superfletch

You can modify the first page (homepage) so that more relevant information is displayed, go to configure near the top of the homepage area. May be appropriate to display only the School Diary or similar for particular users.

A few of us here are really giving Chrome a hard time, it's easy to forget that the thing was released to the gen public as still being a beta 2.0 version (or am I wrong). It was therefore our own choice to use it and as IT people we were suckered in and chose to (One - nil Google). To me it seems to be a browser especially for speed. I also run Firefox 3 and IE7 on my laptop which is old and as slow as a big lumbering slow thing (excellent metaphore), Google Chrome has made the internet worthwhile again. On my Quad core PC it runs like lightening off a shiny shovel. The process management is great for when one page starts to respond or behave in an unexpected manner and quality searching from the address bar is just great. I can see the security thing, it remembers passwords and therefore one can only assume other data far too easily (I'm sure i didn't tell it to remember some that stuff it has). I'm sure the people at Google will sort that out when the thing is no longer a Beta. Strange how some people report a problem with PDf's and for others it is fine, one of the guys at work said the same thing but mine was ok, I did have a problem with some of the links on particulr websites to begin with but I think that was the web page I was using at the time as I haven't seen it again since. My 2p, 'its sweet'

You've already done yourself a massive favour as it's now reporting 4Gb space, but u could grab a ghost/acronis image of the thing, (obviosly test that its good on another PC), then whack in a new (big) HDD and either straigt up image it on the box concerned or stick the image on a virt box within the server concerned, then rename the existing physical server. lol - had a few beers now (dutch courage) - wouldn't really want to try that myself, but its possible.

I think but not sure, (please someone correct me if I'm way off here)... SIMS can be backed up in more than one way via the utilities provided in the Binn folder, the non zipped files you can see are likely a result of: A backup not designed to zip the files after backing them up, OR A backup which times out whilst zipping the files (u see this on big DB's sometimes even when the Server spec is reasonably good). Because the zipping fails it leaves them in the backup folder in an unzipped state - fair enough as you want your backup available (as they are restored from the non zipped state anyway) but its a pain for storage. You could set an automated script deployed by the task scheduler to backup the DB, and then create another batch, VB or autoit script which will (again using scheduled task) delete your SIMS backups once they are a certain number of days old. SIMS causes me some major headaches, but I still like it. SF

Did you do that on the server hosting SIMS or from a Client? If a client then try from the server instead. If you interrogate the actual folder where the backups are stored are there loads of them? (This folder will be on Server in Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.x\MSSQL\Backup) You could try moving a large number of them to another location temporarily and see if this sorts out the problem? I can't find anything in the KB.

I'm not certain but I'm guessing the upgrade to SIMS .net is trying to make changes to the tempSIMSrpt and or mysimsdocuments folders that SIMS stores in a users my documents folder? If the path expected in the user profile to my docs and what SIMS is expecting differ then maybe this could be a conflict.

Won't fix the problem (and you've probably already done this) but have you tried just tidying a few backups at once rather than lots in one hit? Seems to help on some systems.

Hi there, Thanks to all of your replies on this subject, especially the information about latency from Synack and Tom, I'll get wireshark installed and have a look. A couple of the apps will definately add extra latency, the remote support one videos what is going on all the time so I reckon that will. Genuinely, thanks.

I'd say thats about right. You'd really want a dedicated workstation for the admin officer (or rebuild the existing one after migrating the data). I guess the Server would become a Member Server on the usual school domain but you would use it only for SIMS, perhaps some file serving and maybe some other non-pupil apps (I remember a while back we both posted on a classroom monitor thread - that, or similar apps could go there I guess)? In addition to what Mcshammer_dj said if you go for a Dell Server which you spec from their website you can make sure it is expandable and therefore even more future proof!!

Hello, Sorry if this kind of thing has been posted already but I have had a good search and can't find what I'm after. I'd like to know if anyone knows of any good (and preferably free) applications which can be installed on a single machine to monitor how much bandwidth different applications are demanding and can produce (or at least help produce) half decent reports. I'll explain why... I work for a LA rather than in school we've moved office recently and it's been proposed that a lot of our support team will use a wireless network connection to do day to day support due to very limited availability of wired network points in the new building. (We've already had our knuckles rapped from corporate IT for installing a switch and been told to remove it). Our wireless has just gone live and I've noticed a serious drop in the performance of certain apps:sick:. I'd really like to be able to report on the impact it has upon our key applications. To do this I need to be able to demonstrate how much bandwidth those applications eat on the wired network and then compare it to the wireless. Some of our applications are fairly bandwidth intensive such as Remote support, a call logging SQL database, networked SIMS, FTP's etc which is why I want to be able to itemise the usage of particular applications. Anyone know then of a good app which will tell me how much bandwidth any of my greedy applications are gobbling at a given time? TIA

Do you use SIMS? If you do and everyone has access to it the school diary could be a starting point?

Thanks dhicks, _RunDos has worked now - It took me quite a while to get it there though, I kept missing bits of my commands. It's also a lot neater than calling the cmd file as I don't have the dirty old Dos window appearing!!

Thanks folks, What it currently does is assign the password as a variable from the AutoIt GUI, then uses send(the variable) to type it into the cmd file. What you're saying is to stick with that but get AutoIt to pass the password as a variable into a parameter within the batch file, perhaps using the filewriteline command?

Hello there, Does anyone know how you can get a DOS (batch/cmd) file to hide or produce asterisks for certain characters when a user inputs them? What I'm doing uses a combination of AutoIt and cmd files. My AutoIt code takes a password from a user (which is asterisked out when they type it into the GUI) and passes it back into a cmd file. I can't find a way to asterisk out the input from AutoIt into the cmd file though. I tried using the _RunDos command in AutoIt but I can't tell if the cmd file is working like that as I need to see if the cmd file returns any errors. Does anyone know a way I can do this? (Preferably without using third party software).

Bit of a guess here as I'm not great with AutoIt: Perhaps try $objUser.SetPassword (GUICtrlRead & ($passbox))

I see that there is obviously a problem related to the upgrade but can I suggest the following area in GP may be some help? User Config, Windows Settings, Internet Explorer Maintenance, Connection, Proxy Settings, Then go to the exceptions part on the right hand side. Don't know if it helps?

I had a somewhat similar problem to this in a school with a Dell Latitude 610 (I think) only this was on the Wired Adapter. It was basically disabling the Wired Network adapter when it was not in use for about 5 minutes or more. I then had to go into Device manager - re-enable the Wired Network Adapter and it would be okay. I subsequently found (after it did the same thing again) that there was an option somewhere when I went to Network Conn's then Right Clicked and chose properties which told the thing to turn off (disable itself) after a set period of inactivity, the damn thing was then disappearing rather then just being greyed out. This opion was being touted as some kind of clever power saving idea... Might be worth a look anyway? Also I've now forgotten what you wrote in your original post but have you checked the website for any revised drivers (this could have been a known issue).

You could just start writing the folder name and use tab!! Sorry couldn't help it.

Restoreui has worked for me in similar situations recently - it's worth a go.

Hate to point this out, you don't have a working system... Just a thought but you did say you'd mapped SIMS as a shared folder in your first post, could it be that you have shared from the SIMS folder itself so instead of achieving S:\SIMS you're getting S:\ and then all the SIMS subfolders? Also, have you tried: Detaching the DB, Stopping the SQL Server, Deleting the SIMS.mdf and ldf from in the Data folder, Starting the SQL Server, Rebooting, (Oviously go and get a cuppa), Then once all that is done run the Capita restore routine to get your Database in: Use DBAttach /restoreui (from the appropriate directory of course). - To do this you'll need to have had the latest SIMSSQLApplicationSetup.exe run already. (DBAttach /restoreui is used to attach a database which you made a backup of on your old hardware but it is sure to put the logins in properly.) Failing this I reckon it could be an issue with the laptop not liking its own name (vaguely remember some bodge around with a hosts file a few years back), try enabling the Microsoft Loopback Adapter through Control Panel | Add Hardware, then using the loopback IP address (127.0.0.1) in the connect.ini. If all else fails and they are both similar processors you could just image it!!

Just skimmed over this forum and it made me chuckle, I really liked some of those older errors. Whats annoying about the reason 2 error is that it actually used to say, SQL Server does not exist or access denied which was more obvious to resolve. On the other hand however I've been moving a few SIMS and FMS installations from PC's to Servers recently using converted FMS databases and I've found that the error messages have been quite helpful telling me exactly whats missing or what app to run to resolve my issue. A shame this can't be so good all the time.

"That won't add them to the start menu" Why not? cause you're using the classic menu I suppose? can you use folder redirection instead and just add in a Internet shortcuts / favourites folder?

Group Policy User Config | Windows Settings | Int Exp Maintenance | URL's | Favorites and links.

@ LeMarchand - Sorry didn't read your post properly... still Cat 5 gotta be the quicker though if you went crossover / straight through?

@HodgeHi / DosBox, Best bit of s/w for imaging over the LAN I've found is Acronis TruImage (v11) you load the Boot CD / DVD and can basically browse the network for wherever you've stored the image files. (There are a couple of issues like it won't put \'s in from the keyboard - you need to copy and paste them) but apart from that it is awesome and FAST!! EDIT - Did a Primary school suite of 20 PC's in under 3hrs (including all the classroom/laptop traffic getting in the way) I found that fairly suite - geddit... suite!! - EDIT @ LeMarchand - "an ext HDD does the job a lot faster than using DVDs or the ancient network in one of my schools" Surely thats just the "ancient network" though aint it? Cat 5 Ethernet is way faster than any external HDD isn't it? I haven't had the luxury of trying an SATA Ext HDD yet but USB 2 seems a great deal slower than ethernet overall.