Shuriken1

Morning All, Apologies if this is the wrong forum or if this has been asked a million times before. I've inherited a mess of a network in my current role and amongst other things have been sorting out the user profiles. I have created a DFS share, reconfigured the profile paths, set up Folder Redirection for pretty much everything and moved their data to new locations on the file server (to fix dodgy NTFS permissions more than anything). That's all gone fine, I've now enforced a profile size limit via GP to stop things getting out of hand in the future but I'm have a real brain fade and I'm hoping someone can easily help me out. A user yesterday had the warning saying that they had exceeded their profile storage space - which was fine. I looked at their local profile copy on the C drive and it had a Desktop folder in it which was large. Now, my thinking is that that Desktop folder should not be there. The desktop folder is being redirected and right clicking on an icon on the desktop showed that it was in the redirected location, so I think the local Desktop folder is just a leftover. Is that correct? My next question is Appdata\Roaming. That also is redirecting correctly but a part of me thinks that that should get copied down to the local profile whilst they're logged on and then copied back and removed when the log off. Can someone please confirm for my sanity whether I've got both of those situations right, or whether the Appdata\Roaming should only be in the redirected location - the same as Desktop? Thanks everyone!

Hi Neil, The client is currently showing as Install Failed, I can't remember what it said before all of this started. I've checked the firewall, IPs and DNS, they all concur. I don't think the issue is here because it is getting an active failure message (i.e. WMI problem) rather than no response or not connecting. I've seen that problem with DNS and Solus, it's not doing the same thing as that. Yes, they are on different versions. However, I can't update it because of the WMI problems when trying to deploy the Solus agent. I have renamed the Sims folder and tried redploying, the agent won't install because of the WMI problems. I've tried installing SIMS straight from S:\ but that doesn't work either. When Solus won't install I get the error message I stated in my original post, regarding WMI. How would I go about checking the RSA Machine Keys permissions? Thanks.

Hi Everyone, At a bit of a loss with this one. One of our teachers' machines started throwing an "Invalid class" error when trying to run SIMS. I tried to reinstall SIMS via Solus 3 and got an error: "Error occured obtaining data from the remote machine Check that WMI is enabled on the remote machine and any firewalls are configured to enable WMI traffic" So, immediate course of action was to check Windows Firewall. We disable it for domain so I checked that it was disabled - it was. I then checked Network settings to make Windows considered the network to be a domain network so that it was applying the correct firewall policy - it was. I went into the advanced firewall properties and enabled all of the WMI related rules, in and out - no change. I also tried with the firewall service stopped - didn't connect at all, perhaps unsurprisingly. I then tried to install SIMS via the S: drive, renamed the old folder etc - no change. I then read about wmimgmt and fired that up, found similar invalid class errors on the General tab of the WMI Control properties. I followed a Technet article and seemed to get that fixed, it now reports the computer specs as it should. Hoorah! Tried to reinstall the Solus 3 agent - didn't work. Tried running SIMS - it did work! So I left it at that at the end of the day yesterday, come in this morning to find that the user can't log in, error "Incompatible Database". I go to check and sure enough, it's on a old version. Solus 3 still doesn't want to install but as far as I can tell WMI is ok. I've seen talk around the place of resetting the WMI repository but I've also read on Microsoft articles not to do that, so not keen on that idea. Has any one got any ideas?? Thanks!

Hi Bankesy, Thanks for your info. As it turns out Capita got back to me VERY quickly and spent over an hour on this. The Capita engineer wasn't sure what was going on either, albeit he tried hard. End result was/is to reinstall the client. He noticed that the latest status for the affected client on the SOLUS management UI showed it mid-way through installing the 3.8 agent update. I think this bodged update is what has caused my client not to update if they were deployed to whilst off so I think this was the root of both problems. Now currently updating 20 clients as quickly as I can in time for Monday morning!! This was with Autumn 2, yeah. So all resolved by Capita, impressed by their response I have to say. Might skip our county people next time and just go straight to them! Anyway, thanks again for the help. ps. Oh, I did the SOLUS 3 setup with very little info so entirely possible I messed something up.

Morning All, Well, I'm attempting my second proper update via SOLUS3 and feeling like I'm flying completely blind - pretty much just got told you can't use SOLUS2 any more, here's 3, go. I've deployed out the Autumn 2 package and half of the client machines were off, which is fine. First question, is the SOLUS3 Agent intelligent enough to recognise that it missed an update when the client is next switched on and update? It seems they removed this check from the SIMS client loading process which baffles me, but I'm sure there's some over-complicated, backwards reason. The next issue, I turned a client on to test my question above and it didn't do anything after sitting there for a few minutes, so I opened the SOLUS3 agent and clicked "Check for Updates". Almost immediately I received this message: Given that it's talking about localhost I checked the firewall settings on the client, it's completely off for Domain (which is our normal setup) so that seems fine. Why it wants to connect back to itself makes me wonder whether I've misunderstood but it's off on the server too. I've opened a call with Capita Support but I wasn't particularly encouraged by the response I got so I thought one of you knowledgeable people may be able to help me! Thanks in advance.

Lol, good point. I will! Thanks! Definitely a job for Oct half term I think!

Ok, that's good to know DMcCoy, thanks. It would seem the firmware on the controller is 4 versions old. It's running firmware from 2010 even though the server isn't nearly that old, maybe the controller was old stock. Anyway, will try updating the controller firmware when I get a chance. Thank you all for your support.

I'm not exactly sure, I've managed to find the controller chip (LSI SAS2008) but I've not managed to find anything on the Fujitsu site for firmware downloads yet. I think it's a Fujitsu-designed controller using the LSI chip so I'm presuming it'd be them providing drivers but haven't had any luck finding it yet - still trying!

Would seem the answer is no, no new firmware for the drives.

Ok, thanks for the info. I've (somewhat-worringly) discovered that these Fujitsu drives are actually Seagate "Constellation" drives. I don't suppose you know if there are different firmwares for RAID and non-RAID, do you? Would be great if I could just "switch them". I will investigate anyway. Thanks for the help.

Hi Synack, Thanks for the reply. The RAID controller is the one that came in the RX300 S6 chassis, which according to a pdf on their site is based on an LSI SAS2008, device manager lists "LSI RAID Ctrl SAS 6G 5/6 512MB (S2616)". Drives are all Fujitsu ones, two 136Gb 6Gbps SAS drives in RAID 1 for the system, 10 1Tb 3Gbps SATA drives in RAID 6 for the data. Haven't had a chance to update firmware yet, am going to try in October half term.

Hi Everyone, I'm hoping a kind person can save the day for me. We replaced our fileserver a while ago, Summer last year I think, and we've been having a few issues with it. I notice when I was setting it up that sometimes, seemingly randomly, the lights on the RAID disks would seem to flash sequentially as though it was doing some kind of running maintenance. It's a 10x 1Tb SATA disk, Raid 6 array. I just presumed it was doing some parity maintenance or something. I didn't take too much notice as it didn't seem to affect the usability of the array, so I carried on. We use Firefox in the office (stick with me here!), which tends to use AppData quite a lot, we have AppData redirected to our fileserver and we've noticed since this new fileserver that sometimes Firefox would hang - become unresponsive for a minute or so and then be fine. It occured to me that this might be related to the RAID array, but again, all seemed fine so took little notice. Yes, this probably is the point where I should have investigated further. Anyway, we had a permission problem on the fileserver recently (it randomly added one of the admins as being from "Parent Object" even though they weren't listed), so I was fixing that by removing and re-applying inherit parent permissions. It turns out, this is a sure-fire way to reproduce the RAID hang scenario. So I downloaded the LSI MegaRAID Storage Manager to see if I could find any info. I am getting a lot of these: ID = 113 SEQUENCE NUMBER = 51941 TIME = 11-10-2013 06:59:34 LOCALIZED MESSAGE = Controller ID: 0 Unexpected sense: PD = Int. Port 0 - 3:1:3Information unit CRC error detected, CDB = 0x28 0x00 0x48 0xff 0x22 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x80 0x00 , Sense = 0x70 0x00 0x0b 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x0a 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x47 0x03 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 ID = 113 SEQUENCE NUMBER = 51940 TIME = 11-10-2013 01:53:06 LOCALIZED MESSAGE = Controller ID: 0 Unexpected sense: PD = Int. Port 0 - 3:1:0Unknown Sense Code, CDB = 0x28 0x00 0x00 0xa8 0xfe 0x88 0x00 0x01 0x00 0x00 , Sense = 0x70 0x00 0x0b 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x28 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x4b 0x04 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x28 0x52 0x04 0x01 0x00 0x50 0x03 0x00 0x57 0x00 0xfe 0xdb 0x00 0x50 0x06 0x05 0xb0 0x00 0x02 0x72 0xbf 0x00 0x01 0x0c 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 More of the CRC errors but a significant number of both, 24 of them yesterday. When the server exhibits this "RAID Hang" situation the Performance Monitor shows approximately 100% Disk Time and a Average Disk Queue Length of 1, it will sit on or thereabouts those values for normally about 2 minutes, but can be shorter, then it will carry on as normal. The progress bar (for the file permissions) at this point would tend to just pause. The progress pause and the 100% Disk Time normally, but do not always correspond. I then thought that it might be a Windows issue rather than RAID, my first thought was to check Search Indexing, which, for some reason I didn't switch on when setting up the server. I have been going though staff folders disabling indexing on the off chance that this is the cause - I'm not holding my breath. It turns out that that process is another good way to cause the hang. Anyway, I'll stop there because I'll probably just babble on incoherently. Any thoughts and help would be very welcome!! Server Specs are: Fujitsu RX300 S6 Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard SP1 Dual Xeon E5645 (6-core 2.4Ghz) 24Gb RAM RAID 1 Array: 2x 136Gb 6Gbps SAS (System) RAID 6 Array: 10x 1Tb 3Gbps SATA (Data) Raid Controller: "LSI RAID Ctrl SAS 6G 5/6 512MB (S2616)" 3Gbps teamed NIC Thanks very much!

Just to add my 2p, we've moved from a 'share for each person' to a 'one share with separate folders' approach of the last few years and I think it did contribute to a performance increase. I can't prove this in any way, just gut feeling. It does also mean that AD automatically creates home folders for you and you (in theory) don't have to go and share it or anything extra.

Thanks for the link Michael, I seem to have the same permissions but I'll have another go later. Will PM you now FN-GM. Thanks, Shuriken1.

Check that active desktop isn't switched on and somehow putting the blue over the top. Also, try rewriting your script so that the background images are copied down to each computer and then have the script reference the local files. I've heard of similar problems trying to set a background to a network-shared image. I do by copying the images down first and I've never had a problem. Hope it helps.

Ok guys, this is a five minute fix from someone but I'm obviously missing something. I've just about finished setting up a win7 mandatory student profile the way I like it, ready for Remote Desktop. Some kids tried it over the weekend and said all was good except they could save on the desktop. I'm pretty sure they couldn't before although I'm not sure what I changed to allow them to. I don't have context menus disabled in GP and as far as I can remember, never have. Anyway, I don't want them to be able to create stuff on the desktop but I want to maintain context menus within Explorer. I've tried changing the permissions on the Desktop folder in the mandatory profile on the server to deny the Students group write access, I've tried enforcing Software Restrictions and now I gather that redirecting them all to a shared desktop with nothing on it and no access is the general way to do it. So I've set up a shared folder on the fileserver, StudentDesktop, given them normal NTFS access to it with the addition of Deny Write, the share permissions allow them only read but when I log on as a student and it tries to redirect the desktop, it says (in event viewer): Failed to perform redirection of folder Desktop. The new directories for the redirected folder could not be created. The folder is configured to be redirected to <\\xyz\studentdesktop>, the final expanded path was <\\xyz\studentdesktop>. The following error occurred: This security ID may not be assigned as the owner of this object. So obviously I'm missing something blinding simple, can someone help me?? This is my last hurdle for Win7 student profiles and Remote Desktop and it really needs to just work, lol. Driving me nuts! Thanks very much for any help.

Yeah, fair points. I think in my particular situation, though, it is a matter of them have excessive resources. They have easy access to desktop comptuers around the school, in their classrooms, department offices, staffroom etc. They also have remote access via Remote Desktop. Personally, I think the need for laptops as envisage years ago whereby staff can do their work at home is not necessarily appropriate with the introduction of remote access services. Obviously some will make the 'well I don't have a PC at home' argument and it's valid to a point, but it doesn't personally wash with me. It's definitely going to be a massive consultation-based exercise, but I don't think many of them can really argue that the school should be paying for something for their kids to be playing SIMS 3 on (that's not made up). As always though, appreciate all the input. Thanks.

That's a fair point about extra resources, hadn't thought of it. As I do though, every dept office has a PC in, as does the staffroom, so I think I'm safe on that. We also don't have a meeting team like your Digital Tech one, but I like your approach, will keep it in mind. Cheers.

Pretty good I think. Each classroom has a staff desktop with IWB. 7 computer rooms, combination of IT rooms and suites. Not really 'cos we don't have any space for those new computers. Computers are now on a 4 year replacement schedule (up from 3 due to current finances). Staff laptops are supposedly replaced every 5 years. Yes, I think the money saving argument is my best one with SLT. Lol Soveryapt, I think I would be in a similar position. The SLT would appreciate the freeing up of our time and the cost saving. Staff on the other hand will go bonkers. One of the arguments from staff is about them needing them at Parents Evenings. We've got one this evening so I'm popping back later to see how many of them use them. My guess is less than 10! Cheers again guys.

Precisely what I'd love to find too!

That's precisely it, they seem to think they're entitled. Convincing them otherwise is what is going to be really difficult. CyberNerd, when you recalled your 100 laptops, how did you do it? I presume you had SLT backup? What grounds did you cite for them being recalled? Thanks.

Again, thank you, all really helpfuly points. The fact is that they all have a desktop computer in their classrooms that is connected to the IWB with appropriate SmartBoard Tools etc so they don't really have a case that way round. Ideally I'd like to phase out the laptop trolleys (of which we have 4) as well but that's a different argument as far as I'm concerned really. The staff laptops though, the case in writing sounds like an excellent way to do it. As far as I'm concerned, with the desktop PCs and remote access, they don't really have an excuse to have a laptop these days. Just need some good ammo to throw in their faces when they argue it. Fact is, they've been given way too much freedom as it is and I'm going to be seen as the big bad wolf for making their life harder but actually they shouldn't have had it in the first place, in the same way that they shouldn't have local admin access to their laptops but that's a carryover from my predecessor! Cheers guys. ps. Sorry Geoff, didn't really answer your question. No, not really, we only have people out on trips now and then and they don't take their laptops. We also have no temporary classrooms so not much argument there either.

Thank you everyone. I completely agree with all of those points. Every classroom already has a well-spec'ed PC connected to the IWB. My proposal is to take the laptops from the staff and re-hash them as exam/loan laptops so that can be used for SEN kids during exams and also by staff during meeting/parents evenings etc. Probably using a dual-boot linux/windows combo, but that's a different conversation. I'm sure most of them give them to their kids to play games, I just so no point supporting them, especially as we have Remote Desktop for external access. Just need some hard facts to base my argument on when they all start fighting me about it. Cheers.

Sorry everyone, I'm sure this has already been covered but I couldn't find anything by searching. Are we still (as schools) obliged to provide staff with a laptop? I understand it was a Becta thing but since they no longer exist, is there any change in this? I've heard rumours that it's no longer necessary but I don't know where to look. Ideally I need some sort of hard evidence as I want to start phasing the staff laptops out. Thanks guys!

Me (NM) and one full-time technician. Nearly 400 computers/laptops including 4 laptop trolleys (they're sh*t), 100ish staff, 750ish students, approximate 11 servers, CCTV, Assembly/After-school AV requirements. Tiny office. In the words of the premises manager, we are unofficially responsible for "anything with a plug on it" - a sentiment which I'm sure you can all imagine how much I enjoy. Looks like I'm roughly in line as the last few guys that posted. Edit: Only recently removed school-wide PAT testing and inventory from that list too. Edit Edit; Include in that 25 odd printers, IWBs, sound equipment etc