Troubleshooting

A newly installed Windows station on a Fiddlehead cluster will often display the warning “A duplicate name exists on the network,” even if it’s the only machine on the network at the time.

The reason for this is that Fiddlehead present two virtual network interface cards (NICs) to each station. One NIC is connected directly to your network to provide the station with access to your network resources (and vice-versa). The other NIC is an internal connection between the station and the Linux host operating system. This second connection ensures that things like the virtual CD library, Search to Teach, and the station # in the corner still work if your network goes down.

The problem arises when Windows sees an “echo” of itself on the network. Fortunately, the fix is simple, and you only need to do it on your master image, since the setting will persist when you clone your stations.

Open up the “Network Connections” page of the Control Panel and in the Advanced menu at the top, select Advanced Settings. In the dialog that opens up, select Local Area Connection 2 and move it to the second item in the list using the arrow buttons to the right of list. Then uncheck all the boxes in the lower list for Local Area Connection 2. Hit “Ok” to apply the changes and you’re all set.

Each of the heads acts exactly as a regular PC.  You can do upgrades just like you would on a regular PC.  Fiddlehead units can use the built-in automatic startup, unlock, update, relock, and shutdown function for performing individual Windows SUS updates on each station.   An alternative is to do the Windows update on one of the seats, and then use cloning to update each of the seats.  The size of the update is what you base the method of updates on.   If it is a large update, it is quicker to clone all seats after a single update.  If it is a small update, it is quicker to update all of the seats.