Ryan

Our ISA server (WinServer 2003) has stopped letting me RDP into it. (or ping, or anything) I've tracked it down to a corrupt Windows Firewall. It doesn't even start automatically on boot, and has to be started manually from Services. Any idea how to uninstall or otherwise reinstall the built-in firewall from scratch? Everything else is running fine.

That is an infuriating bug / 'feature'. Probably confuses countless thousands of people

Out of interest, what's your setup? Where's it pulling "Administrator" from? Lots of our staff use Excel spreadsheets in the same manner, but the dialog box always tells them the user account of the person who has it open.

thanks lads

Haven't dabbled with this, but probably should. I'll go ask Google for more details unless anyone wants to weigh in with any tips/advice on setting up Software Restrictions in GP?

Ooooh, nice. I'll give them a look when it comes time to shop again.

Went with 1:1 as there's no 1:4 We're a special/independent school with only a few (comparatively speaking) pupils.

@webman & Grommit Yup, net time \\servername /set /y

What sort of specs are you looking for? Also, it may be worth setting up a business account with Dell. If you say you want that amount of PCs, they're usually open to some negotiation or bung in some nice freebies. Feel free to haggle Our account manager is great, we get all our PC hardware from Dell now.

Dell sell cheap Dells Or some online retailers resell Dell systems. Dunno if they're new or reconditioned though. You bothered?

Yep, i have a logon script for both staff and young 'uns (writing to two files). Was looking for a more useful way of seeing who's doing what and where

Ah. Thanks lads, i won't worry about it too much then (it's not a bug, it's a "design feature" evidently...) WINS is installed, but as for configuration of it... Think i'll just leave it Which then leads me to my next question: I have been using this information to see who is currently logged on - what nice little bit of software should i be using to get a realtime snapshot of who's logged on and where?

Hi all, Non-critical, but was wondering... On our DC, in Computer Management > Shared Folders > Sessions, all current sessions are reported as a mixture of IP address and computer names, mostly IPs - why is this? Ideally, i'd like this to be populated with the computer name, as it obviously makes more sense to us humans. Anyone know how to remedy this, or at least troubleshoot further?

We lease ours. We used to have about 60 inkjets, a Heinz 57 mix of all sorts, from £20 HP desktop printers to more expensive Canon photo printers. After many trips to Cartridge World refilling the blighters, we bit the bullet and got shot of them all and replaced them with 40-odd colour and mono laser printers. As they're leased, all maintenance, parts, toner are included - i just send an email out for more toner and it comes next day normally. We have no interest in owning printers, what's the point? In a year or two, they'll replace them with brand new printers and it won't cost us any more. Full page A4 photo prints aren't bad at all - not as good as an inkjet obviously, but certainly acceptable for here. That's the only downside i can think of. Oh, and we're spending less on our lease than we were spending on ink every quarter

@dbrown You raise a very important point mate - should they be taught how to make sites before they understand how to use the web properly. How many kids click adverts to win an Xbox 360? (we'll ignore what happens next for now) Or type domain names into Google? @CyberNerd I still build from scratch Granted, i use Dreamweaver nowadays to speed up the process, but i still like to get my hands dirty. I like to know what's happening in the background. I distrust anything (Word, yes, i'm looking at you) that doesn't allow complete control over what you're writing. And yep, web design (usability, colour co-ordination, accessibility, etc) is very different from web development (programming, coding, scripting, DB design and administration) - should the two be taught together? Or just get their feet wet and they can pursue it further if they are more intrested?

Haha! I just pictured that - starting each sentence very loudly, then tailing off to a normal tone. Anyhoo, back on topic!

BUT IN FORUMS THAT MEANS SHOUTING!!

is deprecated, they should be using ! Sorry, couldn't resist. My old day job was webdesign/dev too. I tried to show a few of our kids a bit of the basics (notepad and IE side by side, save-refresh) at the end of a term, but their attentions spans (or lack thereof) got the better of them. They use Word for a little part of the curriculum that demands a simple web site, which winds me up no end

Ah, that's a cheeky little setting in there: "Don't automatically make redirected folders available offline." Now i know i suppose Have disabled or otherwise killed everything in there relating to offline files. See if it goes away...

Yeah, in the city too. I am the IT department here, and as i've only lived up here for a wee while, i don't know anyone, so the site is probably gonna be a bit of a god-send for help and advice

Just been through 'em all and done that, thanks. Hopefully it'll make a difference. Something that's bothering me - i just created a spanking new (roaming btw) test account, logged into my test PC beside this one (to create the profile files), downloaded a pic to My Pics and set as background then logged off. I popped downstairs to a classroom and logged on, all fine - picture is in My Pics (no desktop picture though, grr). The annoying bit: When logging off, it STILL tries to do a synch. i.e., the box pops up and goes through the process of synchronising "profiles$" folder - whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

You tell the clients to look to the server (instead of the web) for their updates via Group Policy. I've set up a separate GPO for it. Haven't plugged it in (enabled it) yet 'cos i haven't had a chance to test it before i roll it out. Someone who's done it will be able to help more i'm sure

Link appears to be broken (old forums->new forums issue?) I'd be interested in this little logging script too.

Wow, just tried this (as we wanted to block a couple of little darlings from all web activity due to misuse while letting the rest carry on) - works perfectly. Nice one. I thought this'd be a huge operation, but all i need to do is drop them into the sub OU that denies the above - sweeeeet.

Depends on the version of Vista. If they're Vista Business, you can downgrade them to XP Pro. Anything else, you'll need fresh XP Pro licenses i'm afraid. As i understand it anyhoo...