Crispin

For a couple of months now we seem to have lost the ability to download from Microsoft, or use their Microsoft Updates site. Trying to download the .Net 3.5 software, web installer file downloads ok, but as the installer trys to download the software it just stalls and never gets above 0KB/s transfer speed. After a while I'm greeted with a "Re-establishing connection with the server (attempt 1 of 5)" message MS Update acts in the same way and throws up an error code, although don't know it off hand (will have to wait for MS Update to time out before it gives me the code). The main microsoft site works fine and so does the 'Microsoft Download Center' at a speedy 3.4MB/s. I've checked the proxy and can't see any changes made that could have caused this. Anyone have any ideas on how to troubleshoot this? I'm trying to farmilarise myself with wireshark at the moment as my next step... Would like to get this fixed though as I'm currently having to take machines home to run MS updates!

Thanks guys, that helps me out a lot. I'll try it out in the morning.

Actually I'm pretty sure it does grey it out, i tested it a few days ago. Couldn't click it at all... But if you would be so kind as to post that code I'd be very greatful. I'm really not a coder...still on batch files mainly.

You see this is the problem I'm having, We've disabled active desktop for many reasons, and we need to disable the 'set as desktop background' contextual option. If I apply the already existing policy in, "User configuration\admin templates\desktop\prohibit changes etc... it doesn't grey out the option. If however, I manually change the registry entry for 'nochangingwallpaper' it immediately greys out the option. Its an odd one, one that I hoped to resolve by just adding it to group policy, but like you say if its a duplicate it can't be done. I may just have to make a logon script to do it, that's probably a lot easier.

I'm trying to create an ADM template which alters this key: HKCU: Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ActiveDesktop Keyname: NoChangingWallpaper (which has a value of either 0 or 1) So far, I've kinda muddled through a few ADM tutorials and come up with this: But when I try to create a .POL in the system policy editor, it says there are errors. So i'm going badly wrong somewhere. Anyone able to see where?

I would seriously consider taking a look at softlinks products, namely Alice and Oliver. Webby: Softlink Europe - Home We use oliver at the moment and the librarians find it pretty easy to use and we very rarely have any trouble with it. Kids seem to use it aswell which is rather astonishing. We did have one issue with a process maxing out the server when oliver ran its end-of-day tasks, got on to tech support, a friendly chap remoted in and solved the problem within half an hour. Great customer/technical support. Highly recommended.

So I desperately need to get a vista guest installed on my win7 x64 host so i can convert some e-mail to 'windows mail' format... Set ISO to x64 version of vista sp1 = Failure as it appears that VPC doesn't let you install x64 ontop of an x64 VPC. Great. Set ISO to x86 version of vista sp1 = CD BOOT failure error code 1. Good stuff. Downloading virtualbox now.

Works fine for me.

We will be outsourcing our website, saving us a lot of trouble in my opinion. Found a great local company, Yellow Duck are one of the companies we're very confident about and can cater to your exact needs. They can set up a nice joomla template and then hand over control to you if you haven't got much to spend, or they can do everything on your behalf. But like others have said, if you have the time, go with joomla.

I think I'm going to check out these steps I found in another post: Most of these settings I've already tried, but not all at the same time, as I can't see how enabling 'active desktop wallpaper' but then disabling 'active desktop' works. If that doesn't work I'll start looking a bit deeper into the policy and start tracing back any conflicts. Its just that damn contextual tab in IE. Tempted to lock it down, but I'll definitely get moaned at, fair enough really.

Ok Ive tinkered a little with active desktop. Firstly, it makes the icons have that drop shadow effect that can't be changed, did you find a way round this? Secondly, active desktop promptly 'breaks' the bginfo wallpaper after initial logon. Not sure of exact reasons yet, will have to investigate a little further. Really, i'd like to be able to use bginfo without active desktop as we've experienced profile issues in the past so I may end up having to turn off the contextual menus...

Hmm, I read it from the sysinternals forum. This post: Sysinternals Forums - Active Desktop and BGInfo In particular this paragraph: Perhaps I got the wrong end of the stick?

Ok so I'm trying to iron out some problems with our new setup and here is a big fat annoying one for you guys. Background is set by bginfo on logon via group policy. Due to bginfo needing active desktop to be disabled, this means users have access to the 'set as desktop background' option in certain contextual menus such as IE and picture viewer. All the options in group policy to stop students changing the wallpaper only work if active desktop is enabled..which it isn't. So how do I get round this? Ive seen a suggestion elsewhere to use the following script: This however, doesn't work. The only way I can think to solve this is to disable contextual menus on IE but I'd like to avoid this. Any ideas?

A friend of mine has a name which abbreviates to: Dick Willy Lang. Always a good one after a few at the pub.

Exactly the way we do it. We have similar underdesk holders as the ones above. I think in total we must have a good 100-150across the school. Only had one break off the desk in the time I've been here. They're a PITA to work with under the desks though as we have the cheaper variety that don't have slide rails. If its practical I'd recommend forking out for these.

I need to make many copies of one GPO (folder redirection) to apply to different OUs. Easiest way for me to do this is create one, then make copies and adjust accordingly. I made one succesful copy of the GPO in question, altered it, applied it to the OU, and now every time I try and make a copy of any GPO, nothing happens. No error messages, no explanation, nothing. This is happening using the GPMC with Windows 7, and the older XP version. Anyone have any ideas? Anything I can check?

Dartfish is what we use here aswell. Good piece of software, but as another poster has said, not used too much. We have a GTP here who is very good with it though and it's now being used a lot more.

Another +1 for Dan at wstore. He has worked very hard for us on securing a great quote for a very large order of high spec server/san equipment. We're never barraged with emails and sales calls either. Highly recommended.

Well who's fault is that? IMO if you make/force/encourage someone into a gagging order, not only are you saying "We have something to hide" but you also waive your right to preventing people being speculative about the situation. I'm an advocate of free speech and I don't like this at all. It is ashame the OP felt the need to enter into such an agreement.

In Windows 7 you can select 'network location' if you right click the columns in explorer, but I'm not sure about xp.

In order: My primary desk, my workbench, two messy pups that sit to my side and a long shot from the door. Looks like it needs a bit of a hoover

This may be a really simple problem to solve but I've drawn a blank so here goes, trying to build up folders with shortcuts (start menu/desktop) for folder redirection on a per room basis. Leeching most of these from the 'all users' directory on the local machines. However as some of the packages were set so as not to create desktop shortcuts I'm having to make them myself. Problem is unless I have the software installed locally it will come up with a "The file XXX cannot be found" error. Only thing I can think of doing is creating a 'dummy' directory and exe on my local machine to trick it into thinking its there, then creating the shortcut. Am I missing something really obvious?

Haha, why am I not suprised about that. You're on our supplier shortlist Simon, and thats without having placed any orders yet.

Anyone had any dealings with this company? They have very competitive prices, we're thinking of opening an account with them.. Anyone who has any feedback let me know Cheers

Have you tried reinstalling the NIC driver? I would build a basic image on a physical machine, image it and see if the same problem occurs.