garethEds

Not that I am aware of. All the script does is the following: 1. Check to see of the machine is in the SuccessMaker security group. 2. If Yes - unmap the LEA M drive and remap it to the SuccessMaker server. I'm sure the script does more than that but cannot get access to it at the moment. If the script does not run SuccessMaker does not work. However we know the script is running and M is being remapped. Gareth

Hi - the central LEA DCs are running Windows 2003r2 but do have a central store for .admx files which can be edited with Windows 7 machines. There are plans to upgrade them soon to 2008r2 - everything is in place and the testing done (from what I have been told). The scripts are vbs. Gareth

Well at the moment we have two OUs - the whole school OU - which is where the latest (above) log file comes from. You can see how long that takes to log on. The second OU is my test OU. Here we have been adding GPOs one at a time. I've recreated my IE GPO based on a new .adm file. Seems I was using an old one (IE7 .adm file) - so that's been updated. The logon time was around 9 seconds. However, I've just added a GPO that contains a script to map a drive - whoosh - logon time suddenly increases. Yet this script has to be there. We will be looking at it again on Monday. Did you see anything of interest in the log file? Gareth

It's been a while since anyone posted to this blog post, but with version 3100 of Impero released and a 3103 update released how are people getting along now? GJE

Now if only Adobe would see sense and realise pupils are the future and start giving their CS software for a lot less than they do. GJE

You would be suprised how many student PGCE teachers come through my department with degrees in Comp Sci but no clue how to teach. Yes we try and train them but most of them are doing the PGCE course 'just in case' they do not get a real computing job. Makes my blood boil. As someone who has completed an 'educaiton degree' a BEd I don't feel the PGCE students have enough 'theory of education' taught to them on their respective courses. That said I am now doing a BSc in Computer Science with the OU, but it is a labour of love. Gareth

Here is the latest file taken from a machine today that is not my test machine. Here is what stands out to me - even though I do not understand everything.. 22 second gap between rows 614 and 621 Row 1877 - 59 seconds to reach logon box Between 1878 - 1918 - no DNS When the user logs on it takes 21 seconds between 3016 and 3020 - to do what? No idea what is going on between 3385 - 3400 Feel free to disect :-) Thanks everyone, Gareth GPO Startup LOG 26042011 TG4 Machine.xlsx

No sorry Sikh, I've not been in work since last Wednesday and will not be there until next Wednesday. However we have removed them all and the logon time is down to 7 seconds LOL. I've added a few back in and it's up to 10 seconds. I'm adding them back in slowly, but cannot do anything until I get back into work. Gareth

Hmmm - I've asked the LEA and they assure me it is fine. I'll go back to them next week. Although our network has now been changed. The LEA want to use central domain controllers which are stored several miles away in County Hall. We authenticate over the broadband link. We then had our own domain controller put in. It has been taken out now as we look to lower our logon times (it is called yggwyr-dc in the log file). I'll run the tests again with the machines now pointing at the LEA dns servers. Gareth

We have individual GPOs for earch MSI and whilst some are allocated at top level, others are allocated to department OUs (specialist software, printers etc. We have also turned off user/computer settings depending on what section is being used. Gareth

This is what we have tended to do over the years. Maybe it's time to look at joining some together. Gareth

Hi Sukh, Thanks for offering to take a look at the file. In this first file is the information from the day we run the program for the first time. I have taken earlier days out. For some reason I cannot send a file through a PM so have put it here - open for all to see. I don't think there is anything private in there. It is in XL format. I look forward to hearing from you. Gareth all logs output.xlsx

Well regardless of who created the poster - maybe it's time for an Edugeek Poll. I cannot see where to set one up as I type this. Gareth

This has been discussed a lot today on the CAS mailing list - an attention grabbing headline. The author of the report is also a member of CAS and has responded. Gareth

I read about the custom information and that it may slow down logons when doing my research for the issues. Luckily we have none. WHen I get back in next week (or the LEA fix my VPN connection) then I shall enable the verbose stuff. I do have a log file from Policy Reporter if anyone fancies a look. It is in Excel format. Gareth

Now that is interesting - we removed one of our IE GPOs and it sped up how quickly IE started on a machine. The only other one we have sets the home page. Gareth

CHeers AT, I am running a program called Group Policy Reporter. I'll read the tech doc and see how it all goes. Gareth

As we are suffering from very slow logon times the technician and I are working through out GPOs to see which one(s) are causing the issues. We have created a new Test OU with no user or computer based GPOs in place (except from the ones forced on us by the LEA). This got our logon time from over a minute to 7 seconds. We are now adding GPOs back in one by one to see what happens. So I have a few questions.... 1. How much time does each GPO add to the logon process? 1 GPO = 1 Second? 2. What is quicker to process? 15 GPOs each with 1 setting, or 1 GPO with 15 settings? 3. How do you guys organise your GPOs? One large one per user type (e.g. staff/pupils etc) or several smaller ones? There maybe more but not at the moment. Cheers everyone, Gareth

We are on our second year school agreement which cost us just under £8K. Next year we move to the new agreement based on staff numbers and have been quoted just under £2.5k. A massive saving. Well turns out the school have now cut my IT budget by £5k so I do not benefit at all. Gareth

Morning, Can I just check with people what should be set in my DHCP when running WDS on a seperate server to DHCP. At the moment I have: 066 - this is set to the IP address of my WDS server 067 - this is set to: boot\x86\wdsnbp.com It all works, but I have a feeling the 067 setting was for our old RIS server. Gareth

If Edugeek made a nice car sticker I for one would slap it on the window of my car. Gareth

I'd be interested to talk to anyone who uses this software and may have compared it to Impero (which we currently use). PM me... Gareth

Evening peeps Just want to check the following. If I re-build our WDS server to Windows 2008R2 and install the most recent version of WDS, can I then install MDT alongside? I want to use WDS for deploying our Windows XP .wim image and then MDT in the future when we move over to Windows 7. From what I read MDT does not support dynamic driver provisioning on Windows XP so I am sticking to the image. However my current WDS server is about to collapse. Gareth

Bringing this to a close - the machines which were showing the never heard of 'rom-cache' symptoms are all the machines I've posted about in this post: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/hardware/73246-issue-stone-machines.html Gareth

Finally got around to playing with this software today even though we've had the server side installed using Xampp for over 3 months LOL. I like it - great value what with it being open source. My weekend reading is the user guide online, but for now can anyone tell me how to make things go on forever? I have to put a duration in for most things, but after a certain amount of time, my layout gets replaced with the 'Xibo Open Source Digital Signage Screen'. This appears for a while and then it all starts again. How long to you guys put in your duration? Is it simply a case of putting in enough seconds for 24 hours? Gareth