office 2003 SP3. Roaming profiles for staff at the moment (although going to remove them and simply use local ones - redirected folders in use). We are running out of space on the server at the moment and there have been a few occasions when that has gone completely! I have a suspicion that a user's profile/normal.doc file has become corrupt (possibly due to an occasion when the profile/normal.doc couldn't be written back successfully?). Could this have been transfered by others opening a file that was created with the aid of a dodgy normal.doc? It seems strange that this has started recently and seems to be spreading.

I have a problem which appears to be spreading! When opening .doc files, Word is crashing either immediately or when trying to open the print dialogue. More and more users are starting to report this issue - at first it appeared intermitently with just a few files and now appears more and more with most or all files some users try to open. Users is probably not accurate as it doesn't matter what computer they log on to and try. If I log on as the local admin on affected computers, the files open fine. If I open the files from my Win7 laptop using Office 2007, the files open fine. If I rename and save them again, the original user can open them fine again. I am at a loss as to what to try next - any help would be much appreciated. Dave.

WebcamXP recording in real time and uploading (ftp) stills every 10s. I used the code generated by WebcamXP in a Jumi module. Worked great and had three separate cameras in the end (incubator, one low level in the brooder and one bird's eye view in the brooder). Dave.

Does anyone know of a way to trace a user who has renamed a file? I can obviously trace who has modified a file's contents but not sure about just renaming it. Thanks, Dave.

Latest UltraVNC here (installed as service) without issue. UAC on and off.

Reading through a lot of posts the HP servers definitely get good write-ups and seem to offer excellent value for money and 4Gb RAM / SATA appears to be the choice, certainly for the second DC (with enough clout to take over any roles/duties as needed for the time being). Primary School, NOR ~420, Staff ~60, currently 1 DC/File Server (WDS, WSUS, OCS/GLPI, Sophos), ~110 XP clients. Rapidly increasing utilisation of media based learning (using and creating). Although have moved SIMS db out of school and onto LA hosted servers, accessed via RDP sessions. Not sure whether this equates to 'sufficiently large enough' to warrant using virtualisation which is why I'm asking I suppose. This, I am assuming, would be the most obvious plus point - I'm trying to think in terms of disaster recovery. With regards to RAID, would R5 give noticeable performance increases over R1 considering the load indicated earlier? If I could get away with R1 with just two drives, that would obviously save a whack of money that could be spent on higher spec (more RAM to allow for VMs to be used for test purposes if not for the DC) in other areas.

No preference over Intel or AMD. What would be the minimum amount of RAM I should be leaning towards? After browsing a little I'm thinking: x1 Dual Core, 4GB, Raid 1, 2x 1TB SATA - for the rackmount 2nd DC and backup; x1 Quad Core, 8GB, Raid 5, 4x 1TB SATA - for main DC and File Server. Any opinions? Overkill? It seems the HDDs are the most expensive element, even with SATA! Dave