zippo

Possibly, but we are about to see an avalanche of low cost (sub £100) Windows devices come on stream. Take a look at .... Search results for "linx" | Ebuyer.com

If you have more than one domain controller - make sure that the scripts are replicating acrossthem. Simply check each DC in turn by looking at \\servername\netlogon and checking that the scripts are there on each server. If they are not - then you have a replication issue that will need to be resolved.

Been a while since I did anything with those settings - but don't you configure up a station the way your want and then import the settings into your GPO .... I could be wrong of course.

Hosted email solutions using Live@Edu, Office 365, Google Doc’s …. I’m probably overthinking this and wonder if you could help clear or allay my concerns regarding free hosted email systems. From what I can tell –virtually every free hosted email system supports only personal archiving of email. I don’t know what Google’s policy is; but I spoke with Microsoft and they said that they only kept content of emails for 30 days. I believe they have to keep the records of who emailed who and at what time for quite a bit longer. I guess this is within the UK and EU data retention policies for ISP’s … but what about schools? Like businesses – surely schools need to keep archived materials relating to the “business” for several years? In an environment where emails are externally hosted and users responsible for keeping the archives; is this something to be worried or concerned about? Then there is the duty of care relating to the students; do the schools not have a duty of care to identify certain activities that pose risks to the students? With no central archiving policy – how can a school trace and deal with situations?

Be warned - using snap shots for DC backup is in itself dengerous becaus ethe AD is time sensitive and you can serverly screw up a network if you restore that way. Far better to provision DC's as dedicated systems.In the event of a DC failure cresate a new VM (from a sysprep'ed template), start it up and the add it back into the domain and let it replicate. Takes fractionally longer - but a way safer.

So - what all you chaps are saying, without actually saying it is .... You would probably be better off buying a Netbook ... it should be cheaper than any "good" tablet and it should be able to do almost 100% of what you want to do with it!

If the update is contained within an MSI - then the CSE Application Deployment system can send that out to those stations that require it. The deployment system runs behind the OS using the Network Service account and will not have any issue installing the package onto the PC's. The package would neet to be run using the /q switch - just make sure that the MSI supports that. Remember that since it is installing in the background - the installer must be able to run without any operator intervention - otherwise the process can hang waiting for a non-existant user to respond to a non-existant prompt

You can extract the MSI required from dotNetfx40_full_x86_x64 by using the /x switch. This will extract the core and extended versions as MSI's - as x86 and x64 msi installers (ie 4 MSI's) - you will need to deploy as appropriate to your target OS. Probably a bit late to be of any use in this case, but perhaps useful for somebody else having this issue.

You have downloaded the manuals and familiarised yourself with the device? While the MSA2000 is a great device, I wouldn't advise trying to extend the array without first understanding the underlying configuration.

I'm just trying to get an angle on duty cycle - vs recommended print volumes. For instance you can get printers with published duty cyles in the hundreds of thousands of pages - yet a recommended monthly print of only several thousand pages. It a big difference!

Hopefully I haven't posted this in the wrong forum and apols if this has been asked before - appeciate if you could indulge me. I'm trying to get a handle on printing costs of a typical secondary school. Basically these are my questions ... What are the average number of pages printed per month using a classroom based BW laser / Colour laser? In your experience - How many pages does cartrige (BW & Colour) actually produce? Then ... Same question but for admin/staff printers.

Sorry - I started to get all excited ... must have misread the theard header ... I thought it read "Linux sells 20 copies" Damm I thought - at last the writing is on the wall for Microsoft ........

You could add the 2008 server into you old domain - replicate the accounts etc (leave overnight). Then demote your 2003 servers, upgrade the domain functional levels (assuming you are removing the 2003 servers completely) then move the users home dirs and other info onto your new servers.

A long shot but check KB 888254 - might not be relevent if your are patched and up to date. Have you done any GPO debugging using RSoP or other console snapins? Might help narrow your search a bit.

Check you servers are replicating properly - if they are not - sort it out because that is probably the problem.

Make sure that (if you have more than one DC) that the servers are replicating properly. The GPO's are part of the SYSVOL file replication topology, if its broke - then you can end up with GPO's that are out of sync and that can lead to all sorts of problems. If its happening on some XP machines (only) then check KB 888254 - its an old one - but it's often overlooked escpecially if you have re-used old images that haven't been updated properly.

Many years ago we had a school that named its servers - God, Jesus, St Peter, St Paul .... I swear we had a support call that went along the lines ... "God's says that he can't communicate with St Peter ...." This is from my old RM tech support days ... I will admit to being old enough to have supported 380Z, 480Z's - before moving on to product manage all of RM's Networks upto and inluding RM Net 3 ... for which I humbly apologise for all the hurt inflicted!)

From purely a practical position - be careful upgrading to 2008 x64. the 64bit version of 2008 (inc R2) does not include x32 printer drivers as standard ... you will have to source and install them manually. And beleive me - this can be a pain ... Also - if you have cheap / old print servers (netgear / dlink etc) double check that these will work properly with 2008 ... some don't!

The more complex thing is to now fix the replication problem! Manually copying scripts between servers is just a temp fix

Common problem - you need to check to make sure that your PDC's netlogon folders are syncronised and contain the same login scripts. Basically if they are out of sync (not replicating) - then you get this sort of problem as users will connect to any netlogon folder that pops up first and it it just happens to be one that hasn't replicated and contains older scripts .... it can be confusing!

The answer is maybe ... assuming that the 2003 server is x32 - then you can upgrade to a x32 version of 2008. But it won't allow upgrades to x64 (which means 2008R2 is out of the equation). So if you want x64 (R2) - its a rebuild I'm afraid. I have upgraded serveral 2003 servers to 2008 (x32) - quite old hardware actually and it worked (surprised me somewhat!). There is a 2008 server upgrade advisor available on the MS site - actually its a lot more complex than just a server upgrade advisor - it will also scan your entire network and checkout your stations as well. It then generates reports that tell you what you need - like what drivers you might need to get your hands on. It is a bit involved installing it as it uses sql express to create a database - but if you are planning to go the whole hog with 2008 and W7 - its probably worth doing. Its here ... Download details: Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit

Imaging new servers that way is fine - so long as it the only server in the domain. But if you are creating additional servers for your domain it is pretty important that the machine image you clone from has been syspreped first. Otherwise the SID's get completely messed up and you will definately be in for an interesting time late on down the line .... The basic problem recovering a DC from an VM image is that the ADS time stamps will be out of date (compared to the system time - obtained from the BIOS normally). If the time is out by too much (serveral days I think), it can cause all sorts of problems. In a single server environment you might get away with it. In a multi-server - multi DC, you probably won't be as lucky.

Be very careful with regard to snap shot type VM backups - especially if your system has more than one DC. If you have to restore from this image - you could find that the AD time stamps are out of sync and the system could block one of your replicas. I can be fixed, but its fiddly.

Use a UNC rather than a drive letter?

I've been told that a lot of educational ISP block https: sites. Just wondering if we could have a straw poll of members to see if this is fact or fiction.