CyberDrac

Thank you, our current solution means that this isn't necessary. We actually used that application on our CC3 network before we went vanilla and it did a great job.

SIMS-Exchange Timetable Exporter | Weird & Wonderful IT ... I've been following this project

A Big Thank You to everyone who has contributed to this thread. If nothing else many of the suggestions made me challenge my pre-conceptions and assumptions about our existing configuration. Assumption 1 - that the WPAD was working, wrong Assumption 2 - that the proxy.pac entry wouldn't be used if the proxy.pac couldn't be seen to be downloaded from the internal network, wrong Resolution 1 - fixed the WPAD by adding the DHCP entries as well as the DNS entries which were already in place Resolution 2 - removed the proxy.pac entry from the GPO for users using the staff laptops (user configuration, setup for loopback, assigned to the machine's OU) The machines are behaving themselves better at home, I suspect that this will now open up a raft of new issues now that staff are working from home more, but thanks to everyone for your contributions. edit : when I'm feeling brave I'll experiment with removing the proxy.pac entry for the entire network and allow WPAD to do the job

I've been researching through the two links below ... https://techlib.barracuda.com/display/wsflexv41/how+to+configure+proxy+settings+using+pac+files+and+wpad Configure option 252 for a DHCP scope

The PAC file is hosted on our internal SmoothWall address and is defined through, I believe GPO. I believed that in the event that the specified file wasn't available (i.e. externally) that the default behaviour for a browser, specifically Internet Explorer, was to proceed as if no proxy information is entered.

Mac_Shinobi ... I've cut through to the chase and simply uninstalled Sophos, so I'll test again tonight. We have an internally hosted SharePoint server a TMG Server to direct traffic to it, and internal DNS entries to ensure that during the working day on site the traffic is kept local, whereas off site regular DNS applies.

What will take them any longer than the previous approach? Is there something that can be tweaked in the report?

Yes, and I have received the same response

Have you tried a RSoP (Resultant Set of Policies) on the user and machine to see what is being applied and from where?

I tested last night with a admin account, and two staff accounts, in each case I was able to reproduce the issue, it can be consistently reproduced in Internet Explorer and Google Chrome on my home connection with 152mbit/20mbit. Typically google.co.uk takes in excess of ten minutes to appear and other more complicated pages take up to forty minute. I believe that I had tried it with a network cable on previous attempts, but I will try that again tonight if I can. Sophos says that they're clean, but I'll run them through another anti-Virus/ant-iMalware suite, and maybe throw CCleaner in for good measure. This has happened also on freshly re-built machines on their first evening home and so I'm hopeful that they aren't getting infected that quickly, but I won't rule anything out. Tried to uninstall Sophos last night but it wouldn't let me due to a lack of membership to 'Sophos Administrators' on any of the credential cached on the machine. My understanding of the automatic configuration option through proxy.pac is that if it can't find it, it will default to 'no proxy'. With the Mozilla Firefox installation I have the option to use fixed proxy settings (which I know won't work off site), system settings (so it should behave the same as Google Chrome and Internet Explorer, and it does), and no proxy (which doesn't improve matters). Bizarely my workplace's portal/vle is accessible at close to normal speeds and a Citrix Desktop session behaves beautifully. Most users connect via wireless, however I believe that we've sent a few home with cables before as well with no improvement, however as I said earlier, I plan to double check that again tonight. But would it do it for every page? or just the first time?

No VPN nor DirectAccess (although Direct Access look interesting) I'll see if I can uninstall it without it automatically trying to re-install I'd like to think that it isn't getting infected that fast, but I'll give them a good sweep The staff profiles are locked down in a fashion that they can't be changed/viewed, I'd hope that their DNS entries are those that are handed out by the DHCP on their home router, but I'll see if there is a way of checking through other routes ... good thoughts keep them coming

Over the last few months we have become aware of increasing number of laptops, used by staff at home, which are experiencing exceptionally slow Internet access. By exceptionally slow, we're talking about 40 minutes to open a webpage if it doesn't time out during that period and fail completely. These machines have previously been in use for over a year prior to the start of these issues. Our principle browser is Internet Explorer, however the results have been replicated in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Initial thoughts have been that the proxy settings were affecting it, however only Internet Explorer and Google Chrome use the GPO configured settings, Firefox was free of any GPO influence and suffered the same fate despite having the flexibility to experiment with the proxy settings. The proxy settings are to use a proxy.pac file served up by our smoothwall, my understanding is that in the absence of the file it will simply default to having no proxy settings at home. Temporary respite can occasionally be achieved following a full software rebuild of the operating system and a deletion of the user's profile, however some simply aren't fixed by this and others it is fixed for only a short period of time. Now there is obviously a setting or configuration at fault here, there may be an update being applied having a side effect, it may yet be a proxy related issue, however sixth months down the line I am no closer to identifying the cause. Has anyone had anything similar occur, or feel able to offer some insight into the difficulties we're experiencing? Thanks in advance CD

We have a Smoothwall and so can VPN in provided that is all working, and once in we can Remote Desktop onto anything we need to.

We use Talmos from CoreECS ... CORE ECS - TALMOS from CORE ECS ... AD integration, MIS Integration, I suspect that it isn't a purely Education-centric as some solutions, but with some additional SIMS WebParts for the Sharepoint it does a solid job

Looking through the notes, there are a few things that might suggest that there is a working Mac console now, is that the case as I can't find any mention of it anywhere else, or are the "Mac" entries only referring to a PC console viewing a Mac client?

Mostly I would concentrate on managing expectations. Make sure that the correspondence accurately reflects the circumstances, such as "you request has been received into the queue and will be processed once a live human being has seen it and had a chance to digest the information it holds" rather than leaving with the false hope that the sending of the request will have immediately triggered a 999 style response with ninja technicians swing down on ropes from the ceilings

First non-LlamaLAN LAN was i10 ... which makes me feel very old

I run LlamaLAN, and periodically attend StratLANs, i-Series, and epic.LANs ... it's my lifeblood

We had an issue which required us to alter our core switch configuration so that the WOL commands could be carried over the different VLANs, but now it's fine

I thought the whole purpose of SOLUS3 was that this wouldn't be required?

Is there a way of launching NovaT independently of SIMS and running the old style reports directly from there? Although it may just be the time to move on as SIMS distances itself from NovaT

EIS Support have been provided with the following information by Capita ... If you are using the menu route Reports | Print Timetables, our advice would definitely be to use Reports | Timetables as this functionality is no longer supported.

Same situation here, we have 'breakout spaces' that are available in each faculty, one has decided to remove the mice an keyboards and have them checked out to the students as an individual, this has dramatically reduced vandalism albeit at a increase in workload on the faculty member responsible for checking them in and out. The faculties have mechanisms in place for sanctions for damage ultimately leading up to a bill being sent home to the parents, we address the technical issue of the broken keyboard and the staff handle the disciplinary side of things. Our big issue is the targeting on a single key, the space bar which means that cannibalisation of keyboards isn't an option. Bulk, cheap keyboards has been our only answer, sub-£3 including VAT in our case. We have been seeking approaches that will encourage positive behaviour in the staff with their monitoring, and while we have toyed with the idea of billing faculties for unreported damage found by our team, we have felt the need to go to those steps yet.

Thank you, this thread saved me as well

I established that the share without the extra sub folders worked for my test pupil, however it turns out this wasn't exactly the same issue as the OP. Once I had ticked the overlooked "Force local home directory creation on start-up disk" tick box it 'just worked' and worked with our existing structure. Thank you for everyone who contributed to this thread and several others on EduGeek, without this resource I would have probably never worked it out.