hipsterdoofus

Apparently Microsoft doesn't expect anyone to get rid of computers that are still running? I sent a message to my reseller to ask them about it, so I'll update if I get a more firm answer.

So we purchase computers, they come with OEM Windows but that gets replaced with our volume licensed media which is installed with MDT. Many years later, those computers are sold off. My understanding is that there are not imaging rights with OEM installs, so you aren't supposed to use the media they came with. On the other hand, you wouldn't want to use your volume media for something you are going to sell, because I think in the end you want the computers you are selling to be licensed with the product key on the machine. Surely the only solution is that you are expected to "restore" the machined to OEM one by one with restore CD's, is it? Is there a correct legal way to use MDT to prepare computers to be sold off?

Perhaps my roaming profiles title was misleading I guess. Main goal is to allow access to files easily from multiple computers. I believe roaming profiles would encompass more of everything - where the entire profile is downloaded on logon, which would indeed be slow.

Yeah someone in our office played some with redirection. I believe what he found was that redirecting docs was pretty simple, but redirecting app data was kind of a mess.

Thanks everyone - certainly gives me some ideas. This isn't a pressing project, but one that I may think about in the future, and I wanted to know what some of my options were.

Unfortunately the machines in question are spread out over a metropolitan area and so I would need the set up be able to be more automatic eventually.

Hello all, I use Roaming Mandatory Profiles on my public access computers. Our staff computers currently host their own files, which I know is not best case. We have been trying to determine the base way to set up their files so that they can access them from multiple computers. I was curious how others may do that in their environment. To add an additional caveat, we fairly recently started using office 365 and I had considered the possibility of simply using OneDrive for user's files and thus not even hosting them ourselves. Any thoughts on that either?

Long time getting back to this, but it seems to me another big benefit to switching to DHCP reservations would be that it seems then the devices are automatically registered in DNS, whereas if you simply do a static IP, you would also have to do a static DNS entry, is that correct?

Thanks StandardN3rd...what is your application that you use them for, if I might ask? Just trying to compare the usage level.

Thanks everyone for the replies. Right now we essentially do use "any old computer". We recycle computers that were used for other tasks for a couple of years down to be catalog computers that essentially only do one task. I'm not necessarily looking to convert existing catalog computers. They run Windows 7 and do have many policies applied against them and work well. What I'm really interested in is in the future if there would be product cheaper than a regular PC to use there BECAUSE all it really needs is a browser. It's okay if it is more than a browser, but that's really the main thing I need on these.

Hmm Unsure - I was thinking of Chromebooks as in a laptop type device. Not familiar with a Chromebox. I suppose that could do although it isn't an all-in-one - I guess you just plug any monitor into it?

I am in a library environment and of course occasionally vdi gets thrown around but I hear it is a lot of work to scale and such. What I was wondering is, does there exist a device that I guess would be much like a chrome book but for a desktop that basically just is a browser? For instance, it seems that a catalog computer at a library would easily be replaced with this. I know at some places, they use iPads for library catalogs, but for one, iPads aren't necessarily cheap, for another thing, to me they don't seem at all easy to manage in my environment. I am just curious what my options are out there. Thank you.

Unfortunately, I'm not real privy on what our transfers have been. I doubt they are exceptionally high. I would imagine I may be able to go look at logs to find out more (I didn't set up the current system). Right now I think that the amount of data stored is pretty low - maybe 200-250 GB, but we have a backlog of stuff that I would imagine would add at least another 200-300GB and then who knows from there. Obviously this type of thing is going more digital, and I'd like to see it be easily accessible online. My thoughts are if we hosted with Amazon, we wouldn't have to do the worrying about space concerns, backups, etc, but I'm not sure what the costs would be. I would also wonder exactly how we would handle metadata on images and such.

We have used Cisco's cameras and VSOM solution. I can't say at this point I would recommend them over anything else though. Cisco's support level has become terrible over the past couple of years.

This may or may not pertain to all of you but I thought it worth asking. I work at a public library and increasingly, we have images of historical events that we would like to make accessible to the public. Currently, the images are hosted internally and served out that way, but honestly, it seems like it would be smarter and more economical to put the hosting/ backup onto someone who specializes in that. It seems like going towards Amazon's AWS may be the way to go, but I have no idea where to start as far as considering the costs. Has anyone done this? Basically, I'm trying to plan something in our budget next year and would like to at least get a ballpark in place.

Yeah I think that is precisely why we hadn't done much in the way of management in the past; however, I'm pretty sure that on newer hardware it works better. All of our hardware is fairly recent. It also looks like there is a group policy setting to allow WSUS Windows updates to wake a computer. Additionally, I didn't realize before that you can stack power preferences and have a default and then also have one that only takes affect during certain hours. I may do that especially with monitor sleep time, etc, so that it goes to sleep much quicker after hours.

Yep - we actually have 4 servers running DNS, 2 are older. Up until recently a lot of machines pointed to them as primaries. Nearly everything if off of them. I'm running a network monitor against them to catch anything im missing but because one of the is listed as the SOA, it still gets queries that it probably doesn't need to be getting. Figured if I can get that part switched over it would reduce even more traffic. Since I had never done it before though I just wanted to make sure there were no pitfalls I wasn't thinking of. One of the zones is AD-integrated. The other zones are copies of zones that are hosted outside but point to other IP's internally.

Hello all, I'm in the process of trying to decommission some old DC's that were also our original DNS servers. Long ago we brought up other DC's/ DNS servers, but just never fully got off the old ones. We have basically moved all primary/secondary traffic to point to our newer servers, but the old ones still get SOA requests because some of the zones listed on them still list the old servers as the SOA. Is it a major issue to switch those to the newer servers? I mean, it looks like the process is easy - I just wanted to make sure there aren't some ramifications that I'm not thinking of is all. Thanks.

Hello all - Coming from a public library scenario here, so I think I'd match up best with other libraries or possibly public schools. I was curious how you do power policies. I would think that the best thing to do would be to allow a computer to sleep after closing time, but would still need to allow for things that happen overnight, such as Antivirus scans & WSUS updates. Just interested in how others have set this up. Thanks,

Thanks. I'm in a library environment with about 20 locations and I would think over 100 printers, copiers etc. Almost everything is a static IP, which to me is a bit of a pain as far as having to work through the interface on the printer. I think that would be a big draw with reservations - just change the MAC on the reservation and go from there. Also the fact that if we ever changed our DNS servers, you change them in one place on the DHCP server as opposed to on tons of individual devices. Mainly though I'm trying to make sure I'm not missing any disadvantages to switching to reserved ip's.

We've long had our printers set up with static UP addresses and manual entries into DNS. I understand how many places do this though are by simply putting in a dns reservation and allowing dynamic dns updates. How do you do it where you are? I'm in the process of replacing some DNS servers and having to change a lot of manual entries, so it seems to me that doing the reservations may be nice.

Hello all - I'm in a library environment and we have a number of iPads that are currently used by staff. We hope to have more in use for the public eventually. I have to claim complete ignorance on the best way to essentially "reimage" an iPad. From the brief bit of information I have, I take it that the easiest way is using the apple configurator, though I have yet to lay eyes on it yet and am not familiar with it (other than the iPads, we are primarily a Windows shop). Is that the easiest way to go? Beyond that, what about MDM? I think I saw someone on here mention Meraki, and I'm familiar a bit with them, but I didn't know if in most cases what they offer (for free I think?) is sufficient compared to some paid options (I had AirWatch mentioned to me). I look forward to any suggestions you can give me.

Okay - first of all, holy cow, your post is quite overwhelming. Now that is out of the way, I appreciate your input. I don not think my intent is to completely keep users from accessing the drive. As I said, some people may only need a temporary save point, I just would prefer it be more difficult to put junk all over the drive. I think the hiding and preventing access options in GPO are the way I need to go. I think I was always afraid in the past that would cause problems. As far as the "Prevent User Adding Files To The Root Of Their Users Files Folder", I'm not really sure I understand what that does for me. The description in GPO seems to contradict itself. I will say that while people should be able to write to Documents, I don't want them writing to the desktop, really, and that would be something nice to block.

Hello everyone - I'm new here but I think this is a place that could certainly help me. I work for a public library system. We have several hundred public internet computers at multiple locations. Currently we use mandatory roaming profiles, that way if something gets hosed up, etc, a reboot fixes the profile. In the past I've followed some guidelines to prevent file creation on computers. One person recommended essentially making everything hidden in the root of C:, discouraging people from messing around with it. At the same time, this still allows people to create new folders. I also have another problem, which is programs installed under appdata (yes, like Chrome does). I'd really prefer for people not to do this either. Overall, I don't really want people putting stuff on the computers, we sell flash drives in case they don't have their own and they can put files on those. At the same time, I feel for people who maybe are working on a word doc and then want to email it, but save it first, which is why I've never completely locked down the machines. I would appreciate some suggestions on how to lock down the computers better without making them unusable for the customer. All of our public computers are Windows 7 64 bit.