Katy

Are you definitely doing a full backup each time and not something like incremental, where it will need old tapes if the files haven't changed recently? I don't use Veeam to back up directly to tape though (we backup VMs to disk with Veeam, then the veeam backup gets put onto tape by Backup Exec - when we set it up veeam didn't do tape)

That's not a bad price for new components and installation though, list price the controller is around £360, fob readers £150 so it adds up very quickly. It's amazing how much you save by getting 2nd hand parts (most of the controllers I've had have even had 4 years of the warranty left on them, although the warning labels everywhere state it's void if you don't get one of their accredited trade installers to fit it)

Perhaps also worth mentioning, I missed it earlier, when I said we use paxton instead of individual fire alarm relays to open the doors - all these doors have push button exit so in the event that the network is down you can still push the exit button, and we also have green "break glass" units which cut the power to the mag lock directly as a fail safe anyway. Wouldn't dream of not having a proper fire relay on a door where you need a code/fob to exit with no break glass or any fail safe.

We've done this in one of our buildings, although we got the fire alarm guys to wire from a relay directly on the alarm panel to the paxton controller for the nearest door. As said you need the Pro version of the software for this, but you get a list of all doors (and door groups) and just tick which you want to open when the alarm is triggered.

That's true, we got all our hikvision from one of our usual IT distributor/resellers (forgot which one but doubt they can get it any more) and did a self install, I'm not sure what other budget kit is out there so you might find hikvision bought through the installer is cheaper than anything else you can get (panasonic or samsung etc) but as you say you're doing it bit at a time.... no useful suggestions I'm afraid

We had a battle here, previously two schools that merged.. school A (where I was the network manager) we shut down every night at about 6pm if the PC was idle, school B shutdown was forbidden and all PCs were set to power up at 8am in the BIOS. Now in the merged school, after a battle with a deputy head (who came over from School B), PCs were shut down at 10pm (which I've slowly clawed back to 6pm regardless of whether they are logged on or not, a popup appears allowing anybody using the PC to postpone) and the new PCs didn't have power on BIOS options so we got round that too, result being we didn't have PCs turning on every single day in the holidays for no reason. Teachers eventually learned to turn the PC on a few minutes before they needed to use it (we're SSD now so it doesn't take as long to boot up unless Windows has done a big update)

I've been running various versions of Win 10 for over a year, I had Windows 10 ticked plus Windows 10 LTSB (as we used to be 1511 LTSB, now we're 1607 enterprise). I did originally have drivers ticked but since they changed Win 10 windows update client to refuse to talk to WSUS unless the GPO "Don't allow driver updates" was turned off, make sure you DON'T tick the drivers or it will pull 6,000 intel VGA drivers and completely wreck things like the PC actually remembering that you have duplicated displays. Edit: So yeah, with just Windows 10 ticked it still seems to get all the updates including the monthly security ones.

This. We fitted an XLR mount into the lectern and got a gooseneck mic that fitted into it, phantom powered. Every footstep and lean on the lectern seemed to be louder than the actual speaking. After a couple of uses it got removed and instead sits plugged into the sound mixer and we just use it to speak down to the hall when setting things up etc, we now either use a wired mic on a stand or lapel radio mic for anyone speaking.

We have printers randomly not connecting (not very often, about 5% of the time) deployed via GPP with Win 10 1607 Ent. Might try the registry thing above and see if that fixes it, but we get an error along the lines of "The printer name is invalid" in the event logs (but log off/on again and it maps fine, add it manually and it maps fine, so the printer name is obviously not invalid). Printing in Windows has always been awful, how can it be that difficult to just work reliably

If you're getting a CCTV company in to do the install won't they be able to get the hikvision kit, being that they are a trade installer? We did a DIY install with 38 hikvision cameras a couple of years ago, the image quality on 2MP/3MP HD IP cameras is amazing compared to our old Panasonic (640x480px) IP system and miles better than the old BNC at our previous second site.

Ah yes forgot about that - our first few doors were done by approved installers to get the software (and so we could open up an "approved" installation and copy the wiring)

+1 for Loving Paxton on ebay for reasonably priced 2nd hand kit, you also occasionally find other sellers with brand new unopened readers at a fraction of the full price.

We do a mixture of self install and getting our usual electricians to install (when we are too busy or it's a difficult door miles away from any power source). You can get both powered and PoE control units now although all of ours except 1 are mains fed. Easy enough to set up, adding the door to the software is a case of putting it on the same VLAN and clicking "Detect" on the config tool, or if it's not playing you can add by MAC address and then from the config tool assign it an IP address. It's then a case of setting up the keypad type in the main Net2 software which is straight forward. If you have a fire relay you can wire the power to the mag lock through it, so the doors release on fire, we use this in one building but in our older building the fire guys installed a relay from the fire panel to the "tamper" input on the nearest door unit, if you have the Pro version of the software you can then use this to release all/some (tick list) of doors when the relay is triggered, saving the need for a fire relay by every single door.

No, that was removed from the desktop and chrome's shortcut got labelled "The Internet". I did have to answer "Where is the blue e?" after mum had been talking to her friends about using the Internet though. Reminds me of the IT Crowd... "I need a browser installing" "Internet Explorer *is* a browser" "The blue E? No that's the button for the Internet, I need a browser"

We have a form that they sign to give consent for things like school trips (day at the farm, sports fixtures etc) where there is no additional charge, at the bottom there's a box to opt out of publicity photos. Edit: it's a generic form done once a year, not one form per trip

We don't use RM but when we went from Win 10 1511 to 1607 Autograph stopped working, following the instructions on this link fixed it for us: https://autographmaths.uservoice.com/forums/254149-support/suggestions/15915208-autograph-3-3-10-not-working-after-win-10-annivers

I have a HPE 5406zl (chassis based) core switch with an 8 port SFP+ module for the 10 gig links. At the top of each remote cabinet I have a HPE (Aruba) 2530-48G-2SFP+ switch linked to the core 10GbE. We then have a load of HPE 1910/1920 switches (mixture of 24/48 port and PoE/non-PoE) each with 4 x 1Gb trunked off the 2530 at the top of the rack. The nice thing is the core and the 2530s have the same admin interface, bad thing is the 1910/1920's are basically rebranded 3com lines so they are completely different (although they were cheap)

This just totally reminded me of what I had to name shortcuts on my mum's laptop (she never touched a computer until about 3 years ago) - Word was "Writing Letters", Outlook was something like "Posting Letters"

Oooh that looks really useful actually, might give it a go

Not sure why that method wouldn't work, but as a work around you could stick in a startup script containing: net user Administrator newpasswordhere and then get rid of it again once they've all been restarted. Only problem is keeping the password in plain text so you'd have to put it somewhere users can't get at. In theory it should work as startup scripts run as the SYSTEM account.

Couldn't find anywhere to put this so here it is in General. Does anybody have a decent paper supplier (preferably in the north west or willing to deliver nationally). We are struggling in getting paper that doesn't jam our machines - we prefer "Rey" 80gsm but often have difficulties getting it, we have just had a pallet of "Captain" turn up which jams 90% of our machines, the alternative offered is "Chamex" which has a green tint to the edge and also jams our machines. Hoping to pay max £1.90/ream + VAT. What do you do for paper (or is it nothing to do with you and reprographics sorts themselves out?) Or has anyone found a decent (but cheap) paper that doesn't jam for fun?

Hooray, we have only just managed to get teachers to realise that Skype for business is not the same thing as Skype, now it gets another re-brand. At least they're not calling it almost the same as something they already use like "Word for Communicators" this time.

I've also found another solution to our Win 10 display problems, not sure if it is coincidence that powerpoint was playing up or not, but since they changed it so Win 10 won't talk to WSUS unless you allow it to get driver updates, a VGA driver update went on which has made Windows "forget" display configuration every restart. I've uninstalled this driver (dated 2015) then re-installed the one that was in our image (dated 2012) and the problems have gone away. I've since made sure display drivers never get approved so hopefully I can convince the WSUS server to allow me to search for the driver, then approve for removal, but it's currently not responding whenever I search

Ours are applied to the user rather than computer, via GPP (as it's the only way to get share based printers rather than locally installed/TCPIP), we then specify which printers apply to which computers by using the item targeting based on computer machine group membership. Never tried using a powershell script. In the past when we have had printers fail to map it shows an error such as "The printer name is invalid" in the event log, but log off and back on again without changing anything and it suddenly is perfectly valid and maps. Doesn't make any sense, it's like Microsoft forgot to test Windows 10 being used with GPP printer mapping.

No, don't think I do, can't see it in any of the enabled settings, but we do "always wait for the network at computer startup and logon".