Chuckster

Is it running in PowerShell 5.x or 7.x? If the latter, try using import-module 'exchangeonlinemanagement' -force -usewindowspowershell

I've advised the HoD and the techie to reach out to ESS. The information the school wants is pertaining to a former pupil that left in 2015 - and in their SIMS records are documents that they need to access.

Former colleague who's a HoD for IT curriculum reaches out if I could help his son who is currently the IT technician at a school where they both work at (not a school I've ever worked for). I reluctantly agreed as I know the HoD wouldn't have reached out unless it was absolute necessary. Note, I've been out of the education game for 4+ years so my knowledge is a little rusty re SIMS. The situation... The school joined a MAT 6 years ago and replaced SIMS .Net with Bromcom as a requirement. It's been explained to me that the school is left to manage their own IT to some degree. The school has an urgent requirement to access data that's contained within SIMS. I've guided the techie to restore SIMS from a backup to a VM. The school has the password written down but the former IT manager didn't state which account it was for. The code below reveals all the user accounts and I could see the 'sysman' account exists. Slight problem - the password doesn't work. I could see other user accounts with their generated passwords, which the techie was successful logging into. However, this gives limited data. USE [sims] GO SELECT [user_id] ,[person_id] ,[login_name] ,[password_valid] ,[password_generated] ,[last_accessed] ,[language_id] ,[preferences] ,[favourites] ,[asm_view_exams] ,[asm_exams_available] ,[suser_sid] FROM [sims].[db_user] GO Is there a way of resetting the sysman account, or at least another user account (not an admin account) which the HoD believes has the relevant permissions to access the necessary data the school is seeking?

Do yourself a favour and get a laser printer. I got rid of my HP Photo Inkjet and replaced it with Brother DCP-L3560CDW from Amazon.

Since the forum upgrade the iOS app no longer works and I can't seem to locate the iSpy function on the forum. Will the app be updated to accommodate the new forum and is there any plan of reinstating iSpy?

True, but then you get rid of the cloud subscription and revert to back to managing it on-prem. Sounds simple in the grand scheme of things, but I suppose it depends on how far invested you are with the subscription.

Does the DfE still do the Connect The Classroom? Is this something you could investigate? The schools I worked across managed to secure new Aruba switches, Wi-Fi, Cat6 cabling, OM4 fibre etc. It saved the schools boat loads of money at the expense of taxpayers. No doubt prices were doubled because it was a cash cow for companies, but it was literally zero expense to the schools.

Share your PS script so we can see what is or isn't working with it.

Given the location, and poor pay, you need to go back to your HT/HR and tell them it needs increasing to at the very minimum of 10k!

Follow this guide and import the file into an Intune configuration policy.

You will need to set up a default apps list to stop the prompt from occurring. Export or Import Default Application Associations | Microsoft Learn

Run the below in VS Code or ISE and see if it actually outputs anything to do with Adobe. If it does, then it would suggest the clean-up tool isn't an effective job of tidying up after itself. You could create a .ps1 script that could run the tool followed by a manual clean-up of removing associated files and folders. I would use PSADT for this. <# .SYNOPSIS Return uninstall strings from the Windows registry to uninstall Win32 apps .NOTES Name: Get-UninstallStringInfo Author: Payton Flint Version: 1.0 DateCreated: 2023-Sep .LINK https://paytonflint.com/ #> function Get-UninstallStringInfo { param ( [string]$regPath32 = "HKLM:\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\", [string]$regPath64 = "HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\" ) # Get program information for both 32-bit and 64-bit registry paths $programInfo = @() foreach ($regPath in $regPath32, $regPath64) { $subkeys = Get-ChildItem -Path $regPath -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue foreach ($subkey in $subkeys) { $program = Get-ItemProperty -Path $subkey.PSPath -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue $dispName = $program.DisplayName $dispVersion = $program.DisplayVersion $publisher = $program.Publisher $uninstall = $program.UninstallString if ($null -ne $dispName -or $null -ne $dispVersionion -or $null -ne $publisher -or $null -ne $uninstall) { $programInfo += [PSCustomObject]@{ "DisplayName" = $dispName "DisplayVersion" = $dispVersion "Publisher" = $publisher "UninstallString" = $uninstall } } } } # Sort the program information by DisplayName $programInfo = $programInfo | Sort-Object DisplayName # Output the sorted programInfo array return $programInfo } Get-UninstallStringInfo

Got real tired of Microsoft's BS with Windows 11, so finally wiped my personal laptop and installed Zorin OS several weeks ago. It was a choice between Debian, Mint and Zorin OS, and I opted for the latter. It's almost akin to the look of Windows 10/11, so navigating around isn't bothersome. Additionally, I've installed VS Code and PowerShell and it's been pretty good thus far. Although the laptop is 4 years old, it no longer sounds like a jet engine taking off. The laptop is so deadly silent you'd mistake it for being powered off. CPU usage is barely hovering over 8% and RAM usage is 2.5GB/16GB - and that's with Brave browser open with 24 tabs open, terminal and Libre Office Writer. And what's more is that the laptop remains cool during use and doesn't overheat like it used to when it was Windows 10 and later Windows 11 when it was upgraded last year. In the past I had always found myself going back to Windows 7/10 when trying different Linux flavours, but on this occasion I am finding myself sticking with it.

The biggest cost to any school, academy and trust is going to be the staff wage bill. At least 85% of a schools budget is eaten up by staff alone. If you want to see real efficiencies, then schools need to look at their staffing structure. This is how it's done in the private sector - and unfortunately, the same needs to happen in the public sector. I understand making improvements to systems, re-visiting contracts etc all helps. But the short-term savings are immediately eroded the following year when things such as NMW goes up, salary spinal points adjusted to account for inflation etc, with little to no extra funding from central government. When I used to work in schools, business managers would glance at IT as their first immediate target for achieving savings. The constant fear of losing your job, especially when you're the only person, was enough to seek opportunities elsewhere.

In the past 6-9 months my company has employed a few people in very senior positions, commanding a pay of £85k+ as base salary. Unfortunately, a couple of them have been let go and the rest have had their probation extended. We've come to find that majority have blagged their way through the interview stages (HR + Hiring Manager = useless) and have said they're highly proficient in scripting, which we've found not to be the case. One of the primary scripting abilities we've searched for is the ability to use PowerShell. We're in the midst of automating a lot of things and converting most of the older scripts to PowerShell. Most of the code they've produced has been AI driven, which is fine if you know what's being spewed out. Upon examining these codes, a majority will define variables where it's not used anywhere in the code, or create multiple arrays within arrays that loop many times over when it's not needed. Additionally, it will add some extra lines of code where, for example, it's modifying the registry using Set-Item cmdlet and then equally using another cmdlet that's also doing the same thing. That said, some couldn't explain the code they would produce, which led us to doubt their capabilities. I'm all for AI to lay you a foundation to build upon. I am against it producing the whole shebang which hinders your ability of learning, dissecting and understanding of it. In the summer, we received boat loads of applications from summer interns that you can see have used AI. On one hand, the thought of using AI sounds great, but yet on the other hand, it's sounds like it will make people lazy and give way to those that think doing a crash course in entry-level IT for 6 months will lead to those American type crazy salaries.