AngryTechnician

Checked the timezone on workstations and the FSMO, both set correctly. I will be onsite when I fix this, not taking any chances there.

OK, so as per my original gut response, I won't be fixing this until this evening. Still can't find any smoking gun to indicate what's caused it though.

Meaning no new logons, correct?

Noticed this morning that the time across my entire network is 1 hour behind. The clock on the FSMO DC has gotten behind somehow, and of course everything syncs with that by design. Everything is working normally other than that, and I'm looking into why it has happened now, but my main concern is what could break if I resync the DCs now. I know AD replication relies on the time delta being less than 15 minutes, so I can sync those manually, but will the workstations carry on working while they catch up? We have no 802.1x in operation so no worries there. Situation so far: The FSMO DC syncs with time.windows.com and is set as the reliable time source for the AD. - CHECKED OK All other servers and workstations sync with the FSMO. - CHECKED OK Time sync between host and guests in Hyper-V is disabled for all DCs as per best practice - CHECKED OK Time zone is set correctly (to "(UTC) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London") and daylight savings adjustments checked on the DCs and workstations. I have a couple of errors on the FSMO for Time-Service from yesterday morning at about 3am saying that time.windows.com was unreachable, but no other fault since. All DCs and Hyper-V hosts were rebooted to install updates yesterday morning (Monday) at about 3am, as per their scheduled update settings. I have a sneaking suspicion that whatever happened, happened then, but I'm not sure exactly what.

Good point, I'm sure I had looked at this myself a year or so back, but had completely forgotten about it since.

Yes, basically I'm an idiot for not reading the FAQ, where this is clearly labelled complete with a big sodding download button.

I made my own MSI from scratch using Advanced Installer, but I can't distribute it due to some third party codecs it includes. I could strip those out and produce a bare-bones MSI, but I would appreciate if anyone can let me know what the legal issues are with redistributing binary installers of GPL software. Do I need to release the source for the installer, for example? Does the installer need to actually display the GPL, or create a shortcut to it, or can I simply bundle the GPL text with the install files?

I don't know, not sure if I'll be asked back after asking such blunt questions last time!

In theory, yes, but only because it can't be installed for all users, as jc1875 has found: The issue here is that although the shortcut is correctly created in the All Users start menu when ALLUSERS=1 is specified, the actual program files are always installed to AppData. So you have to install it separately for every user. Apparently whoever wrote the installer didn't really think their design through. Le sigh. I've tried modifying the install location with a transform, but it breaks the program. I've posted on their forums requesting a version that doesn't install to AppData; if you'd like to see this, please add a note so they know it's not just me whinging.

It sounds like your boss is a weasel and is trying to save money by cutting your salary. Consult your union. I'm pretty sure the circumstances in which RM could make you redundant after being TUPEd without it being ruled unfair are more limited than you might think.

Yes, but Clippy makes an idiot of himself in the first act, so never let it be said that MS employees don't have a sense of humour.

With Office 365 looming, you might think Google would be looking to become more competitive, but instead they've announced today that they will be placing stricter limits on the Free edition to force more businesses to start coughing up: from May 10, only schools and non-profits will be allowed to have more than 10 users without paying (currently it's 50). (Source) The change only affects new signups, but does affect new personal customers who don't qualify as "non-profit". Personally I always saw the Free edition as a way for Google to drive people towards Business, but clearly they aren't seeing the conversion rates they've hoped for. I also found the free service a good way for the family techie to set up a central email system using a custom domain name for family members, but I guess it will only be useful for small families now. Still, at least the free edition exists, which is more than Microsoft offers.

On the cost angle: in all the schools I've worked at, infrastructure comes out of the IT budget - but the department has to notify in advance during budget time so that money can be put aside for it. If they don't, then it comes out of their budget. I do all but the most arduous cabling jobs myself (pretty much everything apart from very large runs or fibre), because we did all our own cabling in my first school, so I have the necessary tools and know I can do a better job than most contractors. I never use local switches as anything but a temporary measure, and I have to gird my loins even in those circumstances. Splitters and hubs are dirty words to me.

I've heard this suggestion before, and in isolation it's still not a good way of doing things. The reason is that it still gives you a private channel for communication with pupils that has no oversight by the school, unlike school email which can be monitored. Without oversight, you are leaving yourself open to unpleasant accusations. If you are going to use a separate profile to befriend pupils, I recommend that multiple staff know the login details, including someone in SMT. For those complaining about the lack of mention of support staff, remember that this article covered an NUT event. Unlike ATL, The NUT does not accept support staff (or indeed any unqualified teaching staff) into their membership, so the event would have been aimed solely at teachers and the coverage will reflect that.

Nothing new or groundbreaking for those paying attention, but we all know staff who don't pay attention, so here's another reputably-sourced article to throw at those who insist on adding pupils at their friends on Facebook: Pupils are not your Facebook friends, net privacy expert warns teachers | Education | guardian.co.uk Also contains some pragmatic advice for SMT thinking of banning Facebook entirely:

I certainly don't need a lot of complexity. Mostly I want something that is easy for me to manage and straightforward for end users to download and interact with. I don't really need a full version control system (I don't think I'd use it properly), but I would like to be able to upload changes as I make them between releases. I would tend to direct people either from here or from my blog, so size/type of community on the hosting site isn't really on my radar.

I'm planning to soon to release a tool I've written to help automate some WSUS tasks I perform. I want to use an open source hosting site, and am minded to use either SourceForge or CodePlex. Can anyone offer me some insights into the advantages or disadvantages of each? If you've used both and can compare, that would be even better. Thanks in advance, AT

Ooh, count me in too if you still need testers, I must have missed this as I was busy packing up the office for the refurb!

OK, due to me misreading the model numbers on my UPS I have bought the wrong replacement batteries and it's too late to send them back. I have a brand new set of RBC11 batteries, unused in the box. I have had them since July so they have a bit of shelf life on them but they are otherwise in mint condition. They are genuine APC batteries, not compatibles. Yours for £100. I don't think you'll find better than that without buying brand X on eBay. Collection preferred (from Reading area), but if you really can't collect I can ship for additional cost. Parcel2Go are quoting just over a tenner but that seems pretty low for a 24Kg box so it may end up being a bit more. Please check carefully that they fit your model or you'll end up making a tit of yourself like I have. Several websites I have checked this morning have informed me that many people order the wrong battery for this model, so that makes me feel a bit better, but you still don't want it happening to you. The following is a list of models I believe it should fit, but please make your own enquiries. APC Smart UPS SU24XLBP, SU1400XLTNET APC Smart UPS SU1400RMXLTNET, SU2000 APC Smart UPS SU2200I, SU2200INET APC Smart UPS SU2200RM, SU2200RMNET APC Smart UPS SU2200RMXL, SU2200RMXLT APC Smart UPS SU2200XL, SU2200XLTNET APC Smart UPS SU3000, SU3000NET APC Smart UPS SU3000RM, SU3000RMNET APC Smart UPS SU2200US, SU2200X106 APC Smart UPS SU2200X111, SU2200X115 APC Smart UPS SU2200X179, SU2200X180 APC Smart UPS SU2200X93, SU3000RMX93 APC Smart UPS SU3000US They do not fit the SUA2200I or SUA3000 series. (Guess which letter I didn't read on my model numbers?)

I've heard anecdotal evidence that spreading the settings across many OUs increases the time slightly, but I don't think it's the significant factor. More important will be the number of settings, and most importantly, what they are. Some will simply take longer than others. Have a look at Fixing Group Policy problems by using log files IIRC the logs are timestamped so you can see which things are taking longer than others. I split my GPOs into User and Computer settings whenever possible and tend to only have one per user/computer type. Any settings that are shared across multiple types will go into a general GPO. This is more because I find it easier to manage that way than because of any worries about performance.

Got an email about this today. It seems it was announced last October but I somehow missed the announcement. Another fabulous decision by Gove's department of muppets. Teachers TV Site Closure | Teachers TV The shutdown will also mean that some previously-downloaded content will no longer be licensed and must be deleted, depending on the original licensing. See the link above for details.

I used to see this regularly on a random 10-15% of our workstations until I also gave up using the .msi and now deploy the .exe. It's not as easy but it works a lot more reliably. For what it's worth, we were using AVG, but I'm not convinced this particular error is an antivirus problem, personally.

To fix Group Policy Preferences (and it's not just the printer bit that's broken, trust me) you need to install a hotfix that updates the Gpprefcl.dll file. I used this one, but the latest is now this one if you are deploying Windows 7 SP1, or just want to be bang up to date. Ignore the descriptions of the problem in each KB article; each update includes all previous fixes.

Hurrah! Also, good old Microsoft not testing against anything but the current version.

Looks like you are missing your section in the Web.config, or the line that is there has somehting other than ADConnectionString in the name attribute. Not sure which line it should be in v6 though. Also, is that space in the connectionUsername meant to be there?