Question: How to force staff laptops to be connected to the network once every X-Time

That won't work, unless the Laptop is connected to the Domain network, disabling the account in AD won't do anything....
Which as we're trying to encourage them to connect to the network more often......


As obviously the machine needs to connect to the DC for your changes to get sent down....
 
I think if you 100% want an IT solution a script will be needed here. Have you got a message turned on so that a warning is displayed on the login screen?

Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options

Under the security options folder, there are two entries:

Interactive logon: Message text for users attempting to log on

Interactive logon: Message title for users attempting to log on
Click to expand...

This could be a start, this is a disciplinary event as a reminder. They might not read it but this is a start.
 
We already have a "By logging onto this system you agree to BLAH BLAH" message so adding to it wouldn't do anything to encourage them.
but It's a good idea


I've worked out how to change the Windows 7 Logon background (no mean feat)
And so the idea is when the time frame expires and they can no Longer Log on change it to RED or something with a large font message informing them of their situation and how they can rectify it.
 
Switch` said:
We already have a "By logging onto this system you agree to BLAH BLAH" message so adding to it wouldn't do anything to encourage them.
but It's a good idea


I've worked out how to change the Windows 7 Logon background (no mean feat)
And so the idea is when the time frame expires and they can no Longer Log on change it to RED or something with a large font message informing them of their situation and how they can rectify it.
Click to expand...

That's a good idea, to be fair the laptops could be classed as stolen if they are unaccounted for, which is theft.
 
They could indeed be classed as stolen.

but when a tft is scratched beyond repair and the student (caught on CCTV) is not brought up about it then I don't think the staff will be...

Something about their parents paying £X,000 a year for the "pride and joy" to attend such an institution that they shouldn't be expected to get their cheque book out for anything.... or something... *rollyeyes*
 
Switch` said:
They could indeed be classed as stolen.

but when a tft is scratched beyond repair and the student (caught on CCTV) is not brought up about it then I don't think the staff will be...

Something about their parents paying £X,000 a year for the "pride and joy" to attend such an institution that they shouldn't be expected to get their cheque book out for anything.... or something... *rollyeyes*
Click to expand...

It's the same in our place, it's education and they just don't give a damn. The staff and students don't even look after their learning materials at all.

I had to write some emails the other day to head of centres because I was doing some repaires in a room and I was disgusted at the state of it and then they have the cheek to blame IT as an issue. I don't stand for crap and they get the truth from me and they respect that.
 
Our IT manager is the Senior management's Whipping boy so dick all gets done. He's technically incompetent and for all practical purposes useless. The ONLY function he has is to shield us from phone calls from anyone above department head. IT Budget requests get "trimmed" frequently.

they do not give anything resembling a damn and that's just how it is. Oh well.
We don't get blamed for much by Management (however staff do blame us for things frequently, but we don't care about that really as they can **** into the wind all day for all we care about their opinions) but we are expected to just sort it out.
 
As a case in point our IT Manager who likes to "keep his fingers in the day to day of the IT dept" ran a Vulnerability scan tool against our Core Servers (fair enough I hear you say) to check how we're doing, he's run this tool in the past and found it useful...
It returned a report with 17,000 issues.
We thought that might be a slight issue so we looked into it.
The tool was discontinued in 2005 and doesn't support anything above XP/2000 and our entire core network runs 2008 R2....

so we filled the report under B for Bin...
 
Switch` said:
Our IT manager is the Senior management's Whipping boy so dick all gets done. He's technically incompetent and for all practical purposes useless. The ONLY function he has is to shield us from phone calls from anyone above department head. IT Budget requests get "trimmed" frequently.

they do not give anything resembling a damn and that's just how it is. Oh well.
We don't get blamed for much by Management (however staff do blame us for things frequently, but we don't care about that really as they can **** into the wind all day for all we care about their opinions) but we are expected to just sort it out.
Click to expand...

Nail, head.... I'm in the exact same position. I'm off from work today! I love been payed for laying on the couch watching TV. I don't no who some people think they are in life. At the end of the day we are all human and some people take the pea far too much.
 
Switch` said:
As a case in point our IT Manager who likes to "keep his fingers in the day to day of the IT dept" ran a Vulnerability scan tool against our Core Servers (fair enough I hear you say) to check how we're doing, he's run this tool in the past and found it useful...
It returned a report with 17,000 issues.
We thought that might be a slight issue so we looked into it.
The tool was discontinued in 2005 and doesn't support anything above XP/2000 and our entire core network runs 2008 R2....

so we filled the report under B for Bin...
Click to expand...

..... all managers never bother to ask anyone below what they think! Someone above us purchased 50 Dell 2330cn printers..... this was someone who was on a temp position to cover for the IT manager as he left..... the person who purchased these printers... well what can I say! They never consulted us and they are rubbish. They only hold 250 sheets.... meh. lol

So.... they were all replaced with HP printers! What a waste of public money!
 
For reference don't buy HP 3525's


They weigh more than a small country, partly due to the base, 1 side and back being made out of a single sheet of 4mm steel plate....

They weigh more than a Dell 3110 and that's no baby!
 
Switch` said:
For reference don't buy HP 3525's


They weigh more than a small country, partly due to the base, 1 side and back being made out of a single sheet of 4mm steel plate....

They weigh more than a Dell 3110 and that's no baby!
Click to expand...

We have 5x Dell 3130's. We replaced the Dell 2330s with hp 3015's double tray! The Dell toners are £70 a pop! and the HP ones are £30 a pop.... big price difference over a month!
 
My lot never buy anything, unless the manager or other higher-ups need something.

I spend most of my time bodging things rather than doing things properly, but since I work for a consultant I can only give advice. My clients regularly feel free to completely ignore me if it costs them money! :p

One client in particular is especially bad. They ask for ways of locking down workstations to help prevent people using portable storage. I give them lots of solutions. Ooops it costs money. They don't want to know. Can I do it manually for free? Well yes, I can give it a bash. The solution I came up with required everyone to be a Standard User. Oooops, it means certain people who have an entitlement complex wont be able to have free reign. Meaning any lock down is completely bloody pointless if half the staff have local admin rights. And it goes on.

Still, can't complain too much. I have some nice clients who do their best to do what I advise! Plus I fully intend to make certain people aware they were idiots for ignoring my advice when things go **** up. And they will.
 
Indeed.

We're looking at KYOCERA for our future printing needs.

They do some rather nice lease packages.

They remotely monitor the printers. anything bigger than a paper jam (ie belt unit gone) they automatically send out an engineer and send us an email telling us they're coming.
they supply toner (leave one with us so we can replace it and when we do so they post us another one)

They're all CRB'd and to the point of if a department wants a new printer our usual engineer when given an ip address and location will come and install the printer for us without us having to do anything.

edit
Oh and their printers are small, light, FAST and come in cheaper per page than a dell or HP.
They're designed to last 10 years with replacement of the normal parts (rollers, drums, etc)

And just to cap it off. One driver. For all their printers. so no more farting about updating the driver database on the print server....
 
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I forgot to mention we have a web to print solution with Xerox in place too with copier/print/email functions. Generic print drivers with central monitoring solutions, including limited printing, price per sheet B&W + Colour e.t.c e.t.c.

Anyway going slightly off topic here ain't we.
 
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