jjohnsoncantell

@m25man I must admit im inclined to go with a more up to date version of our current box, as you say if it serves me well why not consider it, i just want to be sure im going to get a decent level of performance out of it. One thing that confuses me a little is why a lot of the third party vendors such as qnap and synology offer their boxes with 10gbe as opposed to 1gbe which the main vendors seem to offer. On a network my size am i really going to need 10gbe? Ive always assumed a teamed pair of 1gbe would be more than sufficient. @mattcrum I would love to know how it goes please, ive seen their offerings and compated to the hp kit ive been looking at seem to offer way more spec for the money. @Duke will pm you soon, id like to know who you have been using as you seem to be happy with what they provide. Again, thanks very much to everyone who has replied to this thread.

@Duke Its holding up well considering its age.. We've had a number of drives die but so far we've been able to get adequate spares. Main issue is the age and having no hardware support if it fails. We currently backup to lto4 tapes Our nas box is an AIO1200 which is a rebadged DL320s, running 2003 storage server. Single Xeon 2.67ghz, 2GB memory, 10x250gb 7.2k SATA (raid 5 for storage) 2x150gb 10k SATA (mirrored pair for system). Budget shouldnt be an issue, mainly after ballpark figures at the moment. Which metrics should i be monitoring?

I would always spend the extra for an rpsu. Yes its just windows server with a few extra options, ive never really looked into performance metrics before.

Thanks to everyone else for your opinions.. I dont know if i would class us as enterprise level.. its a big jump between spending a couple of k to spending over double that for file sharing

@Duke, no plans for virtualising in the future, plus we are all windows clients save for a couple of macs which are standalone. How would you suggest i go about getting those kinds of stats?

Hi Guys, Sorry its taken a while to get back to this thread. We have about 1000 users although this is probably never gonna be more than 300 concurrent. We currently hold around 2tb of data. Its for live data, we daily backup to lto4 each night and a weekly every friday. Would a SAN be overkill for this?

We have a spiceworks system for staff, its mainly the students having issues in lessons like logging on and running out of quotas. There are only two of us now and its difficult keeping one person on the front desk all the day.

Thanks for replying guys, i agree with you all, particularly the abuse by students.. Its because were are just two in a school of 900 students and 160 staff and the way things are at the moment there is a lot of time when we are out of the office and lots of students end up getting a closed door instead of help

Greetings, Ive been asked to look into a system where i have some sort of bell/button on the office door which when pushed will alert me wherever i am around the building.. Any of you guys have anything like this or could point me in the right direction? Thanks James

Greetings, We have a forced mandatory user account which we've used for years for machine maintenance. In the last week odd things have been happening when logged on as that user, such as access to folders being denied, our user creation script being deined while running and the uac shields showing up on menu items and desktop items. The UAC is switched off on all our clients. I have 3 laptops infront of me at the moment, one of which works perfectly as it should and two dont. I created a new local admin account on the two which arent working and both also act as if UAC was turned on, asking permission for folder access. I took a gpresult when logged in as the forced mandatory user and have attached them for you to view (good1.txt is the working logon and bad1.txt is the faulty one). The only difference i can see is in this section "The user has the following security privileges ----------------------------------------------" and is totally missing on the client which isnt working. There are no policy processing errors in the logs and i have made no changes to anything to do with UAC. Any ideas as to what has happened would be much appreciated. Thanks James good1.txt bad1.txt

Thanks for your replies guys. Basically im asking for the user to check if there is any damage on the laptop they are logging in on. The options would be screen, keyboard, other, or something along these lines. We want to get the students in the habit of checking them before they use them and want to make it as easy for them to do it as possible. We thought this would be an easier way to do it and we would get the info more quickly than recorded on sheets. James

Greetings, Im in need of a script/program that will run during a logon and ask the user to check a number of things and require boxes to be ticked before the logon progresses.. Any idea how i would accomplish this? Is it even possible? Thanks James

thanks guys.. im thinking of checking the network drives next. spent ages trying the old desktop background fix but that didnt work.

Greetings, Been trying desperately to figure out why our logons are taking so long. On my test machine a logon will take 20 seconds wired and 30 seconds wireless with a 6mb forced mandatory profile and redirected home drives. In the windows debug log there is a five second wait where the system seems to be doing nothing and it looks like its during the folder redirection process. Im trying to find out if this is responsible for holding up the logon and what i can do to fix it. The log excerpt is below and i would appreciate your thoughts. Thanks James GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:31:829 GPLockPolicySection: Sid = S-1-5-21-4112984153-467787050-2863210197-2343, dwTimeout = 30000, dwFlags = 0 GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:31:829 LockPolicySection called for user GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:31:829 Sync Lock Called GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:31:829 Writer Lock got immediately. GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:31:829 Lock taken successfully GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:31:829 Taking console lock with timeout 30000. GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:31:829 Sync Lock Called GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:31:829 Writer Lock got immediately. GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:31:829 Lock taken successfully GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:31:829 ProcessGPOList: Entering for extension Folder Redirection GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:31:829 UserPolicyCallback: Setting status UI to Applying Folder Redirection policy... GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:31:845 LogExtSessionStatus: Successfully logged Extension Session data GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:160 ProcessGPOList: Extension Folder Redirection returned 0x0. GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:160 ProcessGPOList: Extension Folder Redirection was able to log data. RsopStatus = 0x0, dwRet = 0, Clearing the dirty bit GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:160 Releasing console lock. GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:160 UnLockPolicySection called for user GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:160 UnLocked successfully GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:269 ProcessGPOs: ----------------------- GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:269 ProcessGPOs: ----------------------- GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:269 ProcessGPOs: Processing extension Microsoft Disk Quota GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:269 CompareGPOLists: The lists are the same. GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:269 ProcessGPOs: Extension Microsoft Disk Quota skipped with flags 0x6. GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:269 ProcessGPOs: ----------------------- GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:269 ProcessGPOs: Processing extension Group Policy Network Options GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:269 CompareGPOLists: The lists are the same. GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:269 CompareGPOLists: The lists are the same. GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:285 ProcessGPOs: Extension Group Policy Network Options skipped because both deleted and changed GPO lists are empty. GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:285 CExtSessionLogger::Delete: Failed to DeleteInstance with 0x80041002 GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:285 ProcessGPOs: ----------------------- GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:285 ProcessGPOs: Processing extension QoS Packet Scheduler GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:285 CompareGPOLists: The lists are the same. GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:285 ProcessGPOs: Extension QoS Packet Scheduler skipped with flags 0x6. GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:285 ProcessGPOs: ----------------------- GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:285 ProcessGPOs: Processing extension Scripts GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:285 CompareGPOLists: One list is empty GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:285 GPLockPolicySection: Sid = S-1-5-21-4112984153-467787050-2863210197-2343, dwTimeout = 30000, dwFlags = 0 GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:285 LockPolicySection called for user GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:301 Sync Lock Called GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:301 Writer Lock got immediately. GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:301 Lock taken successfully GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:301 Taking console lock with timeout 29985. GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:301 Sync Lock Called GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:301 Writer Lock got immediately. GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:301 Lock taken successfully GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:301 ProcessGPOList: Entering for extension Scripts GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:301 UserPolicyCallback: Setting status UI to Applying Scripts policy... GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:316 LogExtSessionStatus: Successfully logged Extension Session data GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:644 ProcessGPOList: Extension Scripts returned 0x0. GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:644 ProcessGPOList: Extension Scripts was able to log data. RsopStatus = 0x0, dwRet = 0, Clearing the dirty bit GPSVC(394.1f8) 15:52:38:644 Releasing console lock.

Thanks for the help guys.

Greetings, We currently have hosted exchange email and the contract has just come up for renewal. To show vfm i need to compare it against other hosted systems. Are there any that can be recommended? Our students already use gmail, i personally cant stand the layout and cant get on with it really. Ive heard about office365, is this a solution anyone could recommend just for email alone and how does it compare with owa 2010? Thanks James

agreed, i cant see why it wouldnt be there. I might have to search the registry but not sure where to start and im not sure if the particular setting i need is under the class/network settings or if its controlled by a different part of the os.

I believe there is a removal tool on the adobe website to get rid of it completely so you can reinstall. Cant remember the link im afraid but its there somewhere.

anyone else seen this problem?

There just seemed to be a limit i hit, not sure when, where the files went from displaying pretty much straight away when i went into the folder to suddenly hanging explorer and taking ages to access. I was curious if id burnt the disc using incorrect settings maybe as that didnt explain such a sudden change. I burned multiple copies with the same effect. I could understand if over time it got slower the more i added but as i said it was if id reached some sort of limit. The only other change i can think that happened was having to use dvd9 dual layer discs which are plus instead of dvd5 which are minus. I know they store data differently and that may have caused it? Good point on the memory stick idea though...

Greetings, Ive been collecting various photos over the years of family, trips, holidays etc and have a large number of photos ive burned to dvd. Lots of these have rather long explanatory file names but still within 255 char limit (including path name) and are grouped in folders by year. I have problems accessing these pictures through explorer as i will explain below. I burnt them to disk as a udf dvd no problem, the data is there and verifies properly. When I go to open the newly burnt disc and go into one of the folders im hit by a delay which can only be described as aeons before it will show me the contents. During this time its spinning away quite hapilly, the explorer toolbar is filling up and this can sometimes go on for two or three minutes before its done and i get my directory list. This happens for each folder i access too. Tried burning at a slower speed but still have this huge lag. I think the largest folder contains 3,000 and the smallest 500 but i still have this lengthy delay no matter how many there are. Any suggestions as to what could be causing this? Surely explorer shouldnt be taking minutes to display a reasonably small number of files and im only looking in list view, not thumbnail view either. Thanks James

only the usual domain controller cannot be found.. I have managed to sort most of these problems out by disabling band steering and a gpo to add a reg key to change the power management to off. Need to test more but this seems to have helped a lot as it seems the band steering was taking just that little bit too long in the startup and the network was not being found fast enough..

@PEO I have attached a jpeg of the gpo order as it stands in the ou the clients sit in. Im not 100% sure default domain policy is in the right place.

@psydii I have tried the drivers from manuf and also from intel direct, both exhibit the same problems. I have spoken with our wireless provider meru at length and they suggest turning off band steering which is funny as they suggested turning in on in the first place lol. Im not 100% sure if ip6 is disabled on the clients though so will have to check. Is there an easy way to disable via a gpo?

Thanks for your replies guys. @sonofsanta yes that setting is enabled, however as soon as the clients reach the logon screen they can log straight on, the logon fields are there straight away. @sted I was wondering if something like that was happening. I always thought the nic wasnt enabled until the main startup squence with the windows logo had finished.