Stuart_C

Right, question is: What it the correct format for the address on a letter, including punctuation if any? The key point is the punctuation part. Or Head has suddenly decided that he wants comma's on the end of each line of an address. Fine for a one off letter but a real pig for doing mass mail merges from SIMS unless you have a highlty trained staff who know how to edit and write code in the field codes (which we don't). Well that or people with the time to manually edit each letter afterwards. I've found the Royal Mail guidance which asks not to use punctuatiuon in address on the labels which is a start. I also know that I haven't seen a single letter with punctuation in the address in the last 10 years however I'd like to know what the format should be and whether you have references to back it up.

I use the User Defined Rules in McAfee's AV software (Via the Policy server). Allows me to stop MSI, BAT's, CMD, MP3, etc etc from just about anywhere I want (which is USB drives, desktop's, home drives). It's not fool proof but it certainly fools the majority.

Just don't tick the "Teacher" box

On the up side for me I kind of managed to fluke it at the weekend. I took Capita's original, edited it then went into my report, created a new blank template and copied and pasted in and it seems to have worked. For now... I removed all the fileds from the report that I wasn't using and that seemed to help (I think). It's not flashy but it conveys the info at the moment. I'll have a look through the documentation for later when I need to improve it. It helps when you are only implimenting a small amount of data I'll be honest, I'm not 100% convinced that I know what I'm doing I've sort of lucked into it. Still it meets my immediate deadline and gives me some breathing room to learn it better. Thanks for the advice.

@Kiran/Cam - Vikpaw has answered my question with me having to type out the same longwinded explanation @Vikpaw. Thanks for the advice and the PDF. I'll have a big long read through and see how I get on. If it wasn't for the fact that you need all the contacts for each student it would be a relatively easy mail mergre!! I got close but suffered from that tables merging rubbish. Looks like I've got some work then!

Hi there, I'm trying to produce my own data collection sheet for our School, and I'm struggling. I've looked into copying the report that's there but it won't save my changes. When I create my own from scratch i can't seem to get the data into the form. Part of my problem is that I can't seem to find any documents on how to edit RTF templates. Also support net KB27742 says "don't edit the data collection sheet template". So bearing in mind I want to get rid of the fileds that are not relevant and generally brand the form can anyone give me some advice on pointers on documentation to read. Cheers.

Never had a proble with compression or the length of time it took to create them. I am not happy backup compression has gone

Could you numerically name the files and then just incrament the number e.g. Monday = 1 Tuesdy = 2 and so on?

Thought I'd just bump this as I'm still stumpted. Anyopne else set the background via Group Policy? Did it work fine?

I beleive that there's a clubs/activities/extra cirrucular module in the works for SIMS. Basically does attendence/cover for non lesson things. Can't remember when it's out though I know there will be a cost for it.

Currently Acrobat Pro 8 (though I've got a 9 licence just not updated it). Fireworks (from Creative Suite 3) and I can get access to Photoshop CS3, Photoshop Elements 7 and Microsoft Digital Image 10 (now obsolete, Cheers Microsoft!) I did know it needed to be a PNG for the transparent backgrounds and to be honest I've got a good quality JPG as well but I need the transparent background to put it over random pictures.

OK, Slight update. When I log in as my test user the background is, initially, displayed OK. The desktop and taskbar are loaded and the background flickers (refreshes) and then the image is rubbish. When I log off the rubish image clears displays a perfect one then the computer logs off. It's as though it's doing thing properly then for some reason putting a rubbish background over the top.

I've got an image of our College crest in an eps format. When I open it in Photoshop/Fireworks it recognises the transparent background but for some reason the quality is rubbish when you resize the image. If I open it in Acrobat (8) then the picture is fine but for some reason doesn't recognise the transparent background when I save it as a JPG/PNG. (We are now on half term and I don't have an art department to pester for photoshop help) Help.

One of our applied Business exams is a bit like this. I time restricted/computer restricted the locked down accounts and then they had a week to do it during set times. However... I can't begin to explain how much of a pain it is/was especially when people are off sick! The best recomendation is to change exam board to one where you don't have to do it. (I think we may be looking at that!)

I'm trying to specify the background on my computer accross the network. I nip into GP and set "Turn on Clasic Shell" to disable then enable "Active desktop" and then specify my background. No whilst this works for some reason mu background image pixelates. I go in as admin and specify the same background manually and it looks fine. Why? And how do I specify my background? What is going wrong?

Something that I thought would be easy but apparently isn't... I want to put a person's Domain username into the footer of Word documents in my default tempate but I can't see how. I can pick up the "Office username" but that could be changed. Any ideas?

To be honest I'm not sure most peoplke know how to change the default font There will be a few office staff exempt from this, it's mostly for the pupil's teachers. Still at least it lets me copy a word template which has a person's username ghosted into the footer.

I've been asked if I can alter the default font on all the computers around the school (it's a image thing, just go with it). Now I'm wondering how to do that. So far I've come up with two ideas: 1: Set the templates on the server and then re-direct the users 2: Set the templates on the server and copy into their profile at login. I was wondering if there is a third option such as being able to set it through a GPO or if anyone else has any ideas. I don't think option 1 is that viable as last time I tried it Word complained as I wouldn't let the users write to my template. 2 is possible though will slow the login down a little. I probably need to do this for Word, powerpoint and Excel but it's jusst a case of copying the appropiate template. Any suggestions.

It's good to know Cheers!

Just curious really. Everybody really want's a printer in their classroom so that life is convieninet. But those small deskjet printers are far from econimical when compared to the big network printers/photocopiers. To that end we've just decided to stop supplying them and route all printing to our ICT suites/Staff workroom. We are going to keep those that we have and then simply not replace them when they break. I know people are going to sulk and complain so I was wondering what setup other had? Do you use lots of small printers, is everything sent to one monster print room?

Hi there. Not you don't need 2008 server. I've got it running fine on my XP/Win2K3 server network. you do need the following 1: GPP Clients Side Extensions installed on all the machines (download through WSUS or maunally) 2: A windows Vista/Win7 Machine 3: The Remote Server Administration ToolKit (RSAT) running on the above machine. Basically install RSAT on the Vista/Win7 machine and then use the Group Policy Managemnet to configure the preferences. Feel free to PM me if you want some more info.

IE8's on the servers (and my machine). I thought the Group Policies were loaded from the ADM(X) files?, Aren't Group Policy Preferences seperate? Either way I still only seem to have the ability to create preferences for IE 5/6 and 7. There are some minor differences in the optiuons screen in 8, notably in the tabs section.

Just a quicky, 2K3 servers, XP network and CES's installed. Vista machine for me and I'm using the RSAT. My question is in GP prefenences I can create preferences for IE 6 and 7. Will it work with IE 8? If not how do I make it?

Have a look for a program called DSADD (It's a windows server componenet and there should be plenty of info on Microsoft's website) Combine it with some excel work and away you go.

I've found windows explorer occasionally fails to show network drives yet they are there if you open a program (e.g. Word) and goto file ==> open @elsiegee40 - If you run a network with local profiles there really should be nothing in the local profile that needs saving (with the possible exception of outlook data files depending on your opinions) IMO. If your users don't realise this, train them!