DavR

Yeah, redirect all users to the same folder, and then %HOMEPATH%\Desktop I think was what I did. Maybe play with deploying the shortcut via filtered GPP though, that might work.

Another thought could be to play around with GPP files to put a shortcut on the desktop, but have it filtered by group, the group being "People that have access to application X". Might get in trouble with permissions though, as the logged on user presumably doesn't have modify permissions on the redirected desktop... just thinking out loud.

On the system I have at the moment, all staff are redirected to the same Desktop folder - simple. What I have done in the past (and this is a beat of a cheat) is just redirected individual desktops to a folder in their Home directory. This removes the need to create a whole new shared area to store redirected desktops. It kinda made sense, as the reason we did it was because staff were storing docs on their Desktop instead of My Docs, so we effectively combined the two. Probably not best practice though.

I've inherited a system with shared redirected desktops for staff - personally, I would have left them with the machine desktops, and given them individual redirected desktops, but I'm not going to rock the boat. What we have for things that aren't installed everywhere is to put those in folders on the desktop. That way, dead links don't show on the regular desktop (and reduces the number of icons).

Yeah, I wasn't sure whether it was going to be a built in option for Meraki that I'll have to wait for, or if it was just a case of creating a custom config profile and distributing it. I guess I'll probably have to wait!

I'm liking the idea of blocking apps, will definitely be trying that when Meraki supports it! Has anyone got anywhere with the Classroom App? I like the idea of the classroom management features, but the app on its own doesn't do anything. I've read in the specs it requires a configuration profile sent out via MDM, but haven't found any info on how I'd go about creating one, and what the settings should be!

+1 for Wisesoft NTFSFix. It's a bit old now, but when I used to do a lot of server migrations, this was a godsend for setting home folder permissions.

Great, thought I'd seen that one somewhere before!

I think that one was Dot Net? Uninstall and reinstall should fix it if so.

I used to find Windows 7 Offline Files used to corrupt a lot, often the workstation would behave as offline, even though it had connection to the server. You'd see a different set of files in My Docs as to those on the server, and mapped drives would be inaccessible. Only way to fix it was to rebuild the offline files database, as described here - How To Reinitialize The Offline Cache in Windows 7. Might not be exactly the same problem you're having, but could be worth a go. Make sure all files are synced first though, as this wipes the local cache.

Jon! If I only I'd had you around a few weeks ago! These are all things that I finally discovered myself, after much agro. Yes, I have now discovered that the current / recent versions of ActivDriver, whilst they do install a serial driver, just do not work with the serial boards (WTF guys). I've reverted back to 5.9 driver, which with the correct options selected, does work with serial boards. Because of the poor performance on serial, I put the board back on USB, and guess what, it is now working again properly. It could well be related to power, as when I was rewiring to put it on serial, I had to the re-route the power cables. They were previously cable tied to the unshielded 240v mains supply in the trunking(!), which probably wasn't helpful. In the process, I also replaced the lead between power supply and board, as I accidentally snapped it, which may also have some bearing on it.

There are Group Policy settings to set Recycle Bin size, so there is that option. User Config | Admin Templates | Windows Components | File Explorer > Maximum Allowed Recycle Bin size. I used to use EmptyRecycleBin.exe /q as a logoff script to empty Recycle Bin on log off under XP which worked fairly well. I haven't tried it on Windows 7 and above, but just tried it in GUI mode and it still works. Download available here - Optimum X Downloads - Freeware Utilities.

Well, fiddling with the USB power settings hasn't made a difference, so today I finally got round to switching everything over to serial (the PC didn't have a serial port, but an expansion card was only £15 on Amazon). So it works now on serial, BUT, the response is so poor that you can't really write or draw on it. If you attempt a circle, you will get a polygon, that sort of thing, and handwriting you can forget. That's an example of when I attempt to draw a curve, the jagged one is at normal speed, the smooth one at dead slow, is this the lagging that others have mentioned? Also, for the life of me, I can't seem to get the serial board to detect without manual intervention at startup, anyone had that? I'm thinking that by this point this is may be a dead board...

Hi guys, I have a Lapsafe MidiMentor Charge line E15 laptop trolley for sale. 15 bays 15 UK mains electrical outlets Storage area for headphones etc Lockable Some wear and tear, but still fully functional Full blurb here - https://www.lapsafe.com/products/mobile-charging/mentor We originally bought the unit 6 years ago, but it has been made redundant as the laptops have been replaced with iPads. We paid £2000 for it, but will sell for £500, or make me an offer. North London - collection only.

When I was redoing my firewall policy the other month (and by "redoing", I mean "enabling", argh, inherited system), I thought I'd try putting all my firewall rules under the new Advanced Firewall section, it's so much neater. However, I did find that these would be wiped out again if I made any changes to the classic firewall settings under Network/Network Connections/Windows Firewall/Domain Profile. Solution was to make sure I had all the settings I wanted under classic settings before going into the new rules and adding my exceptions.

We had this widely when the original buggy patch KB 3114409 was released in December, removing the patch from machines (and WSUS) resolved the problem. I did write a script to remove this, but took it off and deleted it just two days ago, sorry. If you do go down the road of an uninstall script, note that wusa /uninstall won't work, as its an office update rather than Windows, and these are installer based. Notes here - How to automate the uninstallation of an Office patch programmatically - Office Deployment Support Team Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

We've had so many of these go, and it's no small job to replace them, you have to strip the whole thing to get at them. Latitude E5530 suffers from the same problem. If you have a warranty though, these hinges are now a recognised fault, I had two replaced with the lid assembly last week. I've just extended my warranties up to the maximum five years, as I know more of these are likely to go.

Brill, thanks very much RichS. Looks like I'll be implementing this tomorrow then!

The filtering we're using is the Webscreen filtering service provided by Atomwide. I don't know how it works behind the scenes, but we don't use a proxy to access it. Any other Webscreen users put in this fix, and know whether it bypasses Webscreen?

Do we have a definitive answer on whether making the conditional DNS forwarders change bypasses the Webscreen filtering for the site? I have YouTube allowed for my teachers group in Webscreen, but not allowed for students, I'm just a little concerned that if I de-restrict YouTube in this way it might bypass my filtering and allow YouTube for all users.

Ah, ok, the Windows ones then. I have those controlled by policy, but shouldn't be too hard to change. I'll try that first then consider trying a serial connection.

Oh? Are these the Windows USB power settings, or in the Activ Driver? I think I saw something along those lines in a previous discussion now you mention it. I can't say I've ever had to change USB power settings under Windows 7 before!

Gotta be worth a go I suppose, I've run out of other ideas! Lagging is potentially better than intermittent failure. I'll have a bash and report back.

That's an option I suppose - I don't know the original setup, before my time, but it's quite possible it was serial. Not sure if that PC has a serial port though! Have you noticed that serial has been more reliable than USB on the older models?

We did a couple of very successful video conferencing assemblies last term just using Google Hangouts (I would have used Skype myself, but the other end was a Google employee and thus wedded to the system). We had a hall full of kids and a teacher with a microphone attached to the PC, we didn't have a webcam to hand, so we had someone on their phone connect as a third person to the chat to provide the picture. The other end had proper video conferencing kit, and we put him up on the projector and the hall speakers. Rough and ready, but the concept worked and the kids engaged really well. We're primary, at this level it really doesn't need to be perfect to get them excited!