notlob

Third party firewall locking down connectivity away from school? Does the laptop definitely "connect" to the home network - IP address, PING router? Definitely no proxy settings configured or required at school? (Not meant to be patronising, just checking.)

I haven't had to do this for a while and so I don't know if there are any Server 2008 issues at play here. However if you are using net use in a batch file you could try the following... net use x: \\myserver\myshare /user:domain\user Obviously substituting the relevant information. From memory it should prompt the user for a password. If you're feeling brave/wreckless I think you can also include the password on the command line... net use x: \\myserver\myshare passwordhere /user:domain\user Out of interest what is the client operating system?

From what I've read it seems that the Exchange Management Console is just a front end for lots of Powershell activity. WinRM was one of the prerequisites for installing Exchange 2010 but it's installed (but not enabled) in Server 2008 R2 by default.

Hi Everyone More of a "gotcha" than a request for help. Have just installed Exchange 2010 on a Server 2008 R2 member server. Install went fine (Jaap Wesselius' "Exchange 2010 - A Practical Approach" free ebook was great) but then the Exchange Management Console gave an error when looking for On-Premises servers. The following error occurred when searching for On-Premises Exchange server: [myserver.domain.local] Connecting to remote server failed with the following error messahe : The connection to the specified remote host was refused. Verify that the WS-Management service is running on the remote host and configured to listen for requests on the correct port and HTTP URL. No amount of fiddling with WinRM or Exchange components would fix the problem. Reinstalled this, reset that, reconfigured the other. No joy. Tried some basic WinRS commands as it looked more like a WinRM problem than an Exchange problem. From the member server in question... winrs -r:myserver.mydomain.local "dir c:\" [FAILED] winrs -r:localhost "dir c:\" [sUCCESS] DNS checked out, IP config checked out, now firmly in "WTF" territory. Saw the word "proxy" mentioned in an unrelated article and the penny dropped having had proxy-related issues in Windows 7. The problem? No bypass list in the netsh winhttp proxy settings for the local machine. Can't believe Server 2008 R2 needs telling not to use the proxy server to reach itself but you live and learn. The solution? winhttp set proxy proxy-server="proxyaddress:tcpport" bypass-list="*.mydomain.local" Exchange Management Console works great now. A school boy error - it's my fault for not already having specified any bypass list for the local domain (which would have prevented the problem in the first place). I just hope this post can save someone else the hours I've spent on this. Notlob.

Hope this late reply might still be useful. If it was me I'd look to establish a couple of baseline figures: one for when the switch is idle and one for when your network is at its busiest but still working fine. The "idle" baseline should give a low CPU utilisation figure for most switches from what I've seen. However it could still be useful to pick up on network problems at normally quiet times. The "busy" baseline might be more useful to set a warning level. Picking some numbers out of the air, let's say the switch runs at 50% utilisation at the busiest time of day. You could then set a warning level a little higher than this (say 55% or 60%?) which would trip if there is a broadcast storm or other issue. If you get a lot of warnings then you can always fine-tune the level.

I _was_ reluctant to provide this information based on an unsubstantiated suspicion. This turned out to be the right thing to do as I would have been wrong (unless information is being passed on to other more local companies). However I have now received a return receipt which seems to reveal the true destination of emails to "Tom Eliott". Here is the useful information... Return Receipt Your document: Freedom of Information Request was received by: SPECIALIST COMPUTER CENTRES PLC is a company registered in England and Wales with Company No. 01428210. Registered office: James House, Warwick Road, BIRMINGHAM. B11 2LE VAT Registration Number is GB 313 6516 80 I don't think I'm doing anything wrong by posting this publicly available company information. Whether this is a widespread tactic within the company or the actions of an individual employee I'll leave you to decide. Needless to say I won't be dealing with this company if they ever call or write.

I agree with witch on this, it isn't worth the risk of being the one who ignored the request. As well as any personal impact I wouldn't want it to damage the reputation of my school if any kind of public fuss was made. From my (first) experience of dealing with a FOI request I'd say it really is worth running it by whoever at your Council can help.

I did. I could have spoken to the company I suspect was involved and resolved the issue in a matter of minutes. Instead I had to go through formal channels, wasting my time and that of the three people who forwarded the message before it reached me along with the FoI team at the Council. Multiply that by the number of people who might have received and responded the "survey" and that's a lot of time wasted. Then factor in the people who might get in trouble for not responding. I'm not questionning the validity of the Freedom of Information Act. What I will question are the scruples of companies who employ these tactics. If anyone reading this post works for such a company then people might dodge your sales calls, send your marketing emails to the junk mail folder and bin your mailshots. Get over it, that's what happens sometimes, but spare us all from the official nature of a FoI request. Rant over, time for lunch :-)

Received an identical email from the same sender. Shortly after acknowledging the request I started to receive marketing emails and phone calls from an IT company. Too much of a coincidence and an abuse of our FoI obligations as far as I'm concerned. On a positive note our Council's FoI team was extremely helpful and I would recommend getting help to anyone who finds themselves subjected to similar trawling activities.

andy_nic and Jon88 Sorry for the missing "set" which I hope didn't cause you too much hassle . I've edited the post and added the correct command for future reference. Tim.

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere or isn't the issue. Have been experimenting with my first Windows 7 install today and had the same problem with Windows Update along with the network notification icon showing "no internet". I wasn't attempting to use our update server at this point and had already configured the proxy settings in IE (not on the domain at this point). After a little research the following did the trick for me. Open up a command prompt as administrator then run netsh winhttp set proxy proxyname.myschool:Port exit Obviously proxyname.myschool:Port needs to reflect your network. After a reboot the "no internet" notification disappeared and Windows Update displayed some important updates pretty much immediately. Don't know if this is the same problem as you're facing but hope this helps. Tim.

I don't know enough about hardware versus software VPN solutions to advise you there. However in my limited experience I've always gone for a hardware solution and had no cause to regret the decision. As for QuickBooks, again I don't know the specifics but how would the current remote desktop lag compare to the speed of accessing the data files across a slow VPN connection? Also if the VPN connection drops is there the potential for corrupt data files? If the remote desktop solution you currently use involves a third party server you might find that a direct remote desktop connection over the VPN reduces the lag. Hope this helps.

I have good results with Draytek routers for dial-in VPN users and with SyncBack from 2brightsparks to sync folders. There is a freeware version of SyncBack you could try. I have had numerous problems using offline files in XP. Hope this helps.

OutToLunch, Ignatius Thanks for the info. I went for the Maplin PQI option as an immediate solution (£9.99 for 1GB) but will look at the Imation option (about £10 for 4GB from eBuyer) if I need any more in the future. Thanks again for your help - much appreciated.

Hi Everyone I'm struggling to find USB pen drives with a write protect switch. I know they used to be readily available but my search has been fruitless so far. No shortage of USB pen drives but none that specifically mention a write enable/disable switch. I need the reassurance of knowing the device is physically write protected rather than relying on software. If any of you have recently purchased a suitable device or can point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it if you could let me know the details. Thanks for your help Notlob.

We had some Ruckus kit on evaluation and the relatively small improvement in performance didn't come close to justifying the costs involved. Maybe we don't have a particularly challenging environment from a wireless point of view, or maybe the current wireless is set up fairly well (through good luck or otherwise ). Hard to say but we're sticking with our current implementation.

Don't know if this is of any interest?

Original Job Posting Here Details from job posting... The Schools ICT Unit is looking to appoint an ICT technician to work within schools as part of its Technical Support Group. The Unit provides a comprehensive ICT Service to schools in Bolton. This is a busy and challenging environment. The successful candidate will be based in schools, working for half a day, or a full-day, in each of the schools allocated. The successful candidate will be able to support and develop the unit's ICT services to schools, displaying abilities including fault diagnosis, hardware repairs and new hardware & software installations. Familiarity with internal PC architecture, MS Office, and MS operating systems is essential. The successful candidate will also have good inter-personal skills, be able to communicate at all levels, and be willing to learn further skills. A full driving license and daily access to a car are required for this post. Car user allowance payments are applicable. £15,153 - £16,217 per annum, pro rata, plus an essential car user allowance 12 months fixed term contract Appointment to this post is subject to a Criminal Record and Background check (Enhanced) Hope this is of use to someone.

Yes, we were repeatedly referred to as "losers" during a briefing the other week. All that was missing was a Clarksonesque L on the forehead. It wasn't very well appreciated as you can imagine...

Not sure there's much we can do, other than vote with our feet. Time will tell, but I'm not planning to hang around long enough to get caught up in the mess. Shame really because the job is alright, the people are great and I think we provide a valuable service to the schools. Seems that all good things must come to an end.