In Windows 2000 and NT4 SP3 Microsoft included an option to enable a cryptographic integrity mechanism, SMB Signing, to prevent active network taps from hijacking an established NetBIOS session. As it was an optional security setting it was rarely enabled in Windows 2000/NT4 networks but, in Windows 2003 this feature is enabled by default and it will prevent the SchoolSuite Network Boot Disk from connecting to the network share that disk images are downloaded from.

This option will need to be disabled, temporarily at least, for boot disks to be used on a Windows 2003 network. There is also a performance cost attached to having this feature enabled that schools may want to evaluate in terms of risk v performance. More details can be found in our 'Using network boot disks with Windows 2003' article.

At this point in time we are not sure why, it seems to be a problem with Internet Explorer. The report creates jpeg images of the folder usage pie chart as well as the file and folder icons in a sub-folder of the main report page called 'reportname_images' (where report name is the file name of the report) and this sub folder forms part of the path used by the image tags in the html report.

The html syntax of the report is correct (Internet Explorer successfully displays the pie chart) and it should work, as indeed it does if viewed in other web browsers. The report will display correctly in Internet Explorer when viewed from a web server which, indicates the problem is related to the file: protocol used by Internet Explorer.

The progress bar displayed while a drive is being scanned is a rough indication achieved by comparing the used drive pace to the total size of all files scanned so far. Because it takes just as long to scan a large file as a small one, folders with lots of small files appear to progress far more slowly than those containing mainly large files.

The progress bar will often get to 80% or 90% and then appear to slow down when the scanning process hits the c:\windows folder which contains a plethora of small files, often disproportionately so when compared to the rest of the disk space usage.

Testing if an image from one type of computer will successfully restore on another based on different hardware can be a time consuming process. Usually the only way to tell if the image's HAL will be compatible is to restore the image and find out then, if it fails, re-install windows.

In order to alleviate this problem we have developed the HAL Test Wizard to allow you to test a range of HALs on a computer by building a boot time menu that allows you to select the HAL to be used. If the computer starts up from a given HAL there is a very good chance an imaged based on it will do as well.

Failing to reset the mass storage controllers, despite being correctly configured to do so, seems to be one of SysPrep's foibles currently. There seems to be little or no information about this in the Microsoft knowledgebase, possibly because actually resetting the mass storage list is not a documented feature of SysPrep, however it is certainly the cause of much consternation in the wider support community.

The problem seems to occur on every other occasion SysPrep is used. In the first instance the reset will work correctly and cause SysPrep to take anything up to an hour to do its stuff, but the next time it is used (with the mass storage reset enabled) SysPrep appears to bypass the reset and complete its work in the more usual two minutes or so. The third occasion it will work, the fourth will fail and so on.

As there is no way for to predict the likely outcome of a mass storage reset a workaround for this "feature" has been added to the Image Prep Tool. After SysPrep has completed, the resulting sysprep.inf file will be examined for the correct entries and, if they are not found, SysPrep will be told to go back and try again. If it then fails a second time a warning message will be displayed.

When the Image Prep Tool loads it will check for a sub folder that matches the currently installed operating system name and service pack level. If the correctly named sub folder is found it will be checked for files that meet the HAL and Kernel file naming conventions which, if found, will be added to the appropriate list. This allows some flexibility as to what files are added to the list while ensuring the correct versions are used for the various levels of operating system in use around the school.

Before the dropdown lists can be used you will need to create a sub folder of the folder that contains the imgprep.exe file that identifies the windows version and service pack level (e.g. Windows XP Service Pack 2) and copy the required HAL and Kernel files into this folder. You can find the correct versions of these files in the cab files found on the Windows installation or service pack media.

To assist you in identifying the correct sub folder name the Image Prep Tool will display the operating system and service pack folder name that it expects to see, as part of the caption bar title. The folder should be named exactly as it appears in the caption bar (from the hyphen onwards) including any spaces.

It is possible to configure both Teacher Resources and the Management Console to display a preset web page URL in the browser, instead of opening the default mail client, when any of the email icons are selected in Teacher Resources. Some schools have found this particularly useful in Teacher Resources as it can simplify teachers' classroom access to email.

Access to this facility requires only that the mail server's URL be specified in the appropriate group policy setting. Information on achieving this can be found in the 'how to enable web mail in Teacher Resources' document.

The relative inflexibility of group policy when setting multiple multi-optioned values in a single policy setting does make the Window Guard less straightforward to configure than other policy options. Once understood, configuring the Window Guard is reasonably easy, however care should be taken when assigning an action value, to ensure the desired effect is achieved. For detailed instructions regarding configuring this feature please review the Window Guard document.

It is possible to configure both Teacher Resources and the Management Console to display a preset web page URL in the browser, instead of opening the default mail client, when any of the email icons are selected in Teacher Resources. Some schools have found this particularly useful in Teacher Resources as it can simplify teachers' classroom access to email.

Access to this facility requires only that the mail server's URL be specified in the appropriate group policy setting. Information on achieving this can be found in the 'how to enable web mail in Teacher Resources' document.

If you need to extract a list of all the Students from the Schools Information Management System (SIMS) into a file suitable for importing into the SchoolSuite Bulk User Import Wizard, a step-by-step walk through is available that will allow you to create a Comma Separated Values (CSV) text file that can be used by the SchoolSuite Import Wizard to bulk create user accounts on the curriculum network.

The user's login name is normally calculated by the Import Wizard from a set of rules contained in the user template selected at the start of the Import process. The user templates are highly customisable using the SchoolSuite User Template Editor and it is generally recommended that the user login name is generated in this way.

However, there are occasions, such as importing user accounts from an existing network to a new network, where the option to set the login name from within the import CSV file is useful. In such cases simply a ensure that the CSV file includes a third column that specifies the login name and the wizard will not attempt to calculate a login name for that user. The wizard will still validate the login name to ensure that ambiguity and duplication are avoided.