JRA

Hello all, anyone good with FOG? We had an old FOG server that I retired (seemed way too long in the tooth to update it) and got a shiny new one in. The old one could WOL boot the whole domain no problem, however the new one just won't do it. Anyone know how to get this working right? Thanks muchly all.

Simpson eh? Gosh thank you I have no idea how you got straight to the answer from my post above but that's been doing me in for a couple of days now. Solved it a treat. Thanks lots and lots.

Hi all. Again. Another curious one... The first time a student logs into a PC (and only seems to be students mind, and only that first time) they get a dialog box that says "Windows could not create the shortcut. Check to see if the disk is full." - and that's it. For ref, Mr Windows 10, I'll have you know the disk is not full. Bit of a rummage and it looks for all the world like it's this: Googling doesn't give me a whole lot. Own powers of deduction not much beyond what's above, being "I'm a thing I don't have access to the root of C: somehow and I'm upset." Anyone see a way I can either placate it or shut it the hell up? Thanks anyone passing. Happy weekends too.

Thanks both. I'll look for that I may have been staring right at it but not clocked it. Thanks. And I'd always been hesitant to apply that to C: just in case something (in my mind something Adobe-flavoured as it happens) just didn't work without some user-context delete on %thing% in there. Or also MS Office flavoured too. I'd never asked around, but assumed it'd have the capacity to break the world quietly at some point. In the olden days of W7 I just had the drive restricted and, without the search business, seemed to keep the children out of it alright. Cheers again though both, I'll set that policy.

Ah, that is a good idea and you are clever. Thanks. I'm all committed now to "my way" but I do like this now.

There's a "prevent access" one? Oohhh... Yeah only using User > Policies > Admin templates > Windows components > File explorer > Hide these specified drives. Where's the "prevent" one and does it, like, wreck the world or literally just stop them browsing it? Thanks lots for that one too.

Afternoon. For many years I've stopped the little darlings browsing C: and deleting things in a free-for-all of anarchy. However, don't seem to be able to do this fully on W10. I've restricted it in the old way, from the explorer policy "restrict C" at the dropdown (and I swear that policy's moved now too) and also gotten rid of the search bar and therefore UNC browsing. However, I find that from a start menu search just typing in "C:" the jolly explorer window happily brings it up and there I am. On a C:\ I didn't want the children getting. Has anyone else overcome this one? Thanks all for any info.

Cheers for that. I debated it but I can see that biting me when some software has a dependency of another bit and then doesn't say anything just refuses to work, and I spend forever chasing locked down thingies. Gone "the other way" by locking down the bad thingies as they come, rather than locking down all thingies and allowing the welcome thingies. If you don't mind me getting technical there. Also turned off the "run" and disallowed UNC browsing so can't get to C: or UNC paths unless you *sigh* use the search bar. Feckit then that's gotta go too. Okay so I am getting there! Remaining things I've got left to do that I don't know how to do are KILL that freebie OneNote and freebie online "Office on the Web" bit with the orange icon. Anyone know where the .exes or apps are to those? Can't wait for them to die and they will as soon as I get paths. Thank you everybody for helping me fumble through this one!

It seems you can get REALLY "filthy" and just set deny permissions on the relevant folders by computer at least, so I can at least block these for kids. I'll have to re-visit every version I guess but tbh I think I'd have to do that with AppLocker regardless. I think... Oh well, at least it solves* things for now...

Ta CHill. I would do for sure, but it seems like in SRP you can do everything bar that specific thing. There are also two "versions" of eg Microsoft.Messenger in the apps folder itself, implying maybe that a further update might bring in yet another one and stop my restrictions, so in my "tryout" one above I've put in the wildcard path to try and cover each "version" by folder but it still runs for the kids. If you've got a way of blocking a particular .exe by name running globally then I'll happily steal that idea off you! Hehehe.

Thanks CHiLL - I would do but got W10 Pro Education, which doesn't use it. Honestly I am too chicken to try VAMT and ADBA at this stage I can just see that going completely wrong in my mind... Other alternative is rebuild the base image and redeploy but that'd take time ofc. If it's at all possible to achieve through SRP I'd love to. And a big middle finger to Microsoft stripping that out of Pro too. Heaven's sake...

@mavhc Thanks for this - I'm not having a lot of luck with it just yet. I've allowed .exes globally for starters in SRP. Otherwise ofc it blocks the world from working. Have you done it this way or gone with whitelist? Second of all I'm trying things out with the messenger app first of all but gotten nowhere. I've put in a path-based rule to restrict %programfiles%\WindowsApps\Microsoft.Messaging* but still getting the messaging thingy as test student. Any ideas where I'm going wrong? Thanks hugely if you're able to steer me right.

Dug this out. Heavenly https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2010771-windows-10-bloat-apps Thanks again everybody and happy Friday!

You're all gents thanks so much for all this help with it. Right, ADBA will be Plan B for now. SRP I'm keen on tinkering with, just playing atm and blocked ALL .exes which I'll admit is monster secure, but needs a bit more of a tinker. @mavhc have you managed to block eg the Xbox thingmy and the MS Store with it? Or have you used something else for those? Could probably figure it all out but it's the specific exe and the non-exe apps parts I'm not quite at yet. I'll carry on but if you reply before I figure those bits out I'll enjoy reading. I'll owe you all beer next BETT or something.

Might just be that I have a go at ADBA. Can you do the key swap by OU? I have wariness about pushing this out domain-wide and then suddenly all my servers run W10 now and everything's broke...

VAMT and ADBA sound like magic words from the start of a spell not things I routinely use! Hehe. Thanks hugely you two, I'll have a google around those things and start shipping out new product keys. Innovation is lovely indeed. But Microsoft leaving things alone would be so much lovelier. My brain hurts...

Okay, so it looks like you can run AppLocker on Education editions on W10, but not Pro Education editions. What on EARTH Microsoft?? Reeling from that one as I am, is my only real solution to find the executable names and block them old-school as with: https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/80605-applications-prevent-running-specified-programs.html ? Also thanks again @DJ-1701 that settings thing worked lovely.

Well thanks both enormously for those! AppLocker looked especially good, although it doesn't seem to be applying anything to PCs when tested. I have W10 Pro Education, so lord knows if they've seen fit to apply it to that version or not. Cheers muchly though, will keep trying with it.

Hello everybody, Working on the start menu config for students specifically and it doesn't look too friendly... In short, I don't know a "universal" student start menu will be favourite across the network as some suites and PCs have software some other suites don't, so I don't want to have a single set start menu that might be showing programs a PC might not have. I'm thinking maybe set group policies somewhere to just remove things I don't want from student start menus. The list of these would be: Feedback Hub Films and TV Game Bar Groove Music Mail Maps Messaging Microsoft Store Mixed Reality Portal Mobile Plans People Skype Settings (or severely restrict) Windows accessories - Print 3D, Quick Assist, Remote Desktop, Windows Admin Tools and System subfolders Xbox Your Phone Is anyone else managing their start menus to achieve/disable the same? Indeed, can anyone think of any better ways to try and do what I'm doing? Thanks all for having a read.

The other day I felt the need to conclusively "prove" this, by drawing an imaginary triangle on the surface of the earth and seeing if the angles would add up to over 180 degrees. I then realised I shouldn't actually feel the need to prove this at all because it's retarded and it's not flat. I was also vaguely reminded of this: https://time.com/3810721/first-photo-from-space/ Believe it or not this actual, actual photo was for sale about 8 years back. Think it was a NASA auction and the starting bid was something ridiculous like $200. Every so often I wondered what a fantastic piece of mankind's history it would be, and how much it went for. Needless to say I would have LOVED to own this. Gotta go to a museum ofc for proper care and preservation, but they'd let me touch it sometimes hopefully.

Hi all, again. Doing Windows 10 things again. Have more questions. Again. Today it's SIMS. So, like most I have a SOLUS console full of W7 machines and installing W10 means no agent ofc but a machine still in SOLUS. Has anyone got a decent way of automating that agent onto the newly imaged W10 PCs and getting them to install SIMS, Discover etc? If you do I'd definitely love to nick it! Thanks in advance for any help there.

Ta much Kenny. Yes after a fair bit of fiddling all those applied but didn't solve my problem. However I am extremely glad I rules out the above first. This is what I was getting and fixed me in the end: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-10/216757-older-machines-no-network-startup-drivers-intel-82579lm-vs-82579v.html

Can't edit the above but this does seem to have fixed me.

Not even that much googling it seems. It's quacking like this duck: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/29615?v=t

Hello all, Been chasing down the "globe of death" disconnected network icon at the bottom right for a while now. My specific problem seems to be consistent with the wrong drivers loading for the NICs, which will happen randomly. So, it looks like machines have two "competing" drivers for the onboard NIC. When they load the driver for the Intel 82579LM then they get no network and "device cannot start" blob in device manager. If however they choose to load the 82579V (or see the device as this instead) then all is well. Logged in as local admin and verified this as being consistent and changes too sometimes after restarts. PCs can pxe boot fine at all times though and always see FOG at startup. About to get googling but anyone got any ideas? Thanks folks.