@coliver said:

Two main questions for the community.

What do you put into your documentation? Saying everything is a bit unrealistic although that would be the ideal, there has to be a cut off point where you assume most IT people have that base knowledge and thus doesn't need to be recorded

How do you write your documentation? I mean more along the lines of format, a log, how-to, etc?

I'm having an issue of what do I write up, I don't think I've really done anything special so it is difficult for me to continue with documentation when everything seems to be fairly (very) straight forward. I generally do all my write ups as how-to's, which makes them easy to work with and easy to pass along to someone who may not have the same technical acumen as I do.

I keep a standard format and try not to re-document anything that can easily be found online. My documentation is pretty much an explanation of why I did things the way they are, with config info, logical maps, basic info that should help any IT pro that is around after I leave can look at and be up to speed fairly quickly. I review it quarterly too, make changes and updates as needed.

Well while trying to find how to do this, I stumbled upon the MAX Remotemanagement system tray. I have enabled it on my test rig for...wait for it...testing.

Though I can't send a note to my customer, the reason I wanted to was for a pending reboot. I found that MAX already sends that information and you can't miss it. But I also found how to give the client a choice to abort the action and reboot later, which is what I wanted the note for.

I found this website which shows the cool stuff to do using GFI RemoteManagement's system tray.

To enable:

Logged into MAX RM portal chose the W10PE PC and right clicked on it. Clicked on System Tray and changed setting to On Added Menu Option 1 - Type: Local File - Label: ABORT reboot - path: shutdown.exe - Arguments: /a Click OK.

You WILL need to inform customer about the system tray and the ability to use the link to cancel a reboot. The system tray icon looks like a life preserver and if you click on it all of your menu options will be there such as website, support ticket link, how to stuff links etc.

Once the user logs back into their PC the system tray is automatically setup and is ready to go. If the user sees the message that the PC will be rebooted by your IT service provider, they can go to the system tray and click the "abort reboot" and go along their merry way.

Yes I would say so. For now.

@Hubtech Thanks for the assist.

@g.jacobse said:

SharePoint Work flows? It's unlikely since we haven't delved that far yet...

InfoPath is really a tool primarily for getting data into SharePoint. So if getting data into SharePoint's database so that you can manipulate, store and workflow it then InfoPath is really good. If your goal is something else, then it just generates XML. If you are building your own XML parsing system then that is great. If not, probably not the tool for you.

Thanks for all of the advice...we found that we needed some licenses and we purchased them and are about to send in the letter.

Thanks...
Brian

I've been hearing a lot about Banana Pi lately. I've been told it's basically just a more powerful Raspberry Pi.
http://www.bananapi.org/p/product.html

Once your network is set up, AD integration would be what you do next so that any and all account details are tied to it. But if you don't have AD, it doesn't matter.

Note that this IS a rollup, not a patch itself...

This November update rollup also includes all previous updates since our last image update in April 2014. This is a convenient single step to bring Windows clients and servers up to date.

Sorry, never touched one either.

Cool!

@bbiAngie said:

I am running an phenom 1100T at work and it works very well. Great processor
At home I have an FX-8350 and I love it. I tend to be an AMD fangirl but that's because for the money, I think they are great. Yes, I can agree that Intel makes a good processor but for the money, Ill chose AMD hands down every single time.

Nailed it right there. AMD is king of the $150 or less CPU market.
Have to say though, the new Intel G3258 is tempting @ $70 (unlocked dual core, people OC to ~4ghz+ for gaming)
http://ark.intel.com/products/82723/Intel-Pentium-Processor-G3258-3M-Cache-3_20-GHz

@JaredBusch said:

@Carnival-Boy said:

I know. I've got the Pro models.

This was going to be the one thing I brought up, but you got it handled.

I personally do not like NetGear Switches after too many crappy experiences with managing the "Smart" switches.

They do generally work well if you do not need to get into the configuration and I have upgraded the firmware in many of them over the years without any problems.

I have been buying the HP 1910 line lately, but I will be giving the Ubiquiti line a shot next time I go for a model needing PoE.

That's odd, I've always had an amazing experience with Netgear switches. Their smart line is actually a really good value for the low-end/SMB market.

Although I agree, I am going to see about getting one of the Ubiquiti switches in the future.

@IRJ The functionality is supposed to be coming soon where you won't need these third party work arounds. When the convergence happens, it will be a pretty sweet platform.

@JaredBusch said:

That certainly is not a solution, that is a work around. Did they tell you what else may be affected by this change? What other Windows systems may now have problems because of it.

That's all the information I found online.

@NetworkNerd Yeah!

@ambarishrh Super jealous of your funding there! If it were my $$$$ I'd get myself a nice Cleo or Sager or other custom setup. You can get just an insane machine for that money. http://www.xoticpc.com/

@g.jacobse said:

While I've not spoke to anyone about it, it seems impractical to have both PSUs plugged into the same UPS, so why not split them and then identify them by color.

Definitely impractical. Not 100% wasted as it does protect against PSU failure, still. But it does not leverage the degree of protection that you should have.

@NetworkNerd said:

We're upgrading from Epicor 9 to 10 and implementing RemoteApp for users at our remote sites at the same time. Woohoo!

That's 5 new servers on Server 2012 (1 SQL 2012, 3 Epicor application servers, and 1 RDS server).

WOOHOO!

Very nice. that's a great tool!!