Richie1972

We have had this issue in the past but Real Enterprise 10 (not sure if there is an 11) can be legally installed in schools for free

Have you got any more info on these? The only HP USDT wall mount I have found was for the DC7100. The current USDT is a DC7800 and I haven't found any mention of a wall bracket (and I have yet to confirm whether a monitor will bolt on to the case of the DC7800)

No, they tend to mount to specific stands, so can't guarantee that they are VESA. However, we are now looking into the HP DC7800 USDT - there are fixing screws at the top (looking at some pics I have seen), but no mention of whether they are VESA

Thanks for your help. We don't have any thin clients and don't want to start going down that road (not got anything against thin clients, just don't want to start using them when the rest of the school is on "full" machines). The SCL and the Sony units only seem to have desk mount stands (as do pretty much any of the VESA mount PCs/All-In-Ones - we've just kitted out a CAD suite with some very nice Lenovo units). To be honest, I have not yet seen ANY small form factor PCs with the ability to mount to a wall AND have provision for mounting a monitor. I will check out Dell and HP, just in case they provide some sort of wall mount stand for their SFF offerings

We are in the process of "speccing" up PCs for our new 6th Form building and are looking for a number of wall mounting units, but are not finding much. We ideally want a PC that is small, bolts to the wall and then has a flat screen monitor bolted to it. I have looked at a few "all-in-one" units (including Macs and Sony Vaio), but I would prefer something along the small form factor route (easier for repair and upgrade). Any suggestions?

I'd love to tell them not to use it. However, one of the staff needs it for cover and class lists, etc and another needs it for timetabling (there are some aspects that can't be done with Nova T6)

Actually, having tested further, a re-install of SP3 still didn't fix it. I still think it is the SIMS install writing an older version of a file that is causing the problem - anyone know what it could be?

We've recently found a few computers running XP with service pack 3 have a strange problem. If a user goes into Nova T4 and moves the mouse to the menu bar, Nova just exits - no error, just quits. It seems to only affect computers that are installed with XP that has been slip streamed with SP3. computers that have SP3 installed after SIMS is installed work fine - as do the PCs that didn't work when SP3 is re-installed. I am guessing that somehow the SIMS install is overwriting a file with an older version (SP3 presumably having a newer version). Has anyone else come across this problem?

We have just upgraded our wireless LAN from old netgear WG602's running WEP encryption to Apple Extreme access points running WPA/WPA2 Enterprise with a server handling RADIUS and certificates. Laptops access it fine - far better than old system. However, we have a number of HP IPAQ RX1950 PDAs (running Windows Mobile 5) which refuse to work (they worked fine on old network). They always report (quite rightly) that they need a certificate, but I can't figure out how to get a certificate off the certificate server (one of our Domain Controllers) and on to the PDA. Is it possible with these units and if so, how?

Yeah I'm still amazed AD can't do it (Netware used to be able to do it way back when I used to use 3.12 lol). I do have a script that logs in a database the username, computer name and time someone logs in, plus on logout it updates the database, so I might look into adding the functionality to limit users to one login - or I might just use limitlogin

You can quite easily automate WDS/RIS. We do it here with no problems (in fact I've even got a simple script that will clear the MBR so that when the PC reboots it will then automatically re-install. To automate the initial part of the RIS install you need to edit the OSC files in the OSChooser folder. Simply add : to each page you want to automatically "enter" on and it will continue to next page. You can even preload the data should you wish (the OSC files are a very limited HTML)

Seems that it was just a rumour.... many of which keep floating around. Having to wait now until I DO get told something... hopefully sooner rather than later - and with a basis of truth in it, cos I've been stressing out about whether I even have any future in a school!!!

(note to the person who likes to forward my postings to the head ... this is in my own time AND NOT a posting representing the school) Ok, so everything could be all right for some ICT technicians once they get taken over by the MSP chosen by their LEA: there will always be a need for toner and mouse changers However, what about us Network Managers? No MSP is going to pay >£24000 for us to do the same, so does anyone in an already BSF'd area have any experiences of this? Will we end up being forced to quit, forced to travel to alternative areas or what? Obviously the earlier phases didn't have the MSP forced upon them, but for those that did, what was the outcome... are there any of us left in the aftermath and did it give you any career/job benefits? Although I may always seem to be totally anti-BSF if there is a light at the end of the tunnel then I'm all for embracing it. I just don't want to see all my hard work thrown away and my career with it. Have you been bogged down with "paperwork" or have your new bosses been flexible? We are very much in the dark here and it's sometimes quite scary (families to keep and bills to pay!!!!)

yes i use the logon script to copy the correct dat file to the computer, but it still means having to edit 15 files every time I need to update policies... still it does stop the "fiddler" who is now very unhappy about this restriction, which makes me happy

We have 15 ICT suites with AB Tutor installed and, up until recently, each of the 15 admin computers had access to all the classrooms. However, one particular member of ICT teaching staff is known to spend a lot of time watching the monitored classrooms (spread across various subjects: ICT, English, Science, Maths, etc) and will block, logoff, etc students he "decides" have broken rules. This has, understandably, annoyed the other staff (especially those from other departments), so I have now restricted each room to only control its own room ( a pain in the ass as it now means I have to maintain 15 policy files). Has any other school had to deal with this problem?

I've heard rumours that the combined Blackburn-With-Darwen/Bolton BSF bid may well be awarded to Ramesys. Anyone got any experience of them as a managed IT provider? We only use them for purchasing licences at the moment. I've heard that we are being taken over as early as this November, so I've probably not got that much longer to find another job (as a network manager there is no place for us in schools once IT is outsourced )

I've put ours on each machine (pushed out via MSI). It helps for when four or five IT suites logon at once or wireless laptops are used. Any time we update profiles, start menus, etc, we just repackage the MSI and push out via GPO

I am looking into extensive use of DFS over the summer and, to add to what was said in this thread, there is a patch you can download from microsoft to fix this DFS issue (which is fixed in XP SP3). Can't remember the name of the fix off hand though, but a search on the MS website should easily find it - you may also have to install the server version of the patch on your Win2k3 server

Blackburn with Darwen has, I believe, paid a small fortune for this "VLE" on the recommendation of primary school teachers and NOT IT staff. To be honest, the system does look good for primary schools as it is very basic and has few features. However, as it is so limited, generally unreliable, doesn't integrate with the school's network and doesn't have decent SIMS integration it is pretty much useless to most secondary schools. We will be sticking with our Frogserver (FrogTeacher - Learning Platform, Personalised Learning, VLE, Digital Environment), which can do everything Uniservity can do plus a lot more.

Alternatively you can do what I'm planning over the summer: 1. create a DFS share (servers are Win2K3 R2) on two servers 2. create full replication 3. set one of the servers as the preferred server (there is a patch for Win2k3 and XP required) This should mean that a user will automatically be directed to the same server UNLESS that server is unavailable

I've had two interviews - both of which I'm waiting to hear about later this week (I've been told I'm the preferred candidate for one, but not sure I want that job ) Still, in Blackburn we have until 2010 to find other jobs

Blackburn is Wave 4 I think. Whatever wave we are, the IT Managed Services comes in during 2010. I'm already looking for another job (as are a number of my colleagues). I might end up coming back when they discover Managed Services don't work and try to fix the damage they've done by 2015 lol

Students are now getting wise to the fact that if they unplug the lan cable just after they start to logon, GPO doesn't get applied and they get access to most of the local computer. I believe there is a means of forcing the computer to logoff if it can't find a domain controller, but I can't find the setting for it in GPO. Students have mandatory roaming profiles and I would rather not use a heavily restricted Default User account. How do others on here prevent this (aside from chopping the little buggers hands off)? Richie

I emailed Real about this ages ago and this is what I got back (it seems that it is fine to use Real Enterprise throughout school) Hello Richard, My name is Peter. I am a Real Networks Tier 2 Technical Support Representative. Your case has been escalated to our department due to severity. Thank you for your continued patience, and I would like to apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced so far. I have followed this thread since the day you initiated it on 02-02-2007. As I understand it that you need to install and use Real Player 10 Free Enterprise edition on more than 500 computers. I can help you with this. As long as you are using free edition you are fine. Please reply to this email with any further questions or concerns. Thank you, RealNetworks Technical Support Tier 2 Escalation Department

I've just installed Openfire (links into active directory and uses SQL Express 2005 database) with Spark IM clients. Works perfectly, just got to get more staff using it now