PiqueABoo

If you map a drive to the share and move to the root of that mapped drive, then something like(!) this simple DOS command ought to work: ATTRIB -R "desktop.ini" /S

Nope. This is a DB backup to a file i.e. one way of avoiding shutting the DB down during a full system backup and/or paying for a Backup Exec SQL options etc. All the credible utils I've found to do that will stuff a timestamp in the file name and optionally delete older ones to help preserve disk space, but they want to delete old files in terms of how old e.g. more than 5 days old. But if your backup to file fails and you don't notice for a week that wipes out all your old backup files. Thus I'm talking about the ability to tell one of these utils to perhaps delete files older than 5 days, however it must always keep say the last 5 backups regardless of how old they are.

It's not just matt40k's tidy util coz I've seen another freebie util do the same, but why would you want to retain the DB backups created in the last N days as opposed to the last N backups, or perhaps a combination of both?

Probably, but my cup already runneth over and this is just a temporary stint as a (quietly) upgrading a variety of MS bits expert with the Capita migration util bolted on the end - I want to know as little about SIMS itself as possible SIMSwhat? Whatever, recall: "Lots and lots without any issues"? I've only had this happen on one system, it hasn't happened on any other others. Didn't stop to do a post-mortem once it was definitely fixed by that KB, but in principle there was nothing significantly different from any of the ones that worked.

Hmm.. well you're either: a) Running a different OS (this was 2003) b) Tunnelling through cyberspace from a different parallel universe where Windows/Microsoft Update offers up this fix when it sees MSI 4.5 on 2003 - in mine it does not.

It's exchange so what is the PST file considering mail is supposed to stay on the server and benefit from SIS etc? An auto-archive?

Transformational change? -- I've been corelating ofsted status against my impression of the technical quality of their IT system in a few cases where I could. Short answer: It doesn't correlate, which is interesting if a bit "off-message".

I think the topic is spot on. Some LAs execs appear to have asked essentially the same free consultancy question - and these are people many of whom are paid over £200K per annum, presumably to be a genius who has brilliant ideas all day long. Well I say "execs" but I bet it was several folk at the top of a given pyramid put together, a combination of superior talent and mental power that should be able to move planets. Sorry, but I really can't think of a more pertinent retort than "Why the [bleep] do you need my help?". These obscene public sector salaries matter, especially when the people on them are about to pee-off their staff and the public they serve in all sorts of interesting ways. Public sector fat-cat salaries should become embarrassing history... won't happen though will it?

Seem to me it's the only way you might get much information on the pros, although possibly not so much on the cons, so it would be a bit negligent not to "express an interest" (proceeding with it is another matter) [i've just spotted a duplicate - definitely the same school, slightly different variation on the name]

Not wanting to mess up the front-page thingy which is obviously connected to this I've got a question about: "the education system is ripe for the development of new models"? Do we really need much development? Seems to me we've already got plenty of perfectly adequate models for much of that stuff, the problem is getting education to use them!

FYI: Perhaps it's done the rounds on Capita forums that I'm not on, but having done lots and lots without any issues I just needed the KB in the title to get an SQL 2008 [RTM] installed on a system. Without it the install gave up in seconds with %temp%\sqlsetup.log saying it was unable to talk to MSI Installer with a nice opaque 0x800.. error.

Are people really going to move Exchange 2007 from 2003/2008 to 2008R2? Suppose it's takes all sorts to make a world but I'm not sure I couldn't be bothered to do that as opposed to going to Exchange 2010 (or maybe it's successor) on 2008R2 some rainy day.

Line 24: "Echo strIPAddresses" Echo is DOS! You need WScript.Echo

The Times today reported the same except it used "median salary". This is a shallow meme though and my worry is it will be used in a shallow way. What I want is more intelligent targeting and if they want to get the plebs a bit more on their side it would be a very good idea to start with the people in public sector being paid undeserved, unjustified amounts of silly money... for instance anything in Local Gov much over £100K (in whatever cunning non-obvious ways that is delivered), is definitely silly because these people are perfectly replaceable ... but sadly I'm expecting them to fall into your "some groups of public sector employees salaries and contributions are going to be protected" .. perhaps they'll even go up because even £200K just isn't sufficient recompense for the unique rocket science in involved in thinking of the idea, and the trauma of then asking in your very best BS jargon, all the underlings to cut their costs.

"True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing." I'm curious: In what sense? The only (not quite) 4 year anniversary I can think of is XP support stopping in April 2014, but in an ideal world a new system this year ought to be built on 2008 R2 to better support Windows 7, regardless of whether you still use XP for a while.

Agreed. I've gone from 'hell in a handcart" to "glimmer of hope", however what a new gov talks about doing and what they do, especially given all the unexpected things that will come along and compete for attention (e.g. who'd have thunk Afghanistan and Iraq back in 1997?), are two different things.

Interesting but if it's strict ANSI C you use strcmp() and so on, but "or JavaScript/JScript" works.

Absolutely .. and you know what most of the victims will have in common? Honesty. -- "Local Authority Leader Boards: £16m" <= You'd probably get at least twice that if everyone (indefensibly) earning over £200K of public money per annum in LAs had that cut in half - just waiting for it to happen in some govern-by-example Tory controlled councils alongside the pay freezes for everyone beneath those folk. Should I hold my breath?

::whatever::

Have you ever used a control ID to knock out undesirable UI feature for a network with clueful hostile users? Ack, forget it - we can go round and round on this for ever so lets agree to disagree: - Fresh to the job you can set up up perfect Windows system in a couple of weeks and you think I "know jack" about it. - Meanwhile I've got 17 years of NT family admin, serious s/w dev for most of that period largely targeted at NT network/security/manglement, big roll-outs of fresh public-access proof systems since 95', enough security expertise to have been asked to help the NSA (US spooks) on their guidelines, have been rewarded for contributions to the "community" by the director of SAN etc., plus a thorough understanding of what the competition (CCx) have done, and I think a system in that ballpark that works perfectly from day one takes much longer and that maybe in 10 years time you'll get it.. although possibly not.

::sob:: me neither It's OK or might be when I make some more entries from scratch, but one thing I miss is the ability to only map-back a specific drive as opposed to all-or-none.

Fine, but I'm certain that isn't what I'd call a good one *especially* in the policy area where something apparently simple like locking down bits of MS Office i.e. knocking out menu options, can take a long time unless you've done it before or found it ready-made somewhere. I conservatively reckon at least 3 - 4 weeks to get a decent set of properly tested GPOs (with GPPs required for some bits), then there's start menu delivery, perhaps desktop delivery (if you sensibly don't let them save stuff there), printer delivery, folder/share structures and NTFS perms, OU structure, bulk user import, equivalents of things like privileged users, perhaps synchronisation for staff laptops, quotas to sort out, preferably MDT for deployment (which takes a while to grok) and regardless you need a complete driver library and probably for an eclectic bunch of h/w, preferably something better than native s/w deployment, WSUS to set up and so on and so forth.. Again, if you want a network that kinda-works-just then maybe, but if you want a good one e.g. in the same kind of ballpark (and where everything is there and just works from day one!) then from scratch there is no way you'll do it in two weeks *unless* you're essentially cloning one you made earlier.

Too late/stupid to be sure, but I think you're sending those - so does it make a difference if you turn it off? There is/was a don't send Exchange RTF setting somewhere.

Problem is it that simfin blog says the standard "don't attempt to use tech to fix social issues", "better to teach kids to behave like [real] grown-ups" stuff that has been around since the very first commercial block-list and well before Carr et al started championing walled-gardens, but then undermines it a bit with what appears to be "but we'll try to do that anyway, just don't expect it to be perfect". Dunno, it just all seems as [bleeping] obvious as it was in the 90's and gets us nowhere new. Personally I suspect the recent change of gov from that long-standing nanny-knows-best bunch will have a more (but not very big) significant effect than any of these debates/blogs/etc.

Used MDT 2008 for a long time and now slowly playing with 2010 for Win7 etc. and thought "Hmm.. why not play with DriverGroups while they're still there (have seen a suggestion or two the Update 1 might disappear them). So for an initial XPSP3 install I arranged a few by WinXPSP3\%make%\%model% and added a corresponding DriverGroup001 var in the task sequence and so far, unlike a driver selection profile that eventually trawls through the same (virtual in MDT) folder, it doesn't work. Has anyone used DriverGroups? Does it work? If so what did you do differently?