The VMware server allows any of our clients (except BBCs and earlier Arcs) to run a W95 virtual machine.
Are your X terminals floppyless as well? If so, what do you do about work done at home and brought in on floppy?
Yes, they are floppyless, or, to be more precise, the floppy drives are not accessible. When we have worked out how to make them usable, we probably will. The user operates with a K desktop that has no local characteristics at all - it doesn't know where it is. If (I hope when) we get local printing to work, it will be by running a printserver on the underlying Unix machine and directing network printing from the K desktop to that printserver. Local floppy drives are more difficult, but not in theory impossible. Currently I have one Risc PC and two A3020's in the main classroom, and they can transfer files to and from the network using those. The W95 machines also have no floppy access (except to the server's drive on an admin login), but they do access the user's filestore - the same filestore that is accessible from all other machines, real or virtual.
On the other hand, if you allow in floppies, Word files etc, is your W95 setup not at some degree of risk from home viruses and rogue software? Do you need to to protect your W95 server, and if so, how do you go about it? Do you need to sweep it from time to time, etc?
The W95 setup is protected in a number of ways. First, it's slow so they are not keen on using it. Second, there is no Word available on it: license fees too steep. Third, they can't write to it: it's a read-only VMware drive - we created one 225-megabyte W95 setup and copied it fourteen times (we then had to edit the Netbios name on each copy so they could run on a virtual network, connected by a virtual bridge to our main network). All very safe, but currently very tedious if we need to alter it. Completing the W95 drive is rather like preparing an OS for ROM or CD. So there are wrinkles to iron out before the system is actually useful. But it was a lot cheaper than Citrix! Home/school work transfer (for staff and pupils) is of course one of the main reasons colleagues give to "move to Windows". We have StarOffice on the X terminals and Easiwriter on the Archimedes to try to smooth this. Luckily we are 80% boarding, so it's a containable problem for the moment. -- Christopher Dawkins, Felsted School, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3JG 01371-820527 or 07798 636725 cchd@felsted.essex.sch.uk