DavR

I tend to be pretty active in managing my computer lists in WSUS (probably overly so), I manually delete computer entries all the time if I know they've been removed, this is no biggie. You could even wipe all computers off if you wanted to, and allow them to re-register, although that will delete evidence about machines that have been offline / are having trouble connecting, which you may want to troubleshoot. If it were me taking over someone else's WSUS, I might be inclined to just wipe the whole thing and start again. I've recently installed a new WSUS server because the old one got very bloated and untidy, and Server Cleanup Wizard is next to useless. The AJ Tek script that often gets mentioned is good, but alas, now a paid product.

I'm probably just wailing into the void with this one, but is anyone else experiencing Windows Update taking 2-3hrs to install the monthly Cumulative Updates? I thought we left this problem behind in Server 2016! They seem to be downloading from our WSUS server just fine, but I can see from the logs that they're taking an age to install. Not just this months, but the last few months at least. I'm trying to keep my Hyper-V host and guest patching windows from overlapping, but if they're going to run at 3hrs+, I'm kinda running out of night time hours here.... I saw one of this month's was a Servicing Stack update, we can but hope I guess.

Anyone want a couple of staple cartridges for older model Ricoh Copiers? They don't fit in our current models, but did used to fit in our older models, MPC 5502 I *think* they were. No details on the cartridge type though, I'm afraid. Picture attached below. Stood as they are like that, they're W 20mm x D 16mm x H 36mm approx (measuring the staple block itself). Free to a good home, P&P would be nice but not essential. Just don't want to bin em knowing they retail about £20 a unit!

I probably should leave feedback, but must admit I can't be bothered a lot of the time these days, especially when a lot of the time it's small businesses using it as a shopfront. Individuals I am more inclined to, but still not all the time. Seller rating used to be a lot more important when it was almost exclusively person-to-person I think.

I've enrolled our offsite Windows devices in Meraki MDM, mainly because I had licenses available. It gives me remote wipe at least if they get stolen.

Current policy settings, for info....

I keep going round and round in circles on this one, I was wondering if anyone could shed some light? We're using 'Configure Automatic Updates' policy set to Opt4 - Download and Schedule install to pull down updates from our WSUS server, and whilst they are downloading, they just don't seem to be installing automatically. We've got the install time set for 03.00, and it works for those PCs left on, but for those that were not on, the updates just continue to sit there as "Pending Install". Obviously every PC isn't going to be on at 3am, but then, with the number of laptops we have, and PCs used irregularly, there is no one good time when everything is! Under Windows 7 (and I was sure in Win 10 1803 before we upgraded over summer) this never seemed to be a problem, as any missed scheduled installation would just re-run on next startup. This no longer seems to be the case. 'Active Hours' shouldn't be a consideration, as this is just for device reboots, I'm happy with our reboot configs. Has anyone else noticed the same behaviour, and how have you corrected it? I'd rather fix my existing policies that ALMOST work, rather than reinvent the wheel, if I don't have to....

As an aside, we didn't have enough laptops to hand a school laptop to everyone, so we did permit access from personal devices. Thinking back, we probably should have given security advice (never leave unattended, make sure password protected, etc) but it was all done in such a rush. And let's face it, who would have listened. Where we did provide laptops, these were always password and Bitlocker protected.

I think you just have to be sure the Headteacher is aware that what they're asking for carries a risk, and secure it best you can. What more can you do. I had to throw a VPN together at short notice for the first lockdown, and I made it very clear that it was to be for Admin and SLT only. The support overhead of trying to talk every member of staff through installing the client and accessing the shares would have been too much, so the majority worked via G Suite. Using the LGfL RAv3 system, I restricted the staff VPN group to only having access to our two fileservers, and nothing else. I did this by only allowing those groups access the necessary two IP addresses in the range. I would have liked to have set up two factor authentication too, you can set each user up with a SoftOTP app on their phones, but sadly there just wasn't time, and again, the support overhead. The ideal for me would have been to set up an RDP server, the new(ish) Freedom 2 Roam service provides a pretty decent web-based front end for an RDP server. Time and licensing costs put pay to that though. Our ultimate goal is to move to Office 365, so it's not the right time to invest in RDP. SIMS can be run over VPN, I have seen it done in the past.... as I recall you just need to either make sure you can either resolve the SIMS server name from a remote client, or use the IP address. There are options to set up DNS so the remote client resolves against the school servers, but I could never get those to do what I wanted.

Does anyone happen to know the firewall exceptions for the retail/Java edition of Minecraft? We have one child that our SEND team want to have access to his personal Minecraft stuff at school as bribe / reward. I've got as far as this article for Smoothwall - https://kb.smoothwall.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002031030-Allowing-Access-to-Minecraft-Using-Smoothwall-Filter-Firewall. We're not using a Smoothwall firewall though, LGfL customer. I've allowed the following addresses through our filtering: Mojang.com minecraftprod.rtep.msgamestudios.com Minecraft.net xboxlive.com I now need to open ports 25565 and 19132, but I need to know what ranges to open them too, our firewall people do not like allow all rules. Any advice from those who have achieved this gratefully received!

Hi @andy_b - drop me a PM and we'll talk

Morning Edugeekers! We're downgrading the number of PCs we have in some areas over the summer, so I need to make some space in my stockroom. I have ten Dell Optiplex 3010s that I was keeping as usable spares, these are now available to go for free to another school. Desktop case Intel Core i5-3470 4GB RAM Intel onboard graphics Your choice on drives tbh, I was going to do the SSD upgrades on these but never got round to it. I've got the original 3.5" platter drives they came with which you can have for nowt. I've got the 3.5-to-2.5 adaptor kits that I can throw in, if you had your own SSDs. Or, I might be able to arrange some used 120GB SSDs at a price. For collection in North London before September. They'll be going to the scrap man on 3rd August unless I hear otherwise. Thanks!

We're getting 65inch Nickels in a few weeks, actually came in cheaper than our usual brand this time around.

We've been using the iOS app, browser version and Chrome extension. I've tested all three OK, but users have found it hit and miss.

It's a CISCO ASA 5508-X. We're an LGfL school though, we don't control the firewall, we just fire off requests to their support team, who are as frustrated as we are about the whole thing. Yes, as far as I know we've allowed everything on their support page. I was just wondering if anyone had any tips from their own experience, for instance, when we were doing packet captures we caught Zoom sending data to destinations other than those listed on the support page.....

Has anyone had a real nightmare allowing Zoom through their firewall? Before we start, yes, I know Zoom is awful and we shouldn't use it, but I'm overridden from above, because it's what people are now used to using. We've done a DPIA and accepted the risks. We've been trying to use this for weekly contact meetings between teacher and their class, but have had nothing but problems doing it from with school. Initially it was blank screens and no audio, through various packet captures and traces our firewall guy has got us as far as connecting, but poor performances - lagging, glitching. Annoyingly, every time I try and test it, it works fine, but teachers go live I'm reported it becomes unusable. People can't see the teacher from home either. I was wondering if anyone here would be happy to share their firewall rules for Zoom? Zoom support won't talk to our firewall guy because he's not a paid business account member.....!

Oooh, that's useful to know, I just had a bash myself. Cheers @yac2016!

Yeah, Classflow is definitely a contender. I just wish it wasn't login based, that creates an extra layer of faff in management terms (yes I know, you can access your files from anywhere, buy sheesh, another online service!).

Just confirmed today, quoted £500 per screen, a deal was offered but still not at a sane price. I don't think we'll be going down that road then! Octopus has been recommended at £60 per screen, and that's device independent, might be worth looking at....

I guess, I have heard that argument used. But, it all comes to nought when the boxshifter just badgers the customer to email the manufacturer and say "please open up the bid".... It just makes a bit of a mockery of getting three quotes for things, as it just means the first person you ask for a quote will always win.

Definitely looks like penalty pricing! Is that directly through Promethean or via a reseller?

That's a good point actually, I think we had the same thing when we were getting quotes for wireless years ago. I think it was Ruckus who wouldn't give pricing to more than one installer, which is a shame as I was quite keen on their kit at the time....

I've got the baby brother of that at home, the DS218. No complaints from me, it's been great. There's lots of bells and whistles if you're inclined to tweak, but I don't use any myself. Mines on wired LAN direct to my wireless router. If it were me, I'd try and find a way to site the box somewhere you can cable the LAN, than trying to get a wireless connection. Sorry, not the answer you were looking for!

Has anyone here done it? What sort of prices were you quoted per screen, and who did you buy from? We're considering it....

The last couple of AV jobs I've gone out to quote for, I've found that the first supplier to approach the manufacturer gets preferential pricing for the project, has anyone else run into this? Then, because we need to get comparative quotes, I get moans back from the other suppliers that they can't get the same pricing, and then I have to contact the manufacturer, and ask them to extend the pricing to such and such..... It all seems a bit unfair, on a marketplace that's supposed to run on open competition. But mostly, it's just a pain in the ****! Like most people, we have to get like-for-like quotes on any big project, and this just generates more and more paperwork..... /rant