BBrian

Can anyone suggest a retailer who will sell me cheap licences, whether they be old or windows 7.

I found an eBay auction selling OEM licenses, with this written: Can anyone comment? If that's true this should be easy enough. Otherwise it's kindof expensive.

Doesn't look good. Seems it's a Northwood and Wikipedia doesn't say any of those are 64. I put in the disc and it said my computer can't run this version of Windows. Though it said that instantaneously, but I believe it.

I don't know where I found out I could, but I have Windows 7 64 bit installed on a Pentium 4 2.8 HT desktop. When I finish my upgrades (this week/next) every computer in the school will be 64 bit except one of the servers. This is also a Pentium 4 HT, but at 2.4. It's running Server 2008, but we have Software Assurance so can install 2008r2 on it. 2008r2 is only 64 bit. So, obviously, can I do this?? There's very little information out there about it.

I have SA/Volume Licences and have upgraded some of the comptuers here. What's the deal with computers without any previous licences? I want to install Windows on them but believe I have to already have an older/home licence for each machine. I've seen "buy some windows 98 licences off ebay" mentioned, is this really adequate?

Great suggestions, thanks. Here's what I found. I joined a VM to the domain and the pupil account was just a regular user account. So: Domain Users had been added to Administrators on the local computer! So what I did was: And read up on it at WindowSecurity.com and fixed it. The other posts were good ideas but I'm glad to have corrected this properly.

I think you should be able to write a short script in AutoIt to catch the arguments and pass them to whatever application you like. Probably only a few lines long. I'd have a lash but I'm on a bus right now.

I'm doing a bit of work in a school where the last guy set up the 2003 domain as if it was NT. GPMC wasn't installed when I arrived. He has given students permission to install whatever they want. I can't find where he gave them this ability. I've looked at the Default Domain Policy, run RSOP on the OU containing the student account, and then searched in AUDC for Authenticated Users being a member of Administrators etc. I also created a test account and it had all the permissions it shouldn't, too. Anyone any ideas?

If you're using Group Policy (and so you're aware of the options) you can write ADM Templates to control registry settings from Group Policy Mangement Console. Here's an example showing how to change the reg key you wanted: ; Custom ADM template for XMind. ; ; Created by Brian Henry. ; www.zooofthenew.com CLASS USER CATEGORY "XMind" POLICY "XMind Options" EXPLAIN !!PolicyDescription KEYNAME "Software\Xind" PART "File location where the temp files will be saved:" EDITTEXT REQUIRED EXPANDABLETEXT DEFAULT "C:\Program Files\XMind" VALUENAME "Path" END PART END POLICY END CATEGORY [strings] PolicyDescription="Changes the file location where the temp files will be saved for XMind." There are instructions for adding it to a Group Policy Object at petri.co.il. I think this is out of date if you're using Server 2008, but i'm not yet so haven't learned about admx files myself. You can also change registry settings using Group Policy Preferences. I would avoid actual batch files as they're well out of date now. VBScripting (Windows Scripting Host) and PowerShell are the current Microsoft ones in use. Batch files won't let you control as much as they can.

I'm working on using Daemon Tools across the school to share DVDs from our server. I've written an Auto IT script to create a silent install and then used WIWW to deploy it. Thing is, the file associations don't get created. I've been trying to write a Group Policy ADM Template to address this, but it's not working as expected. I've reached the point where the iso files will have the Daemon Tools icon but will display the "Open With..." dialog when double clicked, and Daemon Tools isn't an option there. I'd appreciate if someone would review/test the template and point out where I'm going wrong. I've been reading the MSDN documentation and, from what I can gather, it should be working! The au3 and adm files are here: Creating a central DVD server using Daemon Tools The ADM also configures autostart/automount/update check/proxy settings/language. I realise Group Policy Preferences can configure associations, but I'm still using Server 2003 and XP. --Solved-- I found that there was an unnecessary space in the path to Daemon Tools. I had DTShell = ""%ProgramFiles%\Daemon Tools Lite\dtlite.exe" -shellmount "%1"" where it should've been DTShell=""%ProgramFiles%\Daemon Tools Lite\dtlite.exe" -shellmount "%1"" i.e. ADM Templates recognise everything after the = in their defined strings. I'll write up an article on setting up the DVD server now. I've also been working on a replacement for Daemon Script. Hopefully I'll get time to finish that soon.

I've created a Group Poilcy ADM Template to configure the rip music options for Windows Media Player centrally. The idea is the teachers around the school will rip CDs as they get them and they'll be available to every classroom. Previous to this, if teachers ripped music, it was stored as protected .wma files inside their own My Documents folder. Creating a central CD server for Windows Media Player Feedback appreciated.

I've 19 TS clients atm., only going to increase. I'd really like one account for them all. I'm going to upgrade to 2008 R2 soon, maybe the issue doesn't occur with it. Our Igel thin clients can be set to auto log-in and MS's RDP client can save the password, too. I don't know how it might be done on the server itself. Maybe install Tweak UI powertoy for XP and watch the changes it makes when auto log-in is configured, then try replicate them on the server.

Yes, regular AD setup. It's a primary school so the kids don't have their own username, I'm aiming for one generic "student" account. I should've phrased that as each station needing a unique login rather than its own login.

In the lab here, using 2003 terminal services, each station must log in using its own username, i.e. lab1, lab2... If two students both log in with the same username, trying to open a file on one computer might result in it appearing on the other comptuer's screen. Is it possible to have a common login and avoid this happening? Also, Firefox refuses to open on more than one station using the same username. I think I'm using the Frontmotion msi because I had trouble getting it to open even in two different userspaces on the terminal server. I anticipate problems with Open Office too. Any experience? I'm moving to MS Office soon and will probably ditch Firefox at the same time. It's causing performance issues (i.e. sessions hanging) and I'm just getting my head around performance logging now.

Last one I encountered was fixed by using System Restore!

From researching, it seems very few Thin Clients support RDP 7. The M80f's website only mentions RDP 5. I think, while upgrading, we should be buying hardware that supports the latest technology. I also figure that running TS Remote Programs will result in a lower load on the TS and give it a bit more life. After reading your posts, and researching some more, I'm going to start looking at devices for the Atom setup in the lab and then I'll use Remote Programs to extend the life of computers outside the lab.

I've a bit of money to upgrade our computer lab (primary school). Currently there are 17 workstations: Windows 98 machines, with RDP client in startup, and four Igel thin clients. We're using Server 2003 r2. Most of what goes on in here is web-browsing (Firefox) and word processing (OpenOffice). The prices of thin clients seem to be about the same as Atom PCs which are capable of running Windows 7. I was impressed with the Acer Aspire Revo (admittedly, I haven't looked around much) which comes with Nvidia Ion graphics so video will not be an issue at all, whereas in our current setup it's the most glaring drawback. Our server is a dual quad core Xeon 1.6 with 4GB ram. It's used for Terminal Services during the day, has a 1.5TB drive for backing up our DC/fileserver and I run virtual machines on it for testing. I'm thinking of fitting the room with Atom PCs, running web-browsing locally, and letting TS Remote Programs keep us future-proof for a while. I'll move the four Igel thin clients into a classroom and continue running them as regular RDP sessions. We're planning to buy MS Office licenses very soon for all our computers. This will probably be the heaviest thing running initally. With TS Remote Programs, it seems one must log onto the local computer and then again when accessing the application. There is an option to save credentials, will this make the RDP logon transparent after it has been completed once? Or will Network Level Authentication take care of it all? So, any advice?

A teacher wants to watch the videos on the scispy.ie website. The won't play for her in Internet Explorer or Firefox but they play fine in both when logged in as administrator. I've set everything ActiveX related in Internet options to Enable. Any suggestions?

You need to download avgremover.exe. I wrote an AutoIT script and wrapped it in a msi and deployed it. If FileExists("C:\Program Files\AVG\AVG8\setup.exe") Or FileExists("C:\Program Files\AVG\AVG9\setup.exe") Then Run("avgremover.exe") If WinWait("Warning", "This application", 30) Then ControlClick("Warning", "This application", 6) EndIf EndIf Then when I was installing AVG 9, I used a WMI filter to check that my "Uninstall AVG85" Windows Installer package was present. I wrote a pretty thorough AutoIT script for installing AVG 9, but didn't test it beyond what I needed myself. Comments appreciated. I won't be purchasing AVG again.

You might also want to check, under custom security, "Launching applications and unsafe files". That's the one that stops Firefox downloading when they started using IE security settings.

I had a bit typed out myself, but this seems to cover it: creating MST files and adding registry keys The appdeploy website is your first port of call when playing with MSIs. Subscribe to the forums' RSS feed if you want to get deep into it. I've never been able to find any decent video tutorials on the subject.

I don't redirect Appdata because if the same user is logged on twice, i.e. teacher using laptop and classroom PC, then OpenOffice.org gives an error when it tries to access its settings. Can roaming profile settings be done in a GPO? It makes sense to put it in the folder redirection one. What's the correct way to set permissions on redirected folders? I ended up giving administrators ownership, then full control, then giving the user full control and then handing ownership back to the user. Took a while because xcacls.vbs wouldn't work for me! With offline files, after the wireless network drops (not really a problem anymore), is there any way of making it auto-sync without prompting the user? I'm not very familiar with it because it never happens to me, but teachers sometimes complain about their folders being empty. Is there any way to specify folder that are not to be synchronised? My DC crashed so I rebuilt it and rejoined the PCs, now some of them still try to sync a folder that was part of the old domain. Is there any way to hide the sync window on logout? Anything else related to this would be great, I really just figure it out as I go along.

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows/24494-daemon-tools-2.html#post236643

Daemonscript too, though I had trouble having the latest two versions working together, now using the second-to-newest version of Daemon Tools.

Appdeploy has uninstall strings for lots of programs, including OpenOffice. Another good resource is the MSFN Application Installs forum. PackageDeploy.com is another site I found recently, it's small but has a forum with lots of MSI information I hadn't seen elsewhere.