Jon_boy1984

I'd suggest the HP Elitepad 900, its a nice looking tablet, running full 8 pro, atom based at the moment, but I believe there are plans for a i5 version. There are also a number of accessory available, including expansion jacket, extended battery, dock, and coming in June is a keyboard Jacket. I don't work for HP, but I really do like the elitepad, ever since I saw it at BETT.

For those of you that bank with them, Their apps are now available within the store, although apparently the RBS one only works in scotland. I have no account with either, so I can't test. Just waiting for the other High street banks to get onboard now!

An Outlook connection with ... ActivSync (struggling to remember the name)... would be better than a POP connection IMO.

Damn it, only just read this and missed out!

Not just any company either, an advertising company, the worse kind imo. I don't use any google services, except YouTube (where else am I going to get my fix of a cat trying to mend a printer!) and google drive, but only as I have to for work, otherwise I wouldn't use that either. I would rather pay a little money and keep my info as private as possible, than give it away free to some advertising giant.

Saw these at the BETT show, they are amazing bits of kit. Designed to be self serviceable apparently. There's a rig you can buy that lifts the screen, and all changeable components are the accessible, and the rig comes with a complete set of the changeable parts, so if a unit goes down you swap it out the failed part, and then deal with hp after. Or so the salesman was saying. Trying to get hold of a demo unit ourselves.

Thanks Witch, glad that there is at least a couple of other schools out there setup in a similar way, as I always read about schools with SANs and multiple Servers, thought we had it all wrong.

Normally, for a small size school (first/primarys, 50-200 PCs, 100-600 Users), running a windows based domain, we have 1 or (rarely) 2 physical server(s), doing everything. By everything I mean: Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, File store, Printer Server, Anti-virus, WSUS, MDT/WDS and IIS. Now, I know the hardware side isn't perfect, but that's not what I'm interested in here, there is plenty of threads on here about hardware, I'm interested in what roles/features/services you've got running on similar sized networks, and whether we're missing anything... (like Cert Auth, or anything else) Also what kind of budgets you have over a 5 year period. And for those interested in knowing why I'm asking, I work for the local authority, and we provide support for a lot of schools, and I want to improve that. Hopefully not a bad thing. :-) Also most schools/networks I see on here appear to have either a lot more pupils and therefore budget, or we've been doing it all wrong for a long time. Thanks for your help in this guys. :-D

I think I'll wait for the second gen of WP8 devices, running "8.5" or whatever it'll be called, let them iron the bugs out of 8.0 and include the features that they've lost from 7.x by not using Zune, like playlist creation/podcast sync. They need to improve their Windows 8 app apparently. :-)

I really should finish reading a thread before posting!

No, but thats not a bad plan!

Welcome to the dark side! (or light side, depends on the theme you pick really!) :-D

So are there just 4 of us with Windows Phones on here? Or do the rest just have WP8? :-D

Done: Here is thread

Posting this as requested by SYNACK. Hi, my names Jon and I've been a user of Windows Phone since Nov 2011, when I got my first smartphone, a HTC Titan running WP7.5... Ok, enough of sounding like an AA meeting, here's what you all want to know: Window Phone - Force Update [back-covering]Please note: I have no affiliation with the above site, or Microsoft, so please do this at your own risk, I am not responsible for the content of the site, or your actions. [/back-covering] The site does talk about updating from 7.0 to 7.5, but the method still works. It does take a little practise to get the timing right, but it does work, so stick with it!! Since the upgrade I have noticed no issues, but I have only be upgraded since last Wednesday night. YMMV. Some key points that help: 1) Put phone in flight mode. 2) easier using either ethernet cable, or laptop with a switch for the wifi. 3) Approximately 2-4 seconds seems to be the sweet spot. Love the update, taken too long to get out IMHO, but will now tide me over until my upgrade this Nov. So better later than never Anyway, I hope this helps all you windows phone users still on 7.5.

Nope, Windows Phone 7.8 update was officially released Jan 30th. The supposed time frame is within the month, but I couldn't wait any longer, so forced the update via Zune. If you google it you'll find a webpage that tells you how to "force" the 7.5 update onto 7.0, and the same method still works! Rock on!

Yay! I can't wait, I've had my HTC Titan WP since 2011, and absolutely love it! Now it's running 7.8 it's even better!

There is a registry entry on Server 2008+ that blocks DNS querys for wpad. Look on your server for the follow: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\DNS\Parameters\GlobalQueryBlockList Remove wpad entry. Not saying this will work, but it might help. Jon

Hello, I have a couple of questions, but I'll try and provide a bit of background first: The majority of primary schools I support (which is quite a few), have a user base of less than 500 and less than 100 client devices, in most cases considerably less. They are currently setup up with 1 Physical server, generally of medium spec (couple of quad core CPUs, 8-16GB RAM, 4-8 Sata HDDs with about 1-2TB space), with all roles and services installed to this. Some schools also have their previous server set up as a member server, as we generally advise replacing them after 5 years, running wsus and anti-virus deployment, but if not these go on the single server. E-mail fortunately is handled off-site, by the LEA and/or either Office 365/Google. Clearly there is an issue with the above setup...Single point of failure. If the server fails, whether due to hardware or software issue, the network will be down until I can get it back online, which in general is about 3-5 days (not great, I know). What do you do? What do you advise? Personally I would like more failover/resiliency in the system, we're not talking the 5 9's here, they're primary schools, they don't remote access anything (although hopefully that could change in the future, at least for staff) and so long as they can login and access their work from 7am-7pm most of the schools I look after would be fine with this. It has to be said, failures are rare, but are they avoidable (I know they are at a price, but I think that price is probably beyond most of my primary schools)? I know a lot of people on here would probably say I should be looking at virtualising and/or multiple servers, which I'd love, but we are in a recession, if budgets for IT were tight beforehand, they're practically none existant now. I'm not saying it shouldn't/can't be done, but the budgets I'm talking about are around 10-15K per year, for all IT requirements, including clients, IWBs, Projectors, Printers, Toner (which they get through a lot of) and software, it will be tough to achieve I think, though I am willing to be proved wrong. Also, they entire system would need to be managed on a ongoing basis in approximately 3 hours a week/fortnight, although the installations would be done normally in a 1 or 2 week school holiday, or over the summer. Anyone who does a similar roll will know how hard this can be, in most cases I am the sole IT support, so I do the roles of Network Manager/IT Technicain/Trainer all within 3 hours a week/fortnight. It's challenging, but it's mostly enjoyable. Thanks in advance for your advise/help, it may go a long way in help a good number of schools in the area.

Microsoft are saying that the RT is "Designed for the mobile office" (Source Here), although you will need to pay for a commercial license for the Office version thats installed (see footnote on source page). You can also supposedly manage Windows RT devices with Microsoft intune, but that'll cost you too, although I believe less if you have SCCM, although don't quote me on that because I can't remember where I read it. Amen to that!

I just want to add (slightly off topic) the surface pro is not a competitor to the iPad, or rather the iPad is not a competitor to the Surface Pro. The Surface Pro come with a i5 Processor, and should be viewed a competitor to ultrabooks and macbook air, in a tablet form. They will not be cheap, my estimate is in the £800-£1000 range. As for the original question I've been using Windows 8 for some time at home now on my laptop, I like it, but I can see it would be better with a touch interface, I find myself sometimes wanting to swipe the edge of my laptop screen instead of using the mouse. IMHO not really a desktop OS, and I think will be another ME/Vista, with the exception I do actually like this OS. Like - Start Menu (Formally known as Metro) Like - The Apps, mail, pictures, xbox music, video, maps (how the hell that pinpoints me to my exact location when the laptop doesn't have gps, is both cool and scary!) Like - Speed Like - Being able to customise the start menu to how I work, I just hope the layout is sync'd as well as other user settings, as I don't want to have recustomise it on my next device Dislike - Desktop mode, I'd be happy if this was gone, and just had 1 environment. Dislike - Split screen (33-66) mode in metro, I miss the 50-50 mode (which you still get in the desktop mode!) I think most of my attitude comes from using Windows Phone 7.5 for the last year though, as I knew this OS would take some getting used too, so prep'd as best I could by getting the phone, which I have to say I've been very pleased with.

Not in my Home use, as I use a streaming service, but in all the schools I support quite a lot of Teachers still use DVDs.

I don't know whether this will effect your issue or not, but if you enable a policy and then later on change it back to not configured, I believe that the client PC will keep the enabled setting, or the last setting recieved rather than returning it to default. To reverse what changes you made, you need to disable anything you enabled and enable anything you disabled. I maybe wrong, as I cannot remember where I read that, and unfortunatey don't have time to search.

Also handy if you run out of loo roll...

You could deny permissions to the folder through group policy itself, without the need for a startup script. In a GPO; Server 2008+: Computer Configuration>Policies>Windows Settings>File System Server 2003: Computer Configuration>Windows Settings>File System Right-click File system and click add file. In the "Add a file or folder" Dialogue box, you can browse to the folder if the app is installed on the server, however this is generally unlikely, so you will need to type in the "folder" field: %ProgramFiles%\Ferrets The %programfile% is a variable and will look for where Program Files is set to, whether it be on C: or some other drive. You may find if running on a 64-bit system, that you may need a slightly different variable, I haven't tried it yet so can't tell you. If the folder doesn't exist, it does nothing, as soon as it does, it changes the permission. Hope this information helps.