Fazza

Looks like Poundland (unlike a lot of what it sells) is going to be sold for £1 https://metro.co.uk/2025/05/17/poundland-to-sold-1-hundreds-stores-facing-closure-23105233/

We replace sever hundred keyboards each year in our Secondary school and it's all down to classroom management and accountability - no one will take responsibility for any of the Computer Suites as they are used by more than one department. Our Technician was in a computer suite once and a student reported (to the Teacher) that the keyboard they were using had keys in missing, so our Technician thought he was about to be asked to replace it but no! The Teacher simply replied to the Student saying they should use a PEN to press down the membrane where there was a missing key!!

The MFDs our MPS uses have toner tubes that are simply plastic tubes full of toner so nothing like the HP Toner Cartridges we currently use. They provide large cardboard boxes to store the empty ones in and then take them away for free when full. I assume this saves them money on buying new ones as they can simply re-fill them with toner. I've asked our Technician to let me know when he tries out infotone for the first time so I can update you all to let you know how we get on with them.

Not quite got enough to justify a collection yet - should be soon though. We have found a more permanent solution to our toner problem - out of the blue they've decided to go for a Managed Print Solution so in the summer all 50+ printers are being replaced with a dozen or so MFDs!! I'll update you all when we give infotone a try...

When you get the message saying you are ineligible, click on the link to request a eligibility key and then TICK/check the top 3 boxes on the web page and then scroll down and as if by magic some more boxes appear which you then fill in with your School Name and DfE number along with an email address and within a few minutes a key should be emailed to you. Good Luck.

Funny how on Census day we're all getting eligibility key errors saying we're ineligible to run the Census! It's not like it's important to any of us...

Looks like they have changed their support desk. We've been trying to get a problem fixed for weeks now and just going around in circles trying to contact them. I bet their current jobs logged is at an all time low as people are struggling to get in touch with them, they must think they are so amazing that they have little or no support calls logged on the system! Hopefully someone will work out that the real reason is people are struggling to get in touch with them.

Thanks for that. The weird thing is, before and after the install Word is still the default App for .docx files, it's just that because a new app that can also open them has been installed it's giving the prompt. I'll take a look at your link and see if it works or not. Thanks!

We have MS Office 2019 onwards installed on most of our computers. I'm currently testing installing LibreOffice so that when Publisher is EOL in October 2026 users can still open Publisher files as although Publisher will continue to work, we will actually be uninstalling it so we can retain our Cyber Essentials accreditation. On my test VM, now that LO is installed I get prompted to Select and app to open any MS Office files such as Word as well as Publisher. Is there a way to stop this from happening as I can envisage our users clicking on LibreOffice when they try to open a Word file?! I'm installing LO via SCCM/MECM in the Software Center using /qn /norestart switches

Thanks for the luck! I asked for advice. I was given advice. I took said advice. I said which advice I was taking to prevent people giving me advice that was no longer required as a decision was made. Sorry if you feel like your advice has fallen on deaf ears but a decision has already been taken from the previous advice given as clearly documented in this thread.

I've spoken to nearly a dozen admin people I know to use Publisher and all said they had been made aware that Publisher was ending sometime next year (they couldnt remember it was October) and not a single one (just like me) had saved any as PDFs. LibreOffice is a 2 minute Silent Install so I will put it in the Software Center in SCCM/MECM - unless of course you know something I dont and LibreOffice is going to be unsupported soon too?...

This needs to be done before October 2026 - what I'm talking about is what to do with the files that people didnt save as PDF files after Octover 2026. I can't imagine anyone going through years and years of publisher files and batch converting them just in case - I know I have loads of Publisher files on my PC and I've not done this to a single one and nor do I intend to as I don't have the time! LibreOffice is the way forward for us.

To retain our Cyber Essentials accreditation (that we pay annually for) we cannot use any unsupported software so we're not going to look at work arounds of still using Microsoft Publisher as this would be a slippery slope to all the other unsupported software we have had to remove from our computers. We told all staff in emails and in the Trusts newsletter several times that Publisher will go EOL in 2026 so they've not have 2 weeks notice, nor 2 months but at least 2 years to stop using it and find an alternative!

Thanks, but I doubt they would pass a DPIA so I think we're going to go down the route of LibreOffice as at least you can easily edit a Publisher file this way.

Thanks for the quick replies! I've installed both Scribus and LibreOffice and I am now uninstalling Scribus! On the two Publisher files I tested they both opened up in Scribus but lots of things were missing including several duplicated images (why some were displayed and others not I've no idea) and WordArt was just a placeholder. In LibreOffice Draw both Publisher files opened up and all images/clipart were displayed correctly as was 99% there as the only thing missing was the WordArt parts. My question now is, can you install LibreOffice Draw on it's own or do you have to install the whole thing? If you can just install LibreOffice Draw, is there a silent install command?

We have Microsoft Publisher installed on all of our Staff and Student computers. We are a Cyber Secure Essentials accredited MAT and to remain so all installed software must be supported by the manufacture with updates etc. so as of October 2026 we will have to stop using MS Publisher. We're preparing for this now by no longer installing Publisher as part of our software builds so if a computer gets re-imaged via SCCM/MECM then Publisher will no longer be part of it and will only be installed as a last resort when requested and we will block the .exe as soon as it has gone EOL. We've been warning staff for many months now so they are all fully aware of what's going on. Using my magic IT Services Crystal Ball I predict that at some point after it has gone EOL someone will need to open up a .pub publisher file as it will contain 'urgent' information. How can they open up a .pub files without using Microsoft Publisher? Microsofts answer is to convert it to a PDF file BEFORE October 2026! Unless we invent a time machine we wont be able to do that so is there an Open Source program that can handle the opening of .PUB files?

GeoBook

sunrise

Just done it for our Secondary Academy - oddly some of our Primary Academies are not listed.

We too have an AI policy but I'm not aware of any specific training going on in our Academies reminding people not to use identifiable data like peoples names etc. they're just being left to get on with it and it's my guess that only when it goes wrong will the policy be dusted off during a disciplinary!

The mechanism will be Windows Updates and the MAK keys you will be given will change your OS from Windows 10 to Windows 10 with Supported Updates (or some such name that Microsoft decide) so when Windows checks for updates it will send whatever the name Microsoft call it to the Windows Updates server and then give you all the available Windows 10 updates. The key will expire on a certain date (365 days after purchase) when you'll then need to buy some more at double the price and so on.

I thought you said it was an individual license key for each device? You'd need to use something like the VAMT (Volume Activation Management Tool) to individually assign the MAK keys you'll be given?

I was wondering how Microsoft would know if you'd paid for the support or not and now we know! It'll be fun assigning a different license key for each device - hope you don't have too many to do.

Wish we had your budget then! 😉 One of our Hypervisors has two 36 core CPUs so that's ((72x1.5)x12) - a whopping £1,296 a year for updates that don't require a reboot! It's not what I would call affordable and that's just one of our servers...

I wonder if it will be included as part of a licensing subscription and only paid for separately if a business etc. has purchased an OEM license or such like?