DavR

Defintiely, proper education oriented design. I was particularly impressed after bad experiences with the E5520 and E5530, but they seem to have learnt from their mistakes. They're solid and rubberised, I'm pretty sure they'd bounce! (I am not going to test this theory)

Netbooks. ARGH. The number of times we had a school turn up and say they'd just bought thirty, can we set them up. Short answer, no. They won't go on the domain, they won't run office.... But on topic, the last Windows student devices we bought were the Dell Latitude 3380 - https://www.dell.com/en-uk/work/shop/laptops/13-3380/spd/latitude-13-3380-laptop. They have the foldover 2-in-1 types as well in that range, but for Windows use we didn't think they'd be much good. We did get the 2-in-1 Latitude 3189 for our Chrome devices though, and will be getting more next year if we can - https://www.dell.com/en-uk/work/shop/laptops/chromebook-3189-education-2-in-1/spd/chromebook-11-3189-2-in-1-laptop We've been very happy with both!

Interesting distinction, that I hadn't made before. Java 8 remains free in production, Java 11 testing only. We made the right decision to stick with Java 8 for a few legacy applications then.

Pretty sure it's not going to stop working, or suddenly become chargeable for instances you already have installed? I updated our lot to one of the latest versions of 8 before Christmas, and will just stick on that til it dies (hopefully).

I don't think it needs to be O365 as such, but yes, you do need an Azure AD tenant to link your VLSC to, and access is through Azure AD logins. Which is fine and all (I guess) but it would be nice if they'd openly explained what was required, rather than pushed us to do it through the back door. As I've said above, setting up an Azure AD tenancy isn't trivial, and may have future ramifications.

Meraki is tempting, if we were starting from scratch it would definitely be a runner. The 10 year license, essentially paying upfront for the whole lifetime of the APs, is quite appealing - avoiding renewal pains like this one! It's looking like we might just have to suck it up this time, but we'll likely just get a new system at next renewal.

@kennysarmy, you might want to check back now. Mine just came through, took a few hours to sync. Ours seems to be up and running now. As a summary for those who were as baffled as me by the process: Home Use Program is now administered through Microsoft Store for Business (MSfB). You need to sync your VLSC with MSfB. To do this you will need a Microsoft work AAD login. If you don't have one, create at https://signup.microsoft.com. This will also create an Azure AD tenant for your school. Sign in to VLSC with your AAD login, this will associate the login with your VLSC. This is now your VLSC login. Log in to MSfB at https://businessstore.microsoft.com/manage/inventory/benefits/home-use-program In the first instance you may get an error saying you are not eligible, wait a few hours for VLSC to sync with MSfB. Eventually, you should see your HUP at https://businessstore.microsoft.com/manage/inventory/benefits/home-use-program You can now invite users to the HUP, but they will need an account in your AAD tenant to use it. You can also add your business domain as a Custom Domain Name, allowing users to authenticate for the program with their school email (hopefully - haven't quite figured that bit yet).

Haha.... yes and no, as sadly muggins here is swallowing the complications to make it work. In the longer term though, yes, as soon as they stop allowing us to buy the offline edition of Office Pro (this summer was it?), I will be advising people to just use our school instance of Google Docs rather than subscribe to O365. Which makes a good point actually, why am I going through all this nonsense to use HUP for another six months....!

These latest changes all seem to be geared around shifting HUP to Microsoft Store, and pushing people onto Azure AD accounts. Which is all par for the course I suppose, but it would have been a lot easier if it had come with a guide for setting up the Azure AD tenant. Not everyone has this setup, and it's not that trivial a thing to do!

Hah, yeah, that's about as far as I got too. Progress I have made: Via https://signup.microsoft.com I finally have a Microsoft work / AAD account. Through doing this I think I've now setup an Azure tenant for the school? Logging into the VLSC seems to have associated our VLSC with my new AAD account. I can no longer login to VLSC with my original account, only my AAD. I can log in to the Store, but none of my licensing agreements have come through. Home Use Program gives the organisation not eligible error same as @kennysarmy Wait 24hrs perhaps? Also reading the latest email more closely, it looks like anyone who want to use the HUP will need an account in the new Azure AAD I've just created, which sounds a faff quite frankly.

No, although I got that one back in November too. I got the below on Friday. One lead maybe is that at least the one that you point to Arthur has the signup link to get a business AAD account, so I can have a bash at that at least. What I can't quite figure out so far is how I'm supposed to link this business AAD account to our VLSC....

You mean, how app deployment should work.... chalk up another win for LTSB / C!

There's the irony, if we had O365 running, we'd probably have the necessary tenant set up, and have the necessary Azure AD accounts!

That's interesting @EddyAllen, I wonder what you did that I didn't. Did you deploy the appx to computers, or to users? I deployed to computers, which provisioned the app perfectly, but the blasted thing wouldn't actually open. Gave a file system error. I think when I tried installing it through Software Centre it worked fine, but not silently.

Well I'm glad to hear someone else has had the exact same baffling experience as I had. The email is telling you to follow instructions that just aren't there. As best I can work out, we need to create a new type of Microsoft account for the MSfB, but for the life of me I can't see how or where! If anyone else is in the same boat, you can call VLSC support on 0800 917 9016 (they're option 4), but I'd give it a few days as they don't seem to be up to speed with the changes at all.

Well, I've just spent a Kafkaesque hour on the phone to VLSC support. They have logged my call, hung up on me, and transferred me to a department who took the call but didn't say anything, gave me two different phone numbers that led me back to the same department, the department who told me to call the alternative number..... all about creating a logon for a page that doesn't have an option to create a logon. I think I'm going slightly mad. Home Use Program as is ceases in less than two weeks, and no-one at Microsoft support seems to know anything about it....

Has anyone else with Software Assurance received an email saying that they need to do something to move their Home Use Program into the Microsoft Store for Business? Apparently MSfB is the new way to manage this. There's a list of steps I'm supposed to take, but for this I need to "Sign into MSfB using your work/AAD account". We don't have a "work/AAD" accounts, I assume this is something to do with Azure AD. I'm advised to create one in VLSC, but despite being the superadmin of that, I've got no options to do so! Slowly going bonkers trying to work out how to set this up.... We've done nothing with Microsoft Store or Azure AD thus far, it's a level of complication we could just do without IMO.

Sorry to necromance such a long dead thread.... just wanted to say, thanks, this method just fixed a problem with an elderly CLP-680!

We don't use / allow the Store on our network, so I've provisioned ours quite happily with this PowerShell script. Installs for all users with no further intervention required. Could be interesting if M$ update the app, but we block Store updates, so it would be a managed update if it were necessary.

Are the .appx files from that link any different to the ones at https://education.minecraft.net/get-started/download/? Those ones didn't install cleanly through SCCM for me, unless you do it per user :/

I'll have a read @HilcrRWise, thanks. At a glance Aerohive Connect could be a way out for us, as we're really not using much in the way of higher features.

This is the thing - when I was first demo'd the Aerohive solution, I dismissed it as something that was massively featureful, but surely way above our needs (and price bracket) as a primary school. I was pleasantly surprised when it came out cheapest, but it's come back to bite us in the bum now :/ All very well selling cheap APs and backloading the cost onto the annual subscription, but we bought the APs when they were expensive, now we're paying the subs when they expensive!

Yeah, ditto. I suspect we'll probably have to swallow it this time, but will move when it's time for hardware renewal. It is tempting to tell them to go hang now, but spending £10k on a new system to avoid the £5k renewal maybe isn't brightest. What sort of price are the Meraki APs these days @atcoates, do you know? Can't argue with the Ubiquiti prices, but I'm wary of being on my own when it comes to Wifi. We've had a few issues just recently, and our vendor has been invaluable in resolving them, can't fault them in that respect.

We have an Aerohive system at our school, 26 APs and cloud based control through HiveManager NG. A few niggles over the years, but overall it's been a good system. We bought our first three years hosting up front, at a cost of £2300. That was two and a half years ago, so I'm just planning our renewal options and frankly it's staggering. I've been quoted £2800 for one year's hosting, or £5700 for three - either way, about three times what we paid last time Apparently Aerohive have re-weighted their pricing for cheaper APs, but more expensive subscriptions. Gee, thanks guys. Has anyone else had a similar experience? Are other suppliers doing the same? I'm half tempted to look at a replacement system, even if it has only been three years, as that is taking the mickey. Kinda kicking myself for not getting an on-premises controller, but at the time the five year forecast still seemed pretty reasonable. Software / Hardware As A Service - turns out it's still a con....

Not quite on the same track, but we've been having similar discussions with our lockdown planning.... The problem with having a PC based alert is that it relies on video / audio of the screen being available at time of alert. Practical lessons, especially PE, won't necessarily be in visual of a screen at the time, loud lessons such as drama or music you may not hear it. If you've got a bell system in place I'd say that's already superior! Perhaps speak to your bell system people, when I was at BETT last year I spoke to a few people who said their systems could kick off a script to run on a computer network, that might do your notifications.