AngryTechnician

I suspect the key to this will be finding out what process is accessing that file. If you can reproduce the issue reliably, I suggest running Procmon as the local admin and leaving it running, then switch user and log in as an affected user. Search the resulting Procmon log for access to the UsrClass.dat and see if that reveals anything. Past experience with file-locking issues like these leads me to suspect the antivirus is locking it for a scan and not relinquishing it in a timely fashion, but that's really only speculation at this point.

Priceless!

When I bought Dell desktops in the summer, I configured for the cheapest HD I could and bought SSD's separately, which worked out about £30 cheaper per unit than getting Dell to swap the HD for an SSD. Amusingly the machines have a separate space on the drive bracket for 2.5" drives, so I didn't even need to physically remove the 3.5" drive. I now have 25 desktops around the school that have a 250GB HD in them disconnected and doing nothing, because I couldn't be bothered to take them out.

I have 30 iPads using Meraki and have had intermittent issues with profiles not updating in a timely fashion, but have not had any completely drop out of management. However, I only did the 7.0.4 updated a few days ago so perhaps I have this yet to come...

You still need your MDM to support it though. Apple Configurator does, but Meraki doesn't yet. Not sure about others.

Python (at least the reference implementation) doesn't compile to a native .exe, so no issues there I don't think. It creates a .pyc file which is then run by python.exe, much like Java running .jar files. Fairly sure it will run as non-admin, and Python.org even has Windows Installers (though you need to add ALLUSERS=2 as a deployment parameter to get the shortcuts to install for everyone, in my experience).

If you are on Server 2012 or 2012 R2, you can get it in PowerShell: PS C:\> Get-VHD -DiskNumber 5 Requires you to know the disk number according to the volume manager: you can see this in Disk Management, or by running Get-Partition with no parameters in PowerShell (need to run as Admin for that one). EDIT: Just realised there's an even easier way: when you right-click the mounted disk in Disk Management and click Detach VHD, it shows the path on the confirmation dialog, at least on Windows 8.1.

You shouldn't need an SMTP relay at all. On the device that needs to send email, specify whatever server is listed in your domain's MX record as the "relay" server. If that isn't working, it is likely a firewall issue (which would also cause the issue you're seeing with the relay), but without being familiar with the existing firewall config it's hard to say for certain.

In AD Users and Computers: Go to View > Filter Options Create custom filter, click Customize Click Advanced Enter LDAP query: (cn=*07*) Click OK twice ADUC will refresh, now when you go to any OU it will only display accounts with 07 in the common name. Don't forget to set it back to "Show all types of objects" afterwards. More on LDAP queries can be found here: Search Filter Syntax (Windows)

If you are just sending the email to yourself (or other internal users), then just set the SMTP server to whatever your incoming MX is on port 25, with no authentication. A mail server has to accept mail for its own users with no auth, or every mail system outside your domain would have to have a username and password to send you email.

Be aware this will have performance implications - specifically, logons will take longer because no caching will be used even when the servers are up. Staff who use the same machine routinely will notice the most difference. Also, the larger your user's profiles are, the more they will notice.

Two options: Create Windows 7 and Windows 8 security groups for the computer accounts in AD and add the appropriate clients to each group. Then modify the security filtering on the GPO to apply only to the correct group. Use WMI Filters to apply Group Policy to a target operating system

Probably worth me saying that this was exactly what got my goat too. It's certainly not a bad idea to have docking stations to alleviate uncomfortable/potentially unhealthy posture. But I can't stand someone lying about a legal requirement for something instead of making their case for it properly, especially when it's to do with H&S - an area that has a poor enough reputation for bureaucratic nonsense without adding fictional rules to the problem.

All we know for certain is that there won't be a fix for 2003. There's actually been no announcement that there will be a fix for 2010, it's just an assumption that they will fix it at some point. 2007 and 2010 are still supported products, so it's reasonable to expect there will be a fix in the next cumulative update.

The most ridiculous thing on that last link is the bit about "My wrist aches when I use my mouse. How can I prevent this?". An entire paragraph of recommendations follows and not once is the single most effective change mentioned: lower your mouse sensitivity. Every single person I have ever had complain of wrist ache from using the mouse has had it disappear within days of turning the mouse sensitivity down. The fact that HSE don't even know about this tells you all you need to know about their expertise on RSI. And as for this: 99.9% certain they are making it up. I would give these cretins 24 hours to provide documentary evidence of any regulation containing this supposed rule. When they can't manage it, I would tell them to go **** themselves. Only I wouldn't bleep it out when I told them, which is the sort of thing my parole officer tells me I should work on, but my way is more fun.

Just for 2013 so far. I've been told several times over the last week (including by a Microsoft employee) that there is a patch for 2010, but there isn't, and there is no published timeframe for releasing one.

My only experience with these was with an SG200-08, but it was not good. Every few weeks it would completely drop the gigabit uplink to the router on the floor below and require a cold reset before it would start working again. This was especially irritating as it was at a remote site. Support just blamed the cabling, and I wasn't about to buy another one out of pocket to prove them wrong. Now, I can't say for certain that the ~25m of Cat5e we are using for the uplink is perfect, but my Fluke meter says it's fine, and I've since replaced the Cisco with an equivalent Netgear(!) and haven't had a problem since with the same cable. Would not buy again.

So far other than the OWA problem in Exchange 2010, the only other site I've found has problems is the Guardian Crosswords. The "Save" button doesn't work unless you put the site into compatibility mode, which annoyed the missus no end last night. If it wasn't for OWA I'd merrily deploy it now.

There will be (a lot) more details in the C:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log, but I have seen that 0x80070643 error code before, so I'm going to go with a hunch and suggest something right away. Try the steps in this article Troubleshooting a Failed Microsoft Security Essentials Install - Error Code 0x80070643 - TechNet Blogs - specifically, check the listed registry locations.

It hasn't been released to WSUS yet so at the moment there is nothing to block.

This caught me out the other day despite having read about it a little while ago: clicking "Shutdown" in Windows 8 & 8.1 does not, by default, do a full shutdown. Instead it doesn't what's called a 'hybrid shutdown', which is roughly somewhere between shutdown and hibernate. Users are logged off and their processes are closed, but system processes stay in memory (i.e. all your background services) and the machine then goes into hibernate. This caught me out when I'd asked someone to shutdown their computer and then power back on to troubleshoot. The problem didn't go away as expected, and the uptime reported by WMI was still reporting several days instead of the few minutes I was expecting. Clicking "Restart" does do a full restart. Bear this in mind when phrasing your instructions to users when asking them to completely restart their computer. More info: Fast Startup - Turn On or Off in Windows 8

Let's all fire up some VMs and see if we can beat that for 2013-14...

What ISP are you on? As much as I hate to compliment anything by Virgin Media, their new 'superhub' actually has cracking wireless which would probably cover the property on its own.

I know exactly what you mean - it's the same in Outlook Web Access for Exchange 2010. If it works like 2010 does, you can use the up/down arrow keys to highlight the suggestion when it pops up, then press Del on the keyboard.

We do exactly this. Both Outlook and iCal are a bit picky about the precise format of the input; the most reliable method I've found is to subscribe to your source ICS file in Google Calendar, then make that Google calendar public and use the resulting Google ICAL link for the other clients. If you go this route, I recommend using a Google account that you don't use for anything else, as if you delete the Google calendar subscription for any reason the links you've shared will be null and void.