Cat_Jam148

Sophos here, although thats primarily because we get it as part of our package with the LGFL. If we didn't we'd probably be using Microsoft Defender for Business.

Recently switched over to 2025 for the DC, been running for just over a month and not had any issues. All clients here are Win11 24H2. This was a fresh install, not an in-place upgrade (which is a bad idea anyway for DCs).

Posts like these are why I'm always slightly suspicious whenever there is a poster who is 'gushing' with positivity around Bromcom, or parroting their selling points. I've used it and It is a good product, as are most products on the MIS market, but some make out it to be the best thing since sliced bread!

Sad that this is the final on-screen performance of Tony Todd RIP - always been a favourite of mine since seeing him on Star Trek TNG. His performance was great in the recent Indiana Jones game.

Bar

I know a lot of the schools in our local area were sorely lacking when it came to WiFi, so this program was a great benefit to them. Not every school has existing equipment which is working well or fit for purpose. We were in the scheme too and it meant I could put the money set aside for our future WiFi project into something else. It came just at the right time. Even if the equipment is a bit overkill, it is the right kind of investment from the DFE and I'm glad it's been extended.

California

Yeah, we're also getting this on machines which were upgraded to 24H2 rather than a fresh install. Not happening to all of our machines, just our older VeryPC Flex Micro machines and haven't been able to pin down the cause. Probably will end up just doing a fresh install of 24H2 as that solves the problem.

Tennis

Yeah, I feel a little lost without it! Forgot how tedious manually browsing forums is No doubt on the list to add back, in the meantime i'm using the what's new tab.

Yep, we have our DCs on separate Hyper-V hosts. If one hypervisor goes down, the other is ready to go and can move VMs around as needed. We're only a primary so our CPU needs are pretty low. I have all of our Hyper-V hosts kitted out with single CPU, and split the processing cores & RAM between the VMs as needed. Really easy to configure and modify.

In addition to our two virtualised DCs, we have VMs for our 3CX phone system, print server and file storage. All running on their own VM.

Bitwarden primarily, with a copy stored in an encrypted document.

There is no getting around this. Our stance is that any machine that can't run the latest version of Windows 11 natively (i.e with no hacks or workarounds) is to be disposed of. I know Microsoft are offering extended support past the EoL date for Windows 10 at an extra cost, but we instigated an upgrade program early last year to make sure that we aren't affected by this. Microsoft have been pretty clear about this for awhile, I'm still shocked honestly that people in the IT world are being caught by 'surprise' this late in it's lifecycle. The news has been out there since early 2023 or earlier I believe? Once I heard about it, I put a plan forward at the next IT meeting with SLT and laid out the facts. I explained the risks and they put up the money.

Small time compared to the rest of you but... LA Primary (2 form) + Nursery On-site every day. Term Time + 2 weeks 70 Staff 450ish Pupils --- 45 Desktops 75 Laptops 250 iPads 5 Servers Handle pretty much everything - try to keep as much in-house as possible.

I've started preparing our staff about it's demise as we have a group of them who have almost everything in Publisher. I won't be including it in our install of Office 2024 during the summer. The writing was on the wall for sometime, Microsoft haven't known what to do with it for the last few years. 365 never being able to open the files in the browser was always a red flag to me that it was on the chopping block.

Not surprising if it comes to fruition. Countless hours spent in Skype while gaming in my younger days. Skype was the go-to after MSN Messenger shut down. I'll be sad to see it go purely for nostalgia reasons but other products, especially Discord for gaming & Teams for business use, has ate up whatever user base it had. I can't remember the last time I used it...

This is something we implemented when the news originally broke. The Site Manager and I check our screens and their fittings every 3 months now - I also tend to do a spot check anytime I'm in a classroom. We've also started asking installers exactly what fittings they are using, so we can keep a record for future reference.

For those who wanted a little more information than the initial post... https://arbor-education.com/blog-the-future-of-scholarpack-integris-and-arbor/ TLDR: Goodbye ScholarPack & Integris

We have used a few different options in the past but have always returned to using Google Search. We use adblockers to prevent any 'dodgy' adverts, and have safe search forced on for all devices. You do get the odd questionable result but nothing is perfect, and something will always slip through regardless of what service you are using or how many protections you have in-place. Our Safeguarding team have been happy with this.

I agree, really struggled to make it all the way through. The pacing and editing was all over the place. It makes Star Trek V look like a masterpiece.

Skyrim

Yeah we had that too, lets just say the support message I sent was on the verge of being unprofessional. The last thing I needed yesterday was CPOMS issues.

Aperture

We aren't affected by it here. Have been keeping an eye on the incident report though https://status.arbor-education.com/incidents/271299