Crispin

Yeah, not particularly encouraging is it!

We require an enthusiastic and motivated Network Manager , with proven management experience, who will: Lead the ICT technicial team. Work with the school’s E-Learning Manager and Senior Leadership Team to further develop the use of ICT across the school. Provide an efficient support service to all ICT users. Maintain and support the growing ICT networks. Upgrade and maintain SIMs platform. Be a self-starter and have initiative to work on their own. Have personal integrity and a professional manner. Be a confident communicator. The successful candidate will have relevant IT qualifications. Experience of working in a school environment is preferred but is not essential. The Deanes School | Vacancies

A good example for this in our case is that we redirect appdata to the local machines which have CS3 installed, since the adobe appdata can become rather large, especially when students save 500MB photos in the folders

Had a look for this, no option anywhere in the BIOS that I could see for legacy mode or equivilent on the Acer. My slipstreamed disc caused the same problem with SP3, I may try again with just SP2 on but I can imagine the same problem will occur. Can I take you up on your offer? I will send you a PM. I will have another play with nlite in case I missed something. Possibly add the drivers manually if possible. Thanks all.

SATA drives are present. Although I have SATA only machines that do work fine with the CD. I imagine the suggestion that its a driver issue sounds to be correct. Thanks very much for the kind offer. I am just burning an ISO i've slipstreamed using nlite. Will let you know if it works or not!

The BSODs will occur at different times during the installation process depending on the model of PC/laptop which is being used. Often this will happen with newer models. The PC which I have had the recent problem today with is an Acer Aspire M1640 but the same problem has happened with our Ergo Vista 631s. Have tried altering/fiddling/meddling with BIOS settings and nothing seems to change its behaviour. Also we have two copies of the cd so it rules out a physically damaged disc.

Ive just downloaded nlite and will try that now. cheers!

Hey all, We have this strange problem whereby when we try and install windows using the install disc, on some PCs and a few laptop models we experience BSODs when booting from our original install disc. However if we use an SP2 disc, no BSODs occur. The disc we're using is the original XP disc, no SPs included, which is compatible with our volume licence. The XP SP2 disc works fine, but isn't compatible with our volume licence. I can't think of a way round this. I'm not sure if slipstreaming the original disc with SP2 will fix the bsod issue, and am not sure why the BSODs are occuring. Its a strange one. Any ideas peeps? cb

This is a good point to make. A few of our images must have had GPO's applied to them, so when deploying, they all had the same wsus ID. If you have used computer groups for the different rooms, and are finding that only 1 PC is showing up or none at all, try deleting the windows update registry entry. From memory I think it's: localmachine/software/microsoft/windows/windowsupdate Then you can use: "wuauclt.exe /detectnow /resetauthorization" in the run box. This will give all your machines new IDs. Worked a treat for me.

One thing I've learned is that Ben Stein's opinion on anything is worth absolutely nothing.

I like that idea. Although neither me or the other technician are linux-savvy at all. Saying that, I have been setting up ubuntu desktop on a vm at home. Definitely worth thinking about, would be great to introduce the students to something other than a windows set up. Could dual boot to a completely open source OS with opensource-only software to show them the magic first hand. I like it!

Ah sorry, you wrote 'server visualisation'! It confused me Yes I have been trying to push this since we're hopefully moving over to to a server 2008 for all our servers. Hopefully I can put a good enough case forward to use something like ESXi or the hypervisor in 08. Although googling 'visualisation servers' did throw up a cool image: http://research.wand.net.nz/software/visualisation/screenshot2.png Also site for network visualisation here: http://research.wand.net.nz/software/visualisation.php

We have several of these: Ergo Microlite 531 Laptop Although I should warn you we're having a few engineer callouts due to cabling issues to the screens but I believe they have sorted the problem now.

I have no idea actually, I will find out tomorrow and post back here. That is another point I need to bring up with bosses, need to be kept in loop a bit more! Sorry could you elaborate on what you mean by this? I haven't a clue!

"Workers can expect to earn between £80-£120 a month" Unbelievable.

Gotta love Jon Stewart..

I personally wouldn't like to see vista rolled out anywhere in the school, but it is an option. With any luck 7 will be out at the end of the year and since it seems like this will be the next XP in terms of future usage in the real world, I think it may be a good idea to at least have a couple of high traffic rooms using the OS to allow students to acclimatise to the new look/features. I think you're right about surface, definitely a toy, but was wondering if there are any practical applications for it within education? I'm sure microsoft must have something in the pipeline regarding this. We have moved to skillspace provided by Serco for our VLE at the moment. I'm not a fan of anything Serco to be honest, we've run into a lot of problems with them but unfortunately its not in my remit. We will also be planning for all our servers to be 2008 by summer. Digital signage on the way. Should be getting 6 screens for site 1 and the same for site 2 with any luck by easter. I will take a look at visualisers. Oh and we have cashless catering being installed as we speak...

Hi all, I was hoping to pick your lovely brains about what innovations and projects you maybe planning at your schools. Our NM has asked us for our opinions on what fresh technologies we could implement that would enrich the schools IT provisions. I'm compiling some notes on backend/frontend, software/hardware, basically all kinds of things that will help pull the school into the 21st century. Our network will be undergoing a major rehaul which will include that incredibly expensive Microsoft licence, entitling us to site licences for all their products, brand new servers, managed switches, managed wireless(hopefully) and of course, new computers. Our budget is pretty big really and we have the potential to invest in things that perhaps other smaller schools wouldn't have the chance to. I wish I had been able to spend some more time at BETT but unfortunately only had a few hours to wander round. Some initial ideas of the top of my head (and ones brought up by our NM) 1. Terminal Services with remote apps - giving students the ability to use office at home, remotely. 2. A room dedicated for experimenting with thin clients. 3. Deploying Vista/7 either in our main ICT suites or specific rooms which would benefit. 4. Microsoft Surface 5. Allowing students access to open source software such as open office. 6. Implementing some kind of podcasting technology in our radio studio. 7. Asking the students directly what they would like to see in their IT facilities. (this may be an obvious one, but has never really been done) We are trying as best we can to look to the future and become more proactive in our work. At the moment all we seem to do is fix existing problems when really we need to concentrate on the root causes of these problems.. (ie. outdated hardware, software, badly constructed PCs etc...) If you have any software, hardware suggestions either for the end users or for improving our infrastructure, any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Strange this thread came up today. Was talking to my colleague at work about how I need some extra cash/part time job since I'm scraping the barrel with my current wage being so low. He suggested we get together and do some IT work out of school. Him doing hardware, me on software. Also had someone from admin who needs me to go round and sort her email out, will probably ask for a tenner, will probably only take half hour, that should do it. Anyone here had much luck doing a regular 9-5 at school and juggling private work on a regular basis? Time constraints worry me, as do the availability of warranties and engineers! Although I've always noticed a demand from people who need wireless networks set up at home or upgrades etc... I'd rather not have to do 6 hrs at a pub on saturdays...

Found this: here: WinXP activation, sysprep, open license, retail license - Windows XP Setup not sure if that helps at all.. EDIT: on second thoughts the poster may be refering to SIDS

Biggest problem for me is that I have to constantly type in my user/password in a proxy authentication box. Very annoying. Doesn't let me save it at all. Usually I just keep one instance of chrome open so I don't get prompted. I think there's a new version now which saves the info but you still have to click 'ok' but I'm not sure... I must add though, it shows how good a program it is since I'm willing to put up with that. Very quick, smooth and everythings where I want it to be. Can't give you any advice about deployment unforunately, but I myself would be interested also.

There's hope for the show yet I think. The episode just gone has set the rest of the series up for some good stuff imo. I remember watching the first series for the first time, every episode ended with me on the edge of my seat needing more. That didn't happen again until just now. 4 minutes til the next episode on BBC3!

Thanks for all the responses. I managed to convince him it was absolutely necessary and he's given the go ahead to use it. It seems he'd not seen the new version 3 and is happy about deploying the new version. Thanks for the ideas. c

I know, I honestly don't understand the logic behind it. Hopefully I'll be able to convince him!

Ok so i've set up WSUS and I've got a meeting with my Network Manager in an hour who I expect is going to tell me that he doesn't want to use it. We have used it before without any problems, no rollbacks required etc... I need some ammo to take with me as to why we need WSUS. Which we do. For example, the important IE7 update that isn't installed on PCs is something we need to sort out with automation. He has an idea of using the proxy to cache windows update and use it as a kind of replacement wsus. No idea if this would work. Any ideas guys? I need as many points I can hit him with so anything useful would help me. Cheers