minimoo

I hit that issue when upgrading a few weeks ago - and the thread discussing it on microsoft's forum has 5 pages of replies @ Outlook issues following upgrade to Windows 10 Pro - Microsoft Community You'd think that part of the "upgrade" would be to "run" the equivalent of sfc /scannow - or well, I can imagine people have corruption pre-upgrade, but you'd think the upgrade process would fix any corrupt files

Sounds like a case of having a good look logon script logging / xperf output - 60 minutes sounds like it's hit a group policy processing timeout - so it should be possible to work out at what stage. Also, have a look at the gpsvc.log files and make sure you are not having the issue or a similar to the one described @ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2020286

I saw you had sorted this yesterday - so didn't comment until now - your fix/issue explains why I'd seen similar . We have both 2008+2012 installed on our sql box for various reasons, and i'm pretty sure when we migrated from 2008->2012 we did a 32bit->64bit migration also between an old and new server. I suspect I hit a similar /same issue a few years ago

what's under the details? I've seen similar errors before when running dbattach, and normally relate to having something set up not the way sims expect or using a different user account to what sims expect from memory. check you are running dbattach for sims not fms check what account sql server is running under - I normally end up setting this to what I deem secure, and that being different to what capita analysts go for. are you logging in to dbattach as a sims user or a windows user - try both. could try running sysinternal's process monitor and see if that shows up any access denied's Although, may be quickest for the sims helpdesk to answer

My understanding was that applocker was windows 7 and above. SRP only worked on XP and below. I might be wrong here, but those thoughts are backed up by https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee424371(v=ws.10).aspx So Applocker would seem to be the only choice Only thing that's interesting about that page is there is a note from microsoft saying using different GPO's for applocker vs srp rules

The pre-admission pupils case was why we stole that ID

when I've exported data from sims and wanted a unique id for a student, i've often used the sims database person_id that used to be part of their 3rd party reporting toolkit, but i think is now built into sims if you have the right roles within system manager - on the basis that's more likely to be a auto-number field in sql and stay unique [both upn's/uln's and admission numbers can potentially change in the case of an error - less so with admission numbers, but capita did use to have a patch to let you remove an incorrect admission number about 5 years ago] I've taken the view that the person_id in sims is least likely to get changed, most likely to identify a unique student|staff|contact record - albeit, can only be used with the report designer, and as it's not visible anywhere in the UI or externally to sims, is semi-sensible to use @PhilNeal - assuming MSSQL does not do something silly - what's your view on using this field to link data sets?

what do you guys do for backups ?

also, registry key?? my understanding was it was in bcdedit in 2008/R2: https://blog.uvm.edu/jgm/2010/11/04/tuning-microsoft-pxe-tftp/ https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731245(WS.10).aspx#BKMK_41 and moved to the GUI in windows 2012: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dn163597.aspx Only thing to remember with the tfp size, you might find some NIC's don't like it. I remember increasing ours and finding certain machines stopped wanting to install so finding a middle ground. I've noticed sometimes that the litetouch boot feels slow, but given MDT task sequence run time is about 25 minutes (if ssd at least), i'm not sure I care.

I'm a bit late to the party, but as it's a USB device, you could also set up a network drive path to be searched @ https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd919224(v=ws.10).aspx

For the bit once the litetouch.wim is loaded, you might find Reducing Windows Deployment time using Power Management - The Deployment Guys - Site Home - TechNet Blogs speeds up the next stage. How big is the litetouch file ?

we download products we run + win7, 8.1, 2008R", 2012R2, and download all classifications apart from drivers + hotfix currently and the wsus content folder is sitting at 50GB currently. However, I think the point here is thinking about what wsus cleans up - i've recently gone for the approach or running a cleanup for everything but *not* removing computers not contacting the server, and then looking at the PC's that never "check in" and fixing windows updates on them / getting them out the cupboard and turning them on etc for the oldest ones on a 'rolling program' wsus will delete the content files that take space for updates that are expired, or aren't needed by computers for 30 days or more and if they are superseded. My rational for not clearing the computers contacting the server automatically - is if a pc isn't used for 50 days, it'll get cleaned up out of wsus, but when it comes back in, the updates that got cleaned up will suddenly become needed. Therefore, i've gone for running a script that does a SQL query if a PC isn't seen for 90 days - and then I go and find PC and turn it on, or if it's something i've just forgotton to delete from the AD/WSUS, clear the record out manually. If you are not changing computer names on re-install, manually deleting the 30 pc's that get scrapped each year isn't too much work, and dealing with the PC's that aren't getting used doesn't take long as most pc's are used, and is one method of identifying if there's stock within the school that can be better utilized.

intouch update came out last night which fixed warning message we were getting and no issues noticed yet today - in fact, thinking about it - I didn't have any staff complain that sims didn't update! Biggest complaint so far seems to be from office staff with how it displays messages within intouch - "I dont want to have to check my intouch messages and school messages in two places as that takes time" has changed to "I don't want to see school (other) messages when i'm trying to check my intouch messages" -> @PhilNeal maybe you could allocate the developers who have fixed solus to adding BBC - Future - ‘I emailed a message between two brains’ support to intouch to fix this for autumn?

well, update went fine. Logged two support cases after the update - one for intouch - which might just be it needs until 2 am to update the services in service manager (although was showing no updates available for us earlier) and one for cover - which given we dumped in a whole bunch of room/staff changes to happen from monday, might not be related to the update

It seems sims have withdrawn the summer release from solus. We had arranged and told all staff we would be deploying it this afternoon (as the school is closed today). Anyone know if the reason for withdrawing the release from all customers is just that it got pushed to the LA's and will reappear shortly, or has a serious issue been identified with the release?

If you set enablecharging="False" on PT-1, that will stop any new charging periods from appearing. Paul

In terms of 2: you should be able to add: a) check Lessons for break lunch are named exactly as i've got (or change) i.e. condition2="Break" . I think resource.Type Laptops is built in. busy(Break) busy(Lunch) The above 2 rules there are 'preprocessing' so don't change the xml file of bookings, but should put in a 'dummy' busy booking for break / lunch periods for laptops only. As they don't change the bookings.xml, you should be able to take a quick backup of the xml files, apply it live and hit refresh and see it straight away. And in terms of your other bit - as Nick implies, do you have a mismatch going on here that 2 of the trolleys are set to EnableCharging=False and one the other way around or vice versa

Sounds about right - we are using our HID readers + rfid's network card reader as a solution, and working on whether that's stable - hence the question.

we use konica's + hid cards (with a network card reader) What's your card reader setup? is it the konica reader(s) or similar to us?

NT6 files are normally stored @ s:\sims\snova\nt6\ - .spl files are the saves. the other files $spdb or similar i think are temporary backups/saves - so it's the .spl file you would want to sent to someone. Probably worth finding out from contractor what they need/want. i.e. if you send them last years final file they might be able to load that and run the transfer curriculum tool themselves. For example - NT6 stores a seperate list of staff to sims - I normally add new staff manually in NT6. ( I'm not sure if the Data->Refresh base data from sql will do this - as i've never actually used that button in my life that I recall ) . Who's job is it to make sure the list of staff is correct for instance

Are pink panda and snell related ? @vikpaw - equally, I've said i'm happy explain to skell what we've(I've) done for last 14 years of using sims. We get to deal with lovely school census and the works - however, the 'early curriculum' is a different matter outside what we do -> where sims uses NT6/Course manager for the school census for learning aims (although how that works changes on a yearly basis) and you use sims for results analysis, it becomes important to be clear with what you are doing. Otherwise you'll end up with a nightmare with census return in October. I'm guessing census' don't apply to you?

This strikes me as they might just be after a NovaT6 file. SIMS: has new academic year in + students etc NT6: has rooms / teachers / subjects in. Contractor takes blank nt6 file, designs timetable and gives result back to school. Someone (either school or contractor) when at school ensures students are allocated to classes etc so that the timetable is complete and usable. When i'm looking at starting new timetable etc, I tend to : Create new academic year in sims, setup pastoral promotion paths (for years at least), Run Nova-T6, Load Data Set containing current timetable, Select Data | Transfer Curriculum. At that point you make some decisions about what classes/structure to carry forwards from previous year. Then I export to options, sort out AS/GCSE choices, and import from options back into NT6. Personally, I'm thinking what's in NT6 somewhere around that point would be the sort of thing i'd expect the contractor to be picking up - i.e. decisions around what classes to run and what gets blocked against what are done. But then I'm thinking I would probably want to be involved during that process...

setups folder isn't required if using solus3 right? "I've managed to recover the majority of our files but they've lost their folder structure. I've recovered the connect.ini etc..." --> when you say that..... how? i.e. are you saying you've done some NTFSUndelete type thing (i.e. recovered files could be corrupt in some cases?)

I think the issue here is to have an understanding of sims and also who does what within the school. In the old days - *before* Nt6/sims.net - yes i'm going back 10 years or whatever. The design of sims was that there was a clear "academic year". Now, it's more fluid in terms of date ranges - As an example we created next year's academic year in sims back in December. So now, we have a whole step of processes that someone needs to have done before 1st September to ensure things go smoothly next year. I've effectively been co-ordinating this at my place for a number of years, and every now and again have hit an issue in july or september - as we've got caught out on something (in some cases things that sims didn't do, but now handles automatically) Capita's handbook on it does a nice list of tasks, some of which make sense for the IT person to help with - others e.g. "Print Registers for OMR for new year" if applicable, I'd expect someone in the office is already doing. One of the issues I find is whether the other staff remember what they did 12 months previously @CAM - "Start prodding people for class lists you need this data for over summer. Each student needs to be promoted (starting with Y12 and working down otherwise Y7 will get promoted to Y8 then into Y9 when you promote Y8, etc)." ??? really?? Pretty sure i've never had to do anything in a set order - we are talking academic groups here right and not pastoral?

Manny, Assuming you are on the lates version, the rule file I use is: busy(UNAVAILABLE) busy(Lunch) busy(Not Available) bookcharging(booking.NextLesson(),Resource.ChargingPeriods) bookcharging(booking.NextLesson(),Resource.ChargingPeriods) bookunavailable(booking.PreviousLesson(),-1)) Let me just explain what that does for me: There's 3 "PreProcess" rules - these control when people are allowed to book without having to put a booking the xml file. Rule 1: Don't allow bookings on the same day i.e. BookingData is Now and if the resource is a laptop trolley. This stops a teacher booking a trolley of laptops once the IT team have planned their day. Rule 2: Don't allow laptops to be booked when everyone is eating lunch Rule 3: Don't allow laptops to be booked when everyone has gone home The 4th rule is a default rule for loan objects - we don't use this so not sure why I tweaked from default. The 5th rule is a booking rule and puts stuff in the XML file. If someone books a chargable device, and it's not a loan, the book the next lesson as a charging period, and mark the previous lesson as unavailable - in our case, give us time to move trolley into place and equally, make sure we don't run out of charge mid lesson by having a break. We have 40 minute lessons, so works in our case. So the question is what you need to achieve: What is the structure of your school day - e.g. : P1,2, Break, P3, P4, Lunch, P5, after school When would you want staff to be able to book laptops ? i.e. if they book P2, would you want to not allow P1, but allow P3? Do you have 'double' lessons?