DavR

I've got it working fine, but yeah, you've got to get the right version of the ADK and the right boot image, the last version before they disabled VB script. Assuming that the deprecation of VB script is permanent, and that MDT is never going to get a PowerShell makeover (both quite likely), this may well be the last version of Windows that will go through MDT, sad times. WDS is still there, for those of us who want a traditional deployment model, but it's really very limited compared to MDT.

Normal working day, although sometimes I can get away with getting contractors in or doing some disruptive work while the kids are out. Very very rarely I might get dragged into the actual training, but usually only if it's obligatory safeguarding stuff.

Tbf, within 24hrs you'd expect the IP address to probably still be the same. But it is best to be certain, especially if you're reporting on web filtering infractions. With our wireless management, we get a current and a historical tab for clients, so that's where I look these things up when I need to. Which is no help in your case I know!

Yep, afraid that information can't be relied upon. Even if it's always been on the same DHCP server, there's nothing to say that IP hasn't changed over time. If I'm trying to track my devices by IP, I search in the clients section of our managed wireless solution, MDM isn't reliable.

Yep! It's a bit rubbish that it only works, when you've opened the app. I have devices in iPad trolleys, that are deployed via Apple Configurator and Apple Device Enrolment, where the System Manager app is installed, but likely in the lifetime of the device, will never be opened, so we'll never get this data reported. Infuriating!

Oh, I've done all this, so I've had test devices up with these settings enabled. But, during my testing, the device didn't report location as a matter of course (you may be able to request location from the console, I don't recall if I tried that or not). The only time the device reported location was when I had the System Manager app open. My scenario being, taking a device offsite to see if it reported being offsite and violating our geofencing policy. Even after 24hrs offsite, it didn't report as violating the geofencing policy. Open the SM app, it reported location and a geofencing alert occurred a minute or two later. Thus my understanding is that the device doesn't report location to Meraki, unless the SM app is open, or it's requested from the console. My suspicion, getting back to your original problem, is that IP and SSID don't report either, unless SM app is open. Maybe try one of your iPads that currently isn't reporting IP and SSID, open SM app, and see what happens.

Glad you hear you managed to get everything online. It's a faff, but sometimes that's the only way to do it. Regarding getting the IP address and SSID reported in Meraki console, I *think* this is reliant on the System Manager app being open on the iPad to fully report back. I've played around a lot with trying to get the location to report back (for geofencing), and that relies on the Meraki app being open and running on the device to report correctly. Looking at my Meraki console, I can see a correlation between devices that have reported IP and SSID, and devices I know I've opened the app on. Meraki is a great system, but needing that SM app to be open, or at least opened once, on the device is a massive weakness in the design.

There's only so much you can do, there's no accounting for end users!

Those are great A fun few hours after school in the DT room? We have one of our playground gate keys attached to a novelty flyswatter....

That one-off Education Upgrade License would be tied to the hardware, same as it is for regular Chromebooks - it's a license to use 1 x Chrome device with Google Workspace device management, doesn't matter whether it's a Chromebook or Chrome OS Flex device. The only way it can be transferred, I think, based on what I've seen in the admin console, is that you can transfer an Edu Upgrade license from a Chrome OS Flex device to a regular Chromebook, if it's been in use less than 12 months. The idea being, I suppose, you can use any old device with OS Flex for up to a year, whilst you budget for and purchase a "proper" Chromebook, and only pay one license cost. I've not seen this in action, though.

My understanding from a presentation by a Google rep a couple of months back is that Chrome OS Flex is free for education, it's just the one off Edu upgrade license at approx £35, if you want to manage the device in Google Workspace, which you will in the case of classroom devices. There was an annual license cost with the precursor product to this, NeverWare CloudReady, although whether that was payable in Edu settings was somewhat open to interpretation.

I don't think it makes much different where in the XML file, as long as it's on it's own line and at the top level in the XML structure.

The last basic install we had was about £1800, but it was a 75" not 65" (we had a bit extra in the pot, that time), so £1600 for a 65" sounds about right, including deinstall / install / cable run and a soundbar. I'm not on commission or anything like that, but we've always found AVPartsmaster to give the cheapest installation costs. You could perhaps save a few quid doing the de-install yourself, but, is it really worth the hassle to save less than a hundred quid. You could also potentially save money on going for a no-name brand screen, most AV companies have some brand you've never heard of that they're selling dirt cheap if you ask.... whether that's worth the risk is up to you!

You could try adding this line into your XML. It controls whether the installer tries to remove other versions of office when it runs.

Oh dear. Have you lost connectivity, AND, locked yourself out of the wifi settings? That could be an issue! Have you deployed the WiFi SSID and password out in the same profile that you've deployed the 'Force wifi to allowed networks only' restriction setting? In the past, I have found that if I deploy a wireless network via a profile in Apple Configurator (for instance), when I enrol the device into Meraki it will junk those settings and overwrite them. Manually entered networks are OK, but those added via profiles other than Meraki it didn't like.

Ouch, bad luck. If the devices are now offline due to the config change you made, there's no fix other than to re-join each device, to allow it to get your corrected configuration. I did this by accident myself a few week back when changing the scoping of our WiFi policy (one which I use to disable mac address randomisation - similar to your original problem?). That was a hairy afternoon, and no mistake. Luckily I only had to fix approx 40 devices, and they were mostly accessible.

Our site team are constantly going round removing door wedges as the doors need to be closed for fire regs.....!

More use might be the version of Windows you're trying to deploy to, and the version of Office, including the contents of your Office installer configuration XML?

How far down the deployment route are you? I'm assuming you're using a Windows image that has had some of the pre-provisioned crap removed. The easiest way to fix this is to use a windows image that hasn't had Microsoft.Office.Desktop removed and deploy that tbh. Otherwise, you'll need to find the .appxbundle and associated XML license file (have a snoop around %PROGRAMFILES%\WindowsApps and %PROGRAMFILES%\WindowsApps\DeletedAllUserPackages for starters) and try and reinstall using that (code below using OneNote as an example). I've done it before, but it can be very hit and miss. Add-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online -PackagePath "$PSScriptRoot\Microsoft.Office.OneNote_16001.11126.20076.0_neutral___8wekyb3d8bbwe.AppxBundle" –LicensePath "$PSScriptRoot\Microsoft.Office.OneNote_8wekyb3d8bbwe_e336bb8f-16ed-7cbe-afee-971dd3041585.xml" Is there anything in the config of your Office installer about removing previous versions first that perhaps you can switch off?

Ack, formatting has gone all screwy on that, sorry folks. If you want the full script DM me and I'm happy to share.

So, below is the vbscript we use to sound the lock down alert. For some reason I could never get this script to run on it's own, so I bodged it by calling from another bit of vbscript - perhaps better scripters than I can fix that! We've got some custom sounds added to NetSupport Notify, to add extra urgency when the message type "Critical" arrives - see p44 of the manual for how to do that - https://resources.netsupportsoftware.com/resources/manualpdfs/nsn_manual.pdf As has been mentioned above though, it may not be worth spending a lot of time getting this working via VB, as that is deprecated now in Windows 11. intAnswer = Msgbox("Do you want to sound a lockdown alert?", vbYesNo, "Lockdown Alert")If intAnswer = vbYes Then 'Creating the NOtify COM object set pNotify = CreateObject("NSGatewayAgent.BroadcastMessage") pNotify.AppType = &H100 'APP_NOTIFY 'Setting connection details pNotify.GatewayAddress = "[sERVER.FQDN]" pNotify.GatewayKey = "[YOUR KEY]" pNotify.Caption = "INITIATE LOCKDOWN" pNotify.Text = "Please initiate lockdown procedure." pNotify.Flags = 4380 pNotify.Timeout = 1800 pNotify.dept= "*" pNotify.BroadcastFlags = 1 'Execute Notification pNotify.Execute msgbox "Lockdown alert sent" set pNotify = NothingElse Msgbox "Lockdown alert cancelled."End If

I prefer to have that setting the other way round, with all notification area icons shown at all times. Each to their own eh. But yeah. I've also not been able to get that working with Windows 11 23H2. Would appreciate any ideas others have!

Luckily, I have faith enough in our SLT that I don't think they would throw me under the bus if that did fail..... But I know for sure not every leadership would be quite as forgiving! It's a fair point re vbscript EOL. It's something I've made a note to look at in my Windows 11 development.

I tried to be clever, and provision that sync folder for the SharePoint sites in explorer using GP. Which I successfully did for all staff, but due to the size of our SharePoint sites, it would take hours / days to synchronise and show the available files to the user. Then, if more than one person accessed a file, we were getting synchronisation errors, and duplicate copies of everything. In a nutshell, synchronising files up and down using OneDrive caused us a lot of delays and conflicts. Using Cloud Drive Mapper, you're always working on the "live" copy of a file, so far fewer conflicts. It may work OK with smaller SharePoint sites, and users only syncing ad hoc files, I don't know. But I far prefer working live, after our experiences.

This is another reason we bought IAM Cloud Drive Mapper to replicate classic mapped drives. We're using Office 2019 (for reasons), and for the life of me I couldn't find a way to make the Sharepoint sites easily visible to staff in the Open and Save dialogues. Same with any third party software.