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Hi All, we're doing a project to move our workstations off of RM and to vanilla Windows 10. When we started imaging it was fine as i could image a machine using MDT (windows 1703 was the ISO. and then if a user required local admin access i simply added them to the biult in administrators group and all was well. I've updated the iso to windows 10 v1809 a few weeks back and the other day went to add a user as a local admin, we restarted the worksation and i had the user login but they were still not a local admin. In an rm network and cc4 imaged pc you would normally add the user in the management console to the pc a privileged user and restart the pc however the vanilla windows way of adding a local admin seemed to work on a v1703 windows vanilla laptop the other day. does anyone know what this might be? i would just use 1703 however it has that ridiculour problem where users logins stall half way through with a black screen. this is why we moved to the 1809 version but have obviously now come up against this problem with adding local admin rights. I've have found that by removing the Staff User Type gpo from the domain user it gives them a little more access however in 1703 there was no need to remove a gpo etc. any help greatly appreciated.

After much speculation, RM have today announced the End of Life date for CC4 as October 14th 2025. Along with this announcement, they revealed that they are working on the "development of a cutting-edge platform poised to succeed CC4"... Personally i do not expect this to be much more than a continuation from their existing Vanilla offerings. I highly doubt they will develop a product as complex as CC3 and 4 was for its day. Expect more info in September and they say that scheduling installations will begin in November... Lets just hope its smoother than CC4 was when it first launched Embracing the Future of School Networks (rm.com)

Hello, First time post so I apologize if this has already been covered by another post. Has anyone found a fix to the RM Service Host not starting automatically? We have about 500 student computers and at least half of them don't start this service automatically. I can manually start the service using a script but with how often this service stops running, I'm almost running it every other day. We are currently running RM Console CC4.3. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you, BeardedTech

Hi all, I've just been asked by the SLTs to ask everyone what networking server system they are running so here goes in the wonderful poll format-

Does anybody know of a free online alternative to OpenCart. The head of ICT asked us to look into App Inventor. Although we are working on it she has decided in the mean time she would like to use OpenCart. However looking at the OpenCart installation process looks like it may also have its own difficulties. Has anybody managed to get OpenCart working on a RM CC4 network or know of any alternatives.

Hello I am trying to set up a virtual RM CC4 machine on an apple mac in VirtualBox. This is my first few steps into the virtualised world. I have tried making an XP VM and then pxe booting it but its having none of it. Has anyone done this before? Have any guidance on how to do it? or possibly a guide? Is it possible to pxe boot a virtual machine from a physical RM network? I have looked at the physical to virtual tools but it takes an age to make an image. Is there a better way? Thanks in advance.

Good morning everyone, I’m looking for some advice and suggestions on how I might proceed from the following situation: After many years of excellent service from RM we have had several significant problems with the latest project, Server 2016 and Windows 10, despite working with various levels of their technical support team for several months we don’t seem to be making much progress on getting a reliable working network. This has led me to start looking at possible alternative support providers. My team and I are more than capable of handling the day to day issues that come up, we only tend to use RM for larger projects such as upgrading Server OSs, moving to new versions of Windows and server refreshes. We don’t really have the necessary skills and experience to build a full “Vanilla” network from scratch in a compressed time period and role this out to an entire secondary school (1000 students, 450 devices). Two of us do have experience of supporting vanilla MS networks, but this was a while ago. I'm starting to feel that this may be the only way to truly get rid of the "ghosts in the system" that seem to exist. Every time one problem is solved it seems to create another one. If any of you could recommend a support provider in the local area (West Midlands) or suggest any other possible solutions I would be very grateful. Thanks David

Good afternoon! The College has decided to move away from CC4 to a vanilla network for reasons I won't go into here. What we haven’t decided on yet is how to achieve this. There are two methods we have discussed. Method 1 My preferred option is to build a clean network in the background, on virtual servers on it’s own VLAN, and test heavily in the isolated environment, with help and input from the users. When the network is good and ready, during the summer holiday, turn the CC4 network off and move the vanilla network onto the main infrastructure. Based on the CC4- CC4.3 migration that happened here, this would involve 1 week of complete downtime, 1 week of limited data whilst I restore it to the new domain, and from then on computers would need to be rebuilt, so staff would be restricted to where in the school they could work (not a massive issue in the summer holidays.) There is a lot of work involved with this route, but on the whole the clean break from the upgraded CC4 network to the CC4.3 network has paid off massively, in that I am no longer fighting issues each week caused by the upgrade, some of them which were very long and drawn out. I am very keen to avoid fighting unknown issues for the next x amount of years. Method 2 My colleague's preferred method is to create new OU’s in Active Directory, as much of the RM network group policy is contained in the establishments OU. In the new OU’s, our own group policies can be set up and configured, and computer and user objects instead moved to there. The network in theory could be gradually migrated across, moving users/ computers into the OU’s a few at a time. Also, there would be no issues with moving data or NTFS permissions (see below!) as all the groups SID’s will stay the same. When we did the CC4> CC4.3 migration (which used method 1), the first 2 months of term were disruptive, and my colleague seems determined to avoid this at all costs. While I want as little disruption for the College as possible, I would rather see 2 months of teething issues than years of hidden faults that will be a nightmare to resolve. Those 2 months of disruption are nothing compared to the 3 years that followed our initial CC4 install. The two big issues with the migration were self inflicted- we went from about 30 Windows 7 stations to the whole site as Windows 7, yet no-one had tested all of the remaining software for Windows 7 compatibility. I had also put 'check remaining NTFS permissions' on the gant chart I created and assigned the task to someone else, but this wasn't carried out properly, so when the users came back there were quite a few issues accessing shares. We have learnt from this and it wouldn't happen again. I feel the second method of a gradual migration will cause issues further down the line, and lingering RM components still on the network could cause issues and making solving what would normally be a simple Windows network problem more difficult. However, I can’t give technical details of what these issues might be. I have some incline as to what could go wrong, but as I don’t know in as much detail as RM how CC4 works, and I only have 5 years networking experience under my belt. I feel I’m not best placed to answer these questions. There’s also things I could’ve missed out. I would greatly appreciate the community's opinion on what could go wrong using the second method to move away from CC4 -or even if they think it would work well and I'm coming from it the wrong way Some of my inclines as to what could cause issues include: • Settings that could still be in the Default Domain Policy, which is outside the Establishments OU • Changes RM have made to the active directory schema • The CC4 build process interfering with WDS • Does CC4 write anything into the user profiles that would be undesirable to carry forward onto a vanilla network (e.g: custom RM reg settings in the NTUSER.pol files?) • RM software components still running on the servers after we move the computers and users out of the OU’s (e.g: the RM database) • What changes have RM made to the registry on the servers? Given how service host issues have caused issues with basic Windows features in the past (e.g; logons) • What happens if we move users into the new OU’s and they roam between computers still on CC4 (where settings are applied by custom ADM templates that control the RM software) and non-CC4 stations? • How well will we be supported in this configuration? From our meeting with some RM guys, it seems that this has not been attempted before, it has always been a clean migration The above list isn’t meant to be exhaustive, it’s just some thoughts that came to mind. I am really interested to know what you guys think that I've missed out/ am struggling to explain Many thanks, Dan

Quick question, pre-purchase. Has anyone tried to deploy Corel Paint Shop Pro X4 on an RM CC4 network? If so, did it work?

Advice appreciated! Current set up. Three servers running 2003, one admin server, two curric servers. Recently become a Primary school. Was infs and junrs. Currently two suites hardwired (48), five laptop trolleys wireless (72), classroom pc's (30) Teacher laptops (26) Admin machines (10) all mainly XP Lookings for a solution to bring together the two curri servers to one. Admin to stay as is with link between the two with teachers having access to sims. At present no server management! Some pc's on domain, others just using domain resources (laptops), internet and year doc group folders. Software roll out a nightmare! Mish mash of individual installs and cloning. Have had quote from RM for CC4 v costly and probably a lot of nice extras that we will not use. Now looking into EIS.net, would welcome any feedback and/or suggestions. Also I guess a lot of you have laptops running on a domain, how successful do you find them? Logging on times etc - don't want to jump from frying pan into the fire. Beginning to feel a bit bogged down with it all! HELP Please.

Hi there I know there was post was a long time ago but I was just wondering if someone has some easy to follow instructions for creating the WeDo package for the RM system - I can do basic package creation on the RM setup but am not highly technical. I did find a post about creating .ini files - can I clarify about the 2 ini files for silent install and uninstall silent - where do these ini files get put- on the front of the pacakage folder with the setup file or within each of the WeDo and the WeDo activities folder? I have managed to create a package for the WeDo software by importing the msi into the RM management console and this appears to work fine but I cannot get it to see the activities folder even if I add it into the same folder on each PC Help really appreciaated. thanks Anne

We recently purchased some Dell OptiPlex 7040 PCs, which came with M.2 PCIe SSDs and Windows 7 Professional 64bit pre-installed: http://www.dell.com/uk/business/p/optiplex-7040-desktop/pd However we struck a problem when attempting to build these PCs on our RM CC4.5 network. It turns out that RM do not currently support computers with an NVMe interface as part of their standard build process, in any version of Windows. The only current option available is to use their Smart Client process. This is manageable on a small number of computers, but not the numbers that we have purchased or intend to purchase. RM have advised that they intend on addressing this issue for Windows 10 only. Please see attached RM tech article (TEC5129318): TEC5129318.pdf However we have no intention of using Windows 10 at this point in time, and need a solution for Windows 7. It appears that not many customers (that are still using Windows 7) have informed RM that this would be a problem, so they don't believe that it is worth investing their time and resources in resolving. Could I ask any RM customers out there who are intending on purchasing hardware with PCIe SSDs, and Windows 7, to please contact their RM account manager ASAP. Hopefully RM will start to take this issue more seriously. Many thanks

A quick question for those still using RM CC4 (we aren't the only ones are we?) If you change the version of Windows, from Pro to Education or from 1909 to 20H1 say, how long does it take RMMC to update to display the new OS version? Does it happen automatically or do you have to trigger it in some way? I have raised the following with RM. "We are doing in place upgrades from Windows 10 Pro Education to Windows 10 Education on all of our CC4 PCs. How do we get the RMMC and the RM Banner to update the name of the OS? I have tried running 'Update Inventory' on PCs from RMMC, leaving the PCs switched on for 24 hours and rebooting them a few times but the OS doesn't seem to update in RMMC. If I sign in to the PC and check the Windows 10 system app, it has updated to say Windows 10 Education. It's just the RM components that don't seem to update" and they have only come back with suggestions about rebooting the server (which we have done) and reinstalling some RM server components (which we have not done). I have a feeling they are guessing and this isn't a problem with our installation of CC4 but a problem with CC4 itself and anything they suggest will just be wasting my time. I wonder if anyone else can confirm that they see the same issue when changing OS version? Since raising the ticket, I have discovered that sending a 'Core Update' to the PC will cause RMMC to update the OS fields, whether the PC needs a Core Update or not. If this is a known issue and that is the workaround, so be it but if other schools have this working properly then at least I know it's possible and I can pursue it further. Thanks. David.

RM are saying (when asked at least, not actually announcing anything as far as I can see) that CC4 will only be supported for as long as Microsoft support Windows 10 22H2 (currently until October 2025). They have also confirmed to me that if Microsoft extend this, RM will continue to support Windows 10 22H2. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-10-enterprise-and-education This may turn in to another "Getting rid of CC4" thread so I'll add a few questions at the bottom but with the news above there may be a few other people interested too, if anyone else is still using CC4 that is. Is the general consensus still to start again with new DC(s) rather than try to remove CC4? What is the current best practice to build a school network? What is the best way to build a PC? What is the best way to assign applications?

I would be interested to know if anyone has been successful in virtualising their RM CC4 DC's. We are considering virtualising our servers on our own VMWare infrastructure (not installed by RM). Has anyone been through this process? Does it work? Are there any pitfalls? Do RM need to be involved or can we manage this in-house? Many thanks, Daniel

Hello Guys, Can somebody please tell me what version of Postgres should be running on a CC4.3 server (Windows Server 2008 R2) I think I may have the wrong version. Thanks for reading, James

Has anyone get a working MSI or package for cc4 that they can let me have. Every time i try and build package it fails or when it works it does not install on to WIndows 7 workstations. I have tried a couple of time to build the package and all seems okay but it will not assign out just errors. Or can anyone tell me another way to install software from Server 2008 R2 i would rather not go around an manual install to 100+ workstations. I know there are other issues to work around but i need to get a working package first Or does anyone know of any alternative software that can be used my IT co-ordinator is saying it can only be APP inventor by MIT as that is what he has read in his paperwork. I have looked at Mobione Studio as it does bot Andriod and Apple but open to othe suggestions.

We are attempting to build some Dell Optiplex 7010, 7040 and 7070 PCs with Windows 10 using WDS on an RM CC4 network. This works fine if the BIOS is set to legacy, but as soon as we attempt to use UEFI we are getting the following error message: Build process aborting due to the following error: Disk partitioning/formatting exception: failed to open \.\PHYSICALDRIVE0 - last error = 2 I have attempted this using both UEFI boot and legacy boot, and neither work. Has anyone else experienced a similar error, and found a resolution to the problem? I am attempted this with PCs that already have the HDD set to GPT, so I don't believe this to be the cause. On a separate note, does anyone know whether it is recommended to have SATA operation set to AHCI or RAID On? Many thanks!