SteveMC

Thanks for this - got me out of a hole! By the looks of things it should be able to reset the UEFI security on pretty much any Surface device (worked on a 1st-gen Surface Go for me).

Not sure if anyone else has run into the same issue, but it appear that mandatory profiles are not compatible with the new Windows 8 Modern Apps. As soon as the profile is made mandatory, the tiles for the apps no longer appear on the start screen. Non-Modern apps that are pinned (using the sysprep/audit-mode method) are still visible however. Just a heads-up really - we're getting around it to a certain extent by reluctantly giving people their own profiles rather than mandatory ones, having already customised the default domain profile so they'll at least start with a good set of icons on their start screens. Stephen

Should the current Thinstation build (222g) actually work fully with the Remote Desktop Session Broker in 2008 R2? We've got it to connect, but the user is always prompted twice for their logon credentials (once for the connection to the broker - in our case 'tsfarm.school.internal' and again when they're redirected to an actual Session Host such as 'ts03.school.internal'). Stephen

There's more of us on here than you might imagine Stephen

Just wondering if anyone else has seen this: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYtNwmXKIvM]YouTube- Robin Hood Tax[/ame] It certainly makes sense to me - their website is here, and they've got a Facebook page too. If you can't see the video, basically the suggestion is that all speculative inter-bank transactions (i.e. those that don't directly involve the public) be taxed at 0.05%, with the proceeds being used to fight poverty around the globe, and help support public services in this country. Apparently the 0.05% could easily be £100bn per year! Stephen

We had success buying fascias for a couple of Fujitsu-Siemens P2500 machines from the people listed on Fujitsu's own website here - I think a fascia was around £15 including delivery, which wasn't at all bad really. Stephen

There's also FOG. If you're happy installing a standard Linux box (we use Ubuntu server) it's actually pretty straightforward to configure. FOG can also (if the imaged machine is set up correctly) rename the destination PCs and join them to a domain, although I've not tried that yet. Both FOG and Clonezilla can do multicasting, although if you're running across multiple subnets (or are using VLANs) you'll probably have to do some clever configuration on the switches (IGMP snooping and so forth). Clonezilla also do a live-CD version, which is handy for using on single machines (especially so when backing up laptops). Stephen

One thing I forgot to mention above, - it can be very tricky (if not downright impossible sometimes) to locate Windows 7 drivers for old hardware. Our test machine used an old SIS chipset, which isn't officially supported - although newer drivers seemed to work, despite not mentioning the model. Stephen

As an experiment, we tried installing Windows 7 on one of the old machines from the primary we're about to re-vamp. The box was a Celeron 2.4GHz, around 7 years old. Once we scrounged 1GB of RAM, it was surprisingly usable. That's even after installing all updates, Office 2007 and AVG Anti-Virus Business Edition. Of course, it's never going to cope with anything heavy by way of multimedia (in fact, I suspect even flash-based websites are going to be an issue). Whether it's worth spending around £75 per machine to get them running 7 (that's for a memory upgrade and the OS licence) is another matter, seeing as the boxes are mostly on their last legs. Stephen

Just about to replace a primary school's complete network with a Server 2008 R2/Windows 7 setup. I agree that if you've got a healthy XP/2003 system in place, there's not necessarily a rush to upgrade, but the school in question has an ICT suite they simply can't use, due to the 7-year-old PCs being next to useless, and their Windows 2000 server (which is of the same vintage) being on its last legs. My view is this: if a school is due to replace kit, then there's no real reason not to go for Windows 7 (compatibility issues with old software aside). Stephen

There's also BuddyPress - based on Wordpress (it's an official project of theirs too). Wordpress itself might be enough (although you'd probably want the multi-user variant of it, so you could have multiple blogs. Stephen

I think EduGeek exists partially due to the unique nature of the education sector - business IT departments aren't exactly encouraged to share how they do things with other companies, for fear of giving away competitive advantages. Everyone here has such widely ranging levels of experience, so whilst there's always someone who knows more than you, there's also usually someone around that you can help too.

Well done the both of you! Stephen

It's not an error - just read some of the reviews of it on Amazon... - The Reg had a good laugh when it was first released too! Stephen

We've had good experiences with the Phihong injectors, can't recall immediately where we sourced them though (can check at work on Monday if needed). One thing to make sure though, is that whatever you go for is Gigabit compatible - some of the cheaper ones aren't always (not much of an issue if you're going for 802.11g, but if you're looking at Ruckus or other 802.11n based kit, it's worth bearing in mind). Stephen