eean

I'd put in another vote for HP. You can get 100 off certain models - we got amd dual core 2ghz, 2gb machines for about 330 after cashback. Talk to ebuyer and Misco and they can get very ruthless on price.

My design department? You mean the cupboard at the top of the stairs? (I'm primary!)

Ok, so it's a long shot, but I know people keep all sorts of cr*p: Anyone got about 12 low profile plates for Dlink DWL-G520 cards that they would be able to do without? About 4 years ago, an effort to be tidy, I thought "What the hell would I want them for?" and chucked them all out. Now I've just recieved new computers with low-profile PCI slots, I have found out! Looks like I might have to become creative with a pair of pliers.

After sitting on hold for 15 minutes to the Dell schools line, I hung up and they lost my business. However, both Misco and Ebuyer were biting my arm off to get me to buy HP machines. When going to and throw I managed to get them to repeatedly undercut each other on their "I shouldn't really be selling this to you for this" price.

There is an instillation designer, which you can download from the Mcafee website if you have the Grant number from your LEA. This creates a custom msi with all your settings built in. As it's MSI it will run silently. The only problem I had (with v8.0) was ticking the box that told it to update the virus defs during setup - this caused it to hang, so I left it out and it would update itself on the next schedule.

What am I looking for. I went to Hardware Interrupt but there was nothing listed and not listed as using any CPU (but then everything's OK at the moment).

I left Chkdsk running in repair mode when I left. The server will now start and work but runs at 100% CPU utilisation. When you press CTRL-ALT-DEL everything claims to be 0% CPU. If I start in safe mode, the server is running OK. Server has an uptodate Virus scan running on it, so I don't think its a virus, but I suppose I can't rule it out. Would a faulty hard drive cause this problem, or is it a red herring?

I still fear that this spanned volume may cause me headaches... According to symantec:

Thanks to everyone so far. Anyone got any tips to answer my other question:

Err... I don't know. I suppose with RAID 1, it would be able to cope if the RAID controller failed because you've just got 2 identical hard drives with no fancy parity going on. Some servers have RAID 10 (or 1+0 - same thing?). I read wikipedia, but I still don't understand what it means.

Thanks. That sounds like a good plan. I left CHKdsk running when I left. Hopefully it is all magically fixed! We have enough money for a new server, so I will get one. I'm guessing the hard drive is fried, or is on it's way out, which has upset some system files. What's the best way of copying everything from the old hard drive to the new hard drive?... The old drive has an extended partition from the 2nd hard drive, which makes things more complicated. If I do manage to copy it to a new HD, but (say) some system files aren't working, can I run a repair windows install? Will that just replace any damaged files or will it mess everything else up? When the 2nd HD failed, I created a scheduled task that ran with System rights to xcopy everything from the old to the new (minus the files it had lost, which I logged and recovered from backup). But then, I could log into windows. How about: getting a new hard drive and a spare hard drive. Install a fresh windows on the spare. Will my 2 existing HDs be visible, including the extended partitions from the fresh windows? Will the system user of the fresh windows be able to access them?? RAID question: Say I got a server with built in RAID or even a RAID card. What would happen if the RAID card or the MB died? Can I simply pull out the HDs and put them into a new machine with any RAID controller? Or, what if 1 HD failed. Do I have to use identical drives to restore the RAID. I'm thinking that the new server will be expected to last a long time 5yrs+ and finding identical parts may be difficult.

Hi, OK I know I should have a plan for this, but I don't. It was on my 'to do' list, really, it was. Setup: We're a primary school (55 computers) - We've got 5 yr old converted RM storebox now running plain Window's Server 2000 AD domain. 1.7ghz, 700mb ram. 2 hard drives. One with system and the other with everything else, which is then extended back onto the system drive, because we ran out of space. Server does everything: files, AD, printers, WSUS, SQL for Abacus maths planning software. Problem: 4.30pm on Friday, I restart the server because it's running really slow. Get a BSOD on startup. System Disk error. Backup I have external hard drive with NT backup of everything. No special 'open file options' though. I can also access all drives from the Recovery console via the Server 2000 CD. I need - a plan! Prior to this, the server ran fine; I don’t like upgrading for the sake of it but, on the other hand, I’m leaving at the end of the year and I’d like to leave them setup for a few years to come so I could use this as an opportunity to upgrade. As I see it, I've got 4 options: Replace the faulty hard drive, and somehow recover it all. This is not the first HD failure we've had (3 out of 3 RM server hard drives have now died on me!), so it leaves us very open to the same problem in future. Buy 3 new SATA HDs and a RAID card. Any recommendations on these - they seem to range from £30 to £300. What's the difference? Use this opportunity to buy a new server, with RAID. Servers with RAID already in, seem very expensive.. (wildcard): I have a spare 1.7ghz server. Set both servers up (with new HDs) to provide some redundancy? Are two old servers better than one new one? All of them involve reinstalling everything! What's the best way of doing this? If I install Windows 2000 can I just start it in safe mode, recover as many files as it'll let me, restart and hope for the best? (I'm guessing this WONT work very well!) I know all the user data is safe, but I'm worried about all those little 'fiddly bits' I've setup over the years - WSUS, RIS, SQL, permissions on files etc... Is there anyway I can upgrade to Server 2003, while I'm at it? Ideas please!

Another reason to not to use staff laptops is that their batteries are probably knackered. I don't know about your school, but at mine every single staff laptop, over 2 years old, has a completely useless battery. I take them out now, because they're just a dead weight. The pupil laptops are over 4years and still going strong. Is that because of the way the staff treat them, or is it because staff laptops are Ergo and pupil ones are RM?

I went to a meeting the other day and there was this ICT coordinator that said she had a 3 year cycle for PCs. (Apparently ofsted said that was recommended - like they know!) We've had ofted in and now they don't stop long enough to even check children, never mind the age of your pcs. Our ICT suite is a mix of 2.4ghz type pcs but still a few 660mhz (i.e. 7+ years old). Nobody has ever complained or noticed that the ones at the back are slower than the ones at the front. The ONE exeption to this is when people try and use Photostory. We stuck a bit of RAM into them a few years back and we have an automated install system so we can wipe the computer regularly to keep it 'fresh'. I think this is half the problem with old pcs - they just get clogged up. I will upgrade them this year, but this is the first time I've really felt the need to.

I don't understand - why not worry about the short throw issue? I WANT short throw, it the long throwness (have I just invented a word?) that, I think, is causing our issue. As we have high ceilings, we either have long drops from the ceiling (which causes wabbly projectors) or cantileaver. The advantage of the Tosh ST20 is it has it's own cantileaver on it. I was wondering if that made it significantly cheeper to install. It seems, however, it doesn't! For the ST20 our current projector people say we won't get much change from £2000! (£1300 for the projector) Does anyone have any experience of these projectors. Is the ST20 worth, the extra £400 they're asking for it?

Hi, We are thinking of replacing some of our projectors (4yr old Saharahs. Silly to be replacing them but they are fuzzy at the best of times!). We suffer severely from ambient light (Victorian building). Noticed that Short throw projectors have taken a recent price cut (from £3k to £1k). Anyone used one? I've found BenQ MP771 - £819 Tosh ST20 - £1200 Hitachi a110 - £900 The Tosh has it's own cantilever, which should reduce instillation costs. Anyone had one installed? What sort of cost was it? Thanks,

Hi, I teach reception (that's little people, not another word for the office) and to please some bod in government I have to collect evidence to prove that these little 4 year olds can meet 100-odd criteria grouped within 10 or so categories. Much of this is photographic (plus some video, hopefully) so here, surely, the trusted computer can help! I have found PhotoMesa that is almost perfect! It: Allows the addition of comments to each photo. Allows the addition of tags/categories to each photo that can be organised within sub categories. Easy searching based on folder name & category. It stores the comments etc.. in IPTC tags within the image. However, it doesn't allow you to export these into a slideshow, or printout or webpage or anything! (for sharing with parents at parent's evening) So I need something that can make a website from a folder of images but include some of the IPTC tags. This could be a free/cheap product I use in addition to PhotoMesa or something that would do both jobs. If it's the latter, ideally it would also: Allow photos to be moved between folders (seems obvious but photomesa can't) Handle video and possibly audio files Thanks for reading. Here is a picture of photomesa that sort of shows how I would like to use it.

Not the same issue, I know, but may be something to try: My Mcafee (v.8.0) stopped updating on new installs. Old installs, continued to update themselves fine but new installs always came up with update failed. (Nothing had changed at my end) It was the same when they took the update from the mirror or from the internet. In the end, I had to download a superdat update and install that (using silent options) on each client, they then seem able to download the newer updates fine.

I wiped our storebox a few years' back when I turned it into a vanilla network, but IIRC: Log onto one of your RM workstations as admin/manager/whatever they call it. There is a util on there, on the start menu I think, that lets you create an admin password. you should be able to log into your storebox using this password. you'll see it's a normal windows 2000 so you can see the names of the shares and create a username if you want to. Make sure you include the name of the domain for the server or the name of the server in when you type in the username from the laptops. eg. domain\username

I found that Word 2000 didn't like certain My Docs redirections. Unfortunately, due to over clocking, my brain is fried and I can't remember exactly how I fixed it. It was one of these, I think: - A space in the path (between intake and 07). - Not having access to all levels above %username%. (I.e. you have RW access to the userfolder but can't browse intake 07. You need to add read/traverse access). For troubleshooting, try giving the user full access to all of the above to see if it makes a difference, then bolt it down after. - The path being too long (don't think it was that!.) Sorry I can't be more specific, but there's a few things to try. Don't know why it would work once then not again. GP needs a couple of logons to fully refresh, perhaps another setting is playing tricks?

Hi, Anyone know how to publish a SQL database in Active Directory. I think I need a MMC but I can't seem to find it. Why? I would like to create an offline version of the database (I noticed this option appeared in 'Items to Synchronise' the when I added SQL Server to a client). Hopefully Synchronisation manager can make a copy of the database. Why? I want to make Abacus I-Planner software (primary) available to staff to use at home. Unhelpfully, it stores all of the data in an SQL database on the server. Pretty useless as it is a planning tool! - Is this actually possible, or am I wasting my time? Thanks

This works with WSUS (or windows update) - all it does is automate the existing Windows Update client. It is not a collection of updates downloaded. It works with WSUS or WU makingn it 100% up to date. The problem we had was that after XP had installed, machines would start downloading updates and then sit there until the designated install time or until I came along and selected 'Install Updates and Shutdown'. As some updates are dependant on other updates, you might need to do this 3 times. Now, this script runs as part of our zero-admin setup. It forces the download of updates from WSUS and installs them straight away and restarts the computer for you. If you have automated the script, it can then run again, untill the computer is fully up to date. Not rocket science, I know, but something that can't be done in windows and something I've been looking for a script for for ages.

Sorry if you've seen this before, but I've certainly seen the question unanswered on here a few times. I've found a script that will automatically download and install updates from Windows update or internal WSUS. Great for new installs! I edited it slightly so that it keeps restarting and running until all the updates are installed and once they are installed it will intiate the next part of our build process. The original version is here: http://www.wsus.info/forums/index.php?s=f34047dcf9abc1996c216d3948c70b56&showtopic=7298&st=0

What is a steel-wire-armour cable? Is this on electrical cable? Just checked our exisitng cables and they are UTP, so am I right to think this is suitable? Is there an advantage (other than cosmetic) for using trunking? There is some network trunking already there with space but this runs right next to the big electrical cable. Is it better to trunk it or put it on the other side of the corridor away from the big cable but next to the trunked normal electrical?

Effort, unless someone can tell me a significant advantage. There are loads of pipes all sorts of phone cables in the corridor, plus one or two trunked electrical cables. Noone's going to noitice 2 white 0.5cm wires. Also, as our building is Edwardian, it has a nice curved arch. Beautiful, but almost impossible to trunk around. The cable length will be 25m but the actual distance is only about 10, because of all the upping and downing involved. I can't see an earth point on the panel. No point using Cat 6, we're only going to have one computer on one and a low res network camera on the other. So, which one do I use. This is just a bog standard (supposedly) quick job!