TimH

Have you tried a test report with different/simple template ? i.e. is the report template causing the issue ? It could be a memory issue, I've just replaced our school logo bitmap with a vector emf version and cut printing time from 3hrs+ down to 20 minutes for a 2 page whole year group print. Also, are all of the tags really valid, you say the template was from a different school, were the tags copied or re-entered - I just discovered that someone in our school had used search/replace on an individual report template to switch Yr7 to Yr8, it doesn't work, it only changes the visible text not the tag behind it. Oh, that reminds me, take a look in the XML tamplate via a text editor/web browser or in Word use options to show hidden text to examine the tags. tim

Advanced Installer is great for creating clean MSIs. tim

Before you reopen the template to edit it, turn off the option "When editing user-defined templates, use Word with macro support field names", it will then open with size etc. settings as saved. If you need to add new fields (without the add-ins now available) just enter the field names in angle brackets. tim

I do this to populate a web based timetable viewer we have. I think (can't check ATM) the report needs to ask for the classes the teacher teaches, the the periods for the classes (or maybe classes, teachers, periods). tim

Look at using "Creator Owner" permissions on a shared folder combined with staff change permission. The student then creates the folder (using their real name, whatever), only they and staff will have access to the individual folder. (Any spurious folders that appear can obviously be traced by ownership/permissions.) Then run a schedule to do "net share" to share /unshare the parent folder at appropriate times. tim

We have mandatory profiles but redirect "Desktop" beside "My Documents" within their space on the network. i.e. \\ourschool\..\jsmith\My Documents \\ourschool\..\jsmith\Desktop Likewise favourites and for staff appdata. No issues with copying at logon etc. the only problem being that icon locations aren't maintained between logons. tim

We have "My Computer" and "My Documents" on the desktop and our logon script renames "My Computer" to the actual workstation name and "My Documents" to the username. e.g. "IT1-PC00", "SmithJ's Documents" tim

(Is posting code snippets frowned upon ?) strComputer = "." Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer) Set colItems = objWMIService.InstancesOf("Win32_NetworkAdapter") For Each objItem in colItems Wscript.Echo objItem.Description Wscript.Echo objItem.NetConnectionStatus Next NetConnectionStatus described here; Win32_NetworkAdapter Class (Windows) Workarounds needed for Windows older than XP. tim

Rather than using Ping, why not ipconfig and check connection status? Or whatever system calls (via WMI ?) are available for such checking. tim

Why copy to the workstations ? We just have a central wallpaper on one of the servers, it makes it trivial to change for a new one. Reg setting done by group policy rather than startup script (pointing to \\dfsdomain\etc\wallpaper.jpg), makes it more easily managed. tim

Out of interest how large does/can the SIMS database/backup become ? We only started using SIMS in September, our backups are about 1.2GB (1700 students 11-18 secondary) and are only taking a minute and a quarter to run (modified date compared creation date). tim

That's good, I think I did it by setting up the screensaver for myself then using the relevant values created. In fact we have a central screensaver which is normally the slideshow one but can be replaced by a themed/seasonal one simply by replacing screensaver.scr in the server share. (You may need to muck about with server settings to allow anonymous access.) tim

We've been running this for ages, simply tweak the registry settings for the default user on the workstations (using, script, reg file, whatever, preferable Policy Preferences) to set the slideshow saver, image location (unc path is OK) and timeout etc.. We simply add/remove notices as required in the single location. tim

It's just a shame that we have to work around the issue, being new to SIMS I'd hoped they'd not have such problems that need working around ! I'd seen mention of new reporting, any idea on a time scale, I was told nothing drastically new when I queried with Capita/SIMS - unless they misinterpreted my question. tim

Thanks, yep, I didn't think it was this but it was. I donned my Poirot hat, had a rummage in a backup of the database and found a newer report with a similar name to mine, it was private so I hadn't seen it in live SIMS. I made it public, had a look and the report title was exactly the wording of my original. Trouble is that we are trying to encourage people to create their own reports, SIMs allows us to break reports but provides no tool for managing them, pah ! I've tried reproducing the problem, as you say it occurs when doing "Save As" but have failed, I've tried to be oh so careful, save close, reopen etc. when creating clones and *have* had the problem, ho hum. tim