ataylor

Still a work in progress but the following VB script run alongside the vpn connection event seems to be working, just having a little trouble with gpupdate hanging when i launch it so quickly after logging in. On Error Resume Next Dim objSysInfo, objUser Set objSysInfo = CreateObject("ADSystemInfo") Set objUser = GetObject("LDAP://" & objSysInfo.UserName) Set wshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") Set wshSystemEnv = wshShell.Environment("VOLATILE") wshSystemEnv("HOMESHARE") = objUser.homeDirectory 'Refresh the USER policies and also answer no to logoff if asked. Result = WshShell.Run("cmd /c echo n | gpupdate /target:user /force /wait:0",0,true)

Agreed, although changing the current VPN configuration isn't really an option for us.

All interconnected but I need to split the data out to their own separate servers, which means different share paths.

We have multiple organizations that we need to split out from existing file servers so unfortunately I can't do that.

I've currently looking at shifting our users from their existing file server to new ones. essentially the file servers look like this \\FileServer1\home\%USERNAME% \\FileServer2\home\%USERNAME% and we are looking at moving it to \\FileServerOrg1\home\%USERNAME% \\FileServerOrg2\home\%USERNAME% \\FileServerOrg3\home\%USERNAME% Most of our users are currently working remotely, this means the normal way of mapping the home drive fails as the VPN is not available before the user has logged in. I have been looking at making a GPO preferences drive map to %HOMESHARE%, my current predicament is that %HOMESHARE% gets updated at login and not when on a VPN connection, so If I update the value from \\FileServer1\home\%USERNAME% to \\FileServerOrg1\home\%USERNAME% the user will still map to their old drive. To resolve this I'm looking a running a scheduled task against the VPN connection event to pull the current value of the users home share from AD and update the cached copy on the local machine, then run a gpupdate /force to connect drive mappings. The config for this is stored in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Volatile Environment\HOMESHARE, now I can update this manually but it does not load into current configuration without logging the user out and back in again - Anyone have any idea how to update this live? --- Alternatively I can map the users directly with \\FileServerOrg1\home\%USERNAME% instead of %HOMESHARE% but it adds a lot of complication in terms of security group for each organization & only applying when migrated to the new server, plus training help desk users that make user accounts to add correct security groups, make sure samaccountname is same as folder name etc.

Are you using Smoothwall? Had an issue for a while where there was an old certificate deployed from Smoothwall that was causing conflicts with esafe as it didn't meet correct certificate standards.

We tend to go for 120GB drives, only machine that causes us issues is our isolation computer as so many different staff use it frequently and our staff Delprof policy is pretty relaxed (delete a profile after being inactive for two weeks) their OST files quickly fill up the drive. Aside from that - no problems. Most of our machines have Kingston, but we also have number of Sandisk & Patriot drives - I think I've had 1 Sandisk failure and 1 Patriot failure so far.

Got an email last month that there is going to be a 10% price increase on Adobe

We strip out all apps as our image is installed via SCCM, logins are all SSO with ADFS. Although we also strip out the Microsoft Store so i'm not sure about that one. Populate desktop shortcuts with GPO

Why not Raid 5 for an SSD?

I'm currently looking at upgrading our storage to SSDs, we store around 4TB of data which i'm sure I can reduce to around 3TB-3.5TB. Our two Hyper-V hosts are PowerEdge T620's with 2xE5-2650's, 64GB of RAM and PERC H710 Raid adapter. They hold 8 bays in total in capacity, the servers are currently running on 3x2TB Raid 5 & 3x4TB Raid 5 with two empty bays. I'm currently looking at dropping the 3x2TB drives, keeping the 3x4TB (for additional storage such as multimedia & for emergency storage in the event a host goes down) then install 4x1TB Enterprise SSD's in Raid10 - Doing this I can move the majority of our data and all of our services onto SSD storage. The only thing is that I'm not really sure what best practice is regarding SSD's and Raids - What have you guys have configured?

Wifi is all they needed here.

Got an email yesterday from our supplier about a 10% increase in their prices...

I use Eset, it tends to go down by like 50% on black Friday - I've just renewed and its much cheaper if you buy multiple seats so we just split it 4 ways between family members.

I don't mind taking a look at kit during my lunch (Which I tend to work through) most issues are solved relatively quickly, if anything like their OS is messed up, i'll wipe it if they provide installation media - i'll often point them in the direction of an SSD if doing this too. Our staff are very understanding and never approach us with the "its your job to fix this" attitude - We often get rewarded with beverages. It is always made clear that there is a risk to their kit and they are not covered if anything goes wrong.