A BIG thank you to everyone who has gotten back to me with information on boot times. This is just the evidence I need to persuade the school's management their network boot times are not normal.
Just curious... what is the need for CC3 on their network? Surely anything that can be done in RM software can be done through properly set up user and group policies? Win 2k and XP can be locked down very tightly...
Well the reason for this is largely political, not least because this is a PFI (Private Finance Initiative) school. So the school were pushed into updating their Win-98 based network (it's in the PFI contract so they godda do it). Mow the PFI supplier's 'facilities management' arm want's as easy a job as they can get away with. So they push the school into continuing down the RM route. Why? Well my guess is #1 the RM is locked down so tight the PFI Facilities Management arm will have almost nothing to do maintenance wise, other than occasionally shove the 'security update' CDs from RM into the server. Now this makes what they are doing very profitable, for they are paid a substantial premium for 'Network Administration', yet in practice they've gone for a premium priced supplier 'turn-key' systems supplier, RM, that ultimately the school pays for. This is basically what an old friend of mine would call a 'nice little earner'. Incidentally, in the school's contract with their PFI supplier the section on 'Maximum lengths of vegetation in the school ground at various times of year' as far longer than the section on the 'Performance specification for and maintenance of the school network, PCs and software'! Furthermore when I benchmarked this 'Performance specification...' against the National Curriculum ICT attainment targets, it was clear the people who wrote this spec were operating at around level three. In other words, their level of understanding and proficiency was what one might expect of the average seven-year-old at the end of Key Stage One! My 'mission impossible' ...should I chose to accept it, is to impose some 'reality therapy' on this school's management. However given I'm only a volunteer I'm balking at the prospect. Wish me luck! David Bowles