DavR

Anyone else finding a very high failure rate with these devices? Specifically the MTK version coded 81QC. We have the AMD ones too, but they've only just gone into service. We got a these on a deal a few years ago, and I've just called in another one for repair - our current failure rate sits at a whopping 38% over two years! Mainly keyboard failures, which can in part be put down to COVID over-cleaning, but I'm starting to see more mainboard failures too. I was at least wise enough to buy into the three year warranty deal, but it's still a faff sending them off for repair, which can take a week or two at a time. Could get very expensive very quickly when the warranty runs out on these.

Brill, thanks!

Interesting! If it's in GP, I wonder if I can grab the reg keys and use that for my off-domain laptops.....

Yeah, I got hit with this recently, all of our stuff is/was on a 1909 build. All our domain workstations are on WSUS, but we have a batch of off-domain laptops that get loaned out for staff home use. I've got no great objection to these devices upgrading to 2004, it just would have been a thumping inconvenience to those staff that borrowed them over half term to do reports (oh well). I had 365 day deferral on there too, I'd be interested if there is any sensible way of deferring further whilst still getting regular Windows Updates, but I suspect there is not.

Isn't that rather the point? To show them how easily it can be done. A bit of shame at being caught out is a powerful motivator to think twice next time.

I recently sat through this half hour training video - it's a suitable punishment, put it that way!

I wonder if it will actually add anything useful, rather than being "same as Windows 7 except the Start Menu doesn't work".

Ta chaps, updating my vCenter Server now.

I've noticed a worrying trend, especially when it comes to the smaller devices such as Chromebooks, where to replace the keyboard, you have to replace the entire top panel with it. Hasn't been the case for our Dell units, but might well be for the Lenovos.

Does it make a difference if you're plugging these into USB2 or USB3 ports? We had a mare with some old Promethean boards where we had to make sure we only used them on USB2 as they just couldn't hack USB3, even though it should be backwards compatible. Depending on whether this is actually having an operational impact, you could always just cheat and disable the device connected / disconnected sound.....

My understanding on that one is that it's licensed on your Full Time Equivalent staff numbers, and it gives you access current versions of Windows desktop and Office Pro. You license on the staff number, then get the children's access for free. There is an equation somewhere for FTE, but given that it would require getting staff working hours out of personnel, I've never challenged our number.

Always done the same as @Oaktech there, and have all printer logic in one policy. In my policy, delete all printer connections is the first item, then printers via item level targeting after that.

That being the case, what would you use? Any "wet" cleaning solution is going to short out the contacts and generally make a mess. We've had no more keyboard failures since switching to alcohol wipes, one would assume the alcohol only touches the top surface and evaporates.

I generally test these by logging a test user off, and back on. Sometimes it can take a few minutes for printers to process in the background.

The only way I've found through the printers GPO was to add a "delete all printer connections" command as first item in the list to run once only, and then let it re-add all your necessary other printers again after that. Other than that, you will need a script.

Depends on the keyboard, but in my experience, once they've gone, they've gone. We went through a stack of Lenovo 300e keyboards last term due to teachers cleaning them with a wet spray and cloth. Luckily we blagged most of that under warranty though. Alcohol wipes only after that!

ActivInspire has been a hot mess for us these last few releases. 2.21 crashes a lot, we had to roll back to 2.19, which was more stable. More discussion here - http://www.edugeek.net/forums/promethean-direct-support/221002-activeinspire-closing-crashing.html

A login script that writes to a shared folder. It creates a text file for each workstation, telling me who was the last person to log on to that device. Doesn't give you history or a nice spreadsheet or whatever, but it tells me who the last person to log on to a laptop was when it goes missing, which was all I wanted at the time.

Google Forms would be the obvious one, you can collect all the info via a web form and have a nice spreadsheet (well, Google Sheet you can export) at the end. Not sure if you could then manipulate that to upload in SIMS Admissions? You'll need to do a DPIA before using any new system for this, as you will be putting A LOT of personal data through it.

We have a section in our privacy notices detailing who we share information with, and Google are one of the third parties listed in there. Privacy Notice for students is on our website, and is given to all new starters. Ultimately, consent is only one of the legal bases for processing and sharing data, you can rely on a different one for these tasks. Other will know better, but I think you can use "necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest" to cover yourself for this, as it's necessary for their education.

We don't rely on consent for anything beyond the photo consents. G Suite goes into our privacy policy with everything else.

Given the timing, I was wondering if this is a bug introduced by the latest round of Windows Updates? Haven't had a chance to test it yet though.

We bought Notify and it only came out as a few hundred quid for us. One time purchase, with optional annual maintenance. We took the maintenance as it was spare change money. I haven't looked at it for a while, but it can be scripted to send messages, so you could have this run via scheduled tasks.

Not massively reliant on MS cloud services here, but, I am getting Errorcode 80080300 and my OneNote isn't syncing properly. Assuming a Microsoft service outage!

Payment in Bitcoin and we'll send you a Dropbox link?