Ricoh Aficio PCL Drivers

No significant record of problems with Aficio 1045 or 3045 either PCL or RPCS.

Problems started with using PCL drivers for Aficio MP C5000 colour copier with popup user code customisation by Ricoh NZ. Some users had difficulty printing from Word / Publisher etc but OK when file converted to PDF and printed in Adobe Reader.   

After 64 bit driver was added all Windows 7 users started having problems with all printers.

After popup and standard PCL drivers were updated to latest version 3.2 many users had printing problems.

Currently are working around by deploying RPCS drivers with hardcoded popup codes which is working for Windows 7 users & will be deployed to all users.

FOOTNOTE: We are using Group Policy Preferences to manage all our printers.

Testing DPM 2010 Evaluation

Probable (preferred) backup solution:

Low end dedicated backup server (Intel entry server SC5299, S3210 board, Xeon, max 8 GB RAM, RAID-1 disks, Promise EX8350 8 port SATA disk controller) - $2000 - $2500

Stardom SOHOtank 4 tray removable disk array (eSATA)

Evaluating DPM for 180 days.

Automated agent deployment unsuccessful so far (probably firewall problems). Trying to install agent on WS2008 virtualised DC manually unsuccessful so far. Manual install agent onto a Windows 7 workstation succeeded. Workstation added to protection group and configured.

I think issues are already coming up with DPM’s design. Had hoped to be able to use NAS but DPM doesn’t support it. The big problem will be if using removable disks, will have to test with Sohotank as possibility exists that DPM won’t be able to cope with removal of disks. If so then look at other software.

UPDATE: Firestreamer can be added to DPM to work with removable storage. Will check further.

Agent install success on Hyper-V host server. Attached successfully. Requires KB 948465 (i.e. Service Pack 2) and KB 971394 installed on WS 2008 Hyper-V server. SP2 already installed. 971394 installed. Still getting prereq error mentioning above two updates on attempt to create protection group and add Hyper-V partition.

BackupExec is the alternative solution with various workarounds to keep cost down and simplify. For example taking a virtual server offline then backing up VHDs as alternative to expensive 1-size-fits-all-license for Hyper-V online backup component.

Wiping old laptops’ disks before return / loading RAID drivers on Server 2008

Use DBAN (www.dban.org)

The old version 1.0.x doesn’t always work but there is a newer version 2.2.6 beta available which works well (tried on Toshiba S200 so far).

If installing Server 2008 on a box that needs RAID drivers the process is vastly improved from 2003 which could only access a FDD. 2008/R2/Vista/7 can load drivers from various locations including pen drive. However 2003 drivers will not work, they must be 2008/Vista at minimum.