superfletch

GREED is right about Server 2008 R2 - that won't be supported until the Autumn upgrade is applied. I had a similar error message to this in a primary but I think it was down to the Server having multiple editions of SQL installed on it some with several instances (they went way back to the old MSDE for SQL 2000). I had to uninstall a load of the old and unused SQL Editions and instances and then it went through OK. Your problem sounds different though because it is a new box so it shouldn't have those kinds of legacy issues. Some ideas: Are you using a Windows account or a SQL (eg SA) account to perform the migration? Basically whichever you're doing try the other one. Is UAC turned on? How did you copy the database from Server 1 to Server 2 (did you remember to switch the SQL service off first). If you look at the properties for the SQL Server Service - what account is it running under (Local system is usually best - although not necessarily the most secure). Can you run the repair routine on SQL 08? (find it from the start menu and head to the installation / maintenance centre thingy). Hope you get through it.

My 2p, hope I haven't missed the point. As people have said here, employ a proper helpdesk system that is easy for the end user to use. Ultimately when people log requests giving little or no useful information, you just throw an email at them asking for more detail and not really doing anything until they provide you with that, where a real problem exists people will soon work it out. Key things with a helpdesk app' are - Icon on the desktop that takes them to logging an incident (preferably with a login), The application needs to help you in identifying the probem - i.e. it tells or even forces the user to enter a description of the fault and eqipment / software involved. You can update cases at your end. You can get statistics about logged incidents (helps identify staff training needs). Look for a solution that lets you email from within the helpdesk application back to the user with a problem. It's also important that machines all around school are clearly labelled so people can report faults acuurately. You need to get the head / SLT to support you in this (to help secure this point out the accountability / audit trail type features the helpdesk product can offer and if there are reporting features etc) Roll the helpdesk out to the most able users first (staff and kids) as a trial and get feedback from them. During this period you can learn how to monitor it properly and find any changes you might want to make. Go live for real and promote it throughout the school as much as you can encouraging people to use the helpdesk over other methods wherever possible. Once it is being used you'll want to treat incidents logged by the helpdesk system as higher priority (except in genuinely desperate cases) so that people get used to getting a quicker answer from the helpdesk. Finally don't accept incidents logged any other way.

I agree it would be a good feature, this exists on other forums and is a nice way to see if the answer is there or not. Also tend to agree with localzuk that only the OP (or perhaps a mod) should be the person / people who can declare it solved. Dare I say it - even a solved posts number at the bottom of peoples profiles??!??!? Actually scrap the last bit - I'd be firmly on zero!!

Funny I've generally seen SQL2008 improve response times, this is particularly noticeable with FMS. At the moment I'm going out moving it from SQL'05 to SQL'08 every single day in primary schools with varying systems. (As always the very first load time is slow on each workstation when compared with subsequent loads better - SQL '08 does feel quicker though). I agree with Creese as well, if Sophos is what you use for an AV solution it does seem to slow things up a lot, particularly on the times SIMS needs to do a local workstation upgrade. However this was the case under SQL '05 - you just need to add the right exceptions. Go for teejays suggestion too, it increases the size of the DB a tiny amount but usually reaps a benefit. I know you said the Server isn't the issue but some thoughts on it nonetheless: Firewall settings - make sure all the ports and the application are specifically defined as exceptions. Is the SIMS specific instance of SQL2005 still running? If so stop and disable it, if possible uninstall it. Relevant to the above point are the workstations connect.ini's right or is redirection via the 2005 instance being used? NB - What I mean here is that you may have changed the main connect.ini (eg - S:\SIMS\Connect.ini) but local ones in "C:\Program Files\SIMS\SIMS .net" might still be hitting the 2005 instance and redirecting from there. Is the new 2008 instance you are using express or full and what was the old instance? If it is the full SQL, have you looked at the number of cores that SQL '08 is allowed to use for the SIMS specific instance and compared that to your old version? Coming off the back of the school hols have you had any major work done at all - are you noticing slower load speeds with any other applications? Sorry, this is a long list but I hope it gives you some ideas of where to look. The firewall thing is unlikely as I don't think SIMS would even open if there was anything amiss there. I hope you find the problem.

Thanks - thought I was missing something for a minute.

I'd agree with your initial thoughts, vmhost doesn't need to be domained and should be quite happy to grab an IP from srvr2 at boot. Having said that grab a quiet time and stick vmhost on the domain, reboot it and see what happens. *Is the static IP for vmhost reserved on srvr2? *Which is the original (first) DC out of srvr1 and srvr2? If it is srvr1 then perhaps there is an AD replication issue during the reboot process? Since AD can be closely tied to DNS, maybe this is the issue?? *Nothing to do with the network card settings on vmhost is it? - What VM s/w do you use?

Sorry - my post last night was unconsidered. Gizmo2005 summed up my real feelings about the death penalty, but not about this case. The death penalty should exist but only for really extreme stuff. The death penalty is obviously a very divisive issue and perhaps a can of worms I didn't mean to open. My statement was meant as a throw away comment to express my sheer disgust at this womans behaviour, but when you write things rather than say them it doesn't always come accross correctly. In response to the OP and subsequent comments. I don't think educating the kinds of people that do this sort of thing makes much difference. I don't work in a school full time, but you folks must know that there are certain people who will not pay a blind bit of attention to anything any teacher or person with some sort of authority tries to tell them. IMHO this doesn't change until these kinds of people reach their mid to late twenties or even their thirties, making rehab or education a non-option. Thinks to self - "Oh no here comes another 'out there' statement": Death is far too draconian and indeed I regret my silly comment yesterday. Gizmo isn't far off the mark with saying "stop them having children", I'd suggest that they are not "neutered" but any children spawned were automatically up for adoption?? Is that a really bad thing to say?? Good point about passive smoking tommej - I have a two year old boy, and I smoke. I never smoke when he is near me - in fact I never smoke when he awake. I certainly don't smoke in the house. My wife doesn't know I smoke. I feel so guilty on all fronts. Edugeek is my confession box. I'm just shocked someone could do what that woman did. THIS is even worse. OK - it's from the Sun, but still, the worst part in that link is the comment from Dad: "He looks pretty healthy to me. I don't see the problem."

This is why the death penalty should exist, having said that death is too good for some people.

I don't care what volume of electricity it consumes that bloke is having a giraffe. As for mobiles and laptops - who cares, what goes around comes around. Most people use their personal mobile for work when they have to and those with work mobiles will have to charge them at home occasionally. More interestingly has anyone here ever actually been asked to unplug a personal device - and if so what did they say??

Thanks for all your replies. I've installed iTunes 10 on the PC I'll be syncing the device to and so far I quite like it. Pretty sure I pointed it at my My Music folder and told it to manage stuff. Don't like the sound of all this re-importing malarky, guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Hi all, This is a bit of a simplistic question, but I'd like peoples views and perhaps some "top tips" here. I'm getting my wife an iPod touch for her birthday in a couple of weeks, I've never used an iPod before myself, although I've had loads of MP3 players and I'm more than happy with looking after a large collection of Music through Windows Media player. Since I've never used an iPod as such my questions are as follows: When moving music on and off the device do you have to install and use iTunes to manage this? Since we have a lot of music on MP3 stored on the home PC (WinXP) she will want to be able to stick a lot of that on the iPod from day 1. Will it be easy / possible to import existing MP3's into iTunes (or point iTunes at it) and just get started fairly quickly? Is iTunes freely (and legally) downloadable on the web that I could install it now and get the music imported prior to even getting the iPod - or do I have to wait until we have the iPod and install iTunes from a DVD? Using the AppStore - there are paid for and free apps. Are the free ones any good and roughly how much does a half decent paid for app retail at? What video file formats does an iPod touch support? What top tips do people have for managing their iPod touch devices? She is so exited about getting it I just don't want to be saying things like "it'll take a little while to sort that out", or "no you can't do that" etc etc. Thanks in advance.

Defo another vote for Supportnet.

In a primary school (who won't have any timetable module) the pastoral structure dictates which pupils (based on their year groups) can belong to which classes, it also sorts out what classes (class names) are valid throughout the year, and it is where you would associate a teacher with any given class. I'm not overly certain on the role of the pastoral structure in a secondary school, but I would have thought that it is used as a repository for the data from Nova T and then SIMS uses the pastoral structure as a reference for what goes where rather than having to go off to Nova every single time it needs to access the information. Since you do have the Nova module I would have thought all your changes should be being made there rather than in the PS. As to why the change isn't reflected in the staff timetable. Where do you go to get that once you have made the change, are you getting it from SIMS or going back to Nova? Just some thoughts.

Nice 1, congrats.

Phil, Just to clarify - wouldn't that be result sets?

I hate to state the obvious, but you are using actual Avery L7163 labels aren't you? Not a "very similar" set of 7x2 labels.

I've seen this a couple of times - always with OEM installations. A cheeky workaround is to install the component parts of SIMS individually rather than using SIMSInst.exe. ie - SIMSApplicationSetup.exe SIMSManualSetup.exe SIMSAmparkSetup.exe Obviously you'll need to know the right paths to install each of them to. Probably easier just to change the locale and then change it back though.

To check for documentation being ok open sims and on the homepage go to documentation near the top right. If this opens ok and you can navigate around the documentation centre then you're OK. (NB - you need the FULL adobe reader and not the light version). To check for Assessment (AMPARK) stuff. Go to "Focus | Assessment | Marksheet Entry" and then make sure it opens as normal. If AMPARK has not been run then it will prompt to update.

I'd add SIMSManualSetup (Help and How to docs) and SIMSAmparkSetup (Assessment Stuff) to what you're doing and providing you have the required infrastructure on workstations then I'm sure you'll be OK.

It may also be worth chaning your academic year to next year within SIMS. I think this is under Tools | Academic Management (I think) | Set Academic year. Just an idea.

I prefer to turn it off and uninstall SQL 2005 then if you have any users who get a problem you'll know about it straight away. That said it does seem to work well enough.

If you head to the Edugeek wiki there is some good info there... Reset the file permissions on homedrives - Wiki Doesn't really address your initial SubinACL query though!!

Yes import the latest report definitions by logging into SIMS and going to Reports | Import Browse to the SIMS .net Directory (it should open by default) and pick the file called PreDefined_Reports_v7132.RptDef You only need to do this once on either a workstation or the Server.

Certain configurations of RAID can also have a detrimental impact on speed with the data being spread over multiple disks. Moving to mirrored drives and even separating the MDF and LDf can help with this. Is anyone out there is running the SIMS Server on Solid State Disks? If so has it made a big difference or not? With SSD I'd expect to see vastly better read / access times but perhaps slower write access on big lumps of data, it's probably quite expensive too.

Installing it on a test box at home now. If it works out good I might consolidate my data onto it as a Home Server type device. Thanks for the tip off.