Tech Forum

Our stake just received our 5-year computer refresh. Are there any instructions on how to set up the new computers and migrate data from the older ones?

Am I supposed to rebuild the hard drive using the old Desktop 5.5 CD? Or should I go with the OS that came with the new computer?

A step-by-step set of instructions would be helpful since many stakes will be going through this update in the coming months.

DeeGardiner wrote:Our stake just received our 5-year computer refresh. Are there any instructions on how to set up the new computers and migrate data from the older ones?

Am I supposed to rebuild the hard drive using the old Desktop 5.5 CD? Or should I go with the OS that came with the new computer?

A step-by-step set of instructions would be helpful since many stakes will be going through this update in the coming months.

Instructions are at http://mls.lds.org for installing the Local Unit Security Suite on new computers. Assuming you are the stake technology specialist, you should have the password for that site; if not, your stake clerk should have it (it has been sent from CHQ in multiple MLS messages over the years).

The Desktop 5.5 instructions have been removed from that site, so I think it's safe to say that that is not the recommended method.

OK, I have another question. The 5 year refresh thing, this is the first I've heard of it. How do I find out how old the computers are in our stake? I was called as the stake computer specialist recently, and we hadn't had one for years before, so I have almost no information on the computing equipment in our stake. Is this something the FM group would know?

natet wrote:OK, I have another question. The 5 year refresh thing, this is the first I've heard of it. How do I find out how old the computers are in our stake? I was called as the stake computer specialist recently, and we hadn't had one for years before, so I have almost no information on the computing equipment in our stake. Is this something the FM group would know?

Yes, your FM group should be aware of the age of your PC's. Please keep in mind, that although the original plan was to replace admin PC's roughly every 5 years, that has changed in many areas since the FM groups had to tighten their belts due to the economy. Since each FM group will decide how best to keep within their reduced budgets, what works for one, may not necessarily be the policy for another. For example, in our area, we were told that until further notice, they would only replace failed PC's (or those too costly to repair) with new ones.

natet wrote:OK, I have another question. The 5 year refresh thing, this is the first I've heard of it. How do I find out how old the computers are in our stake? I was called as the stake computer specialist recently, and we hadn't had one for years before, so I have almost no information on the computing equipment in our stake. Is this something the FM group would know?

You'll find some helpful resources to be:

• The wiki article Stake technology specialist and various articles it links to.
• Policies and Guidelines for Computers Used by Clerks for Church Record Keeping, dated 18 August 2009.
• Policy and Guidelines for Computers in Family History Centers dated November 2008 (if you have an FHC you are responsible for).

In the August 2009 Policies document you'll learn about the basic 5-year replacement cycle. But as Mikerowaved helpfully pointed out, this basic policy has been modified in most areas.

In those references, you'll also learn that you have a responsibility to "Work with the stake physical facilities representative and the facilities manager to inventory computer hardware." Although the FM group should have good records of computer hardware, it is your primary responsibility.

In my stake, the FM group has good records now, but not for computers and printers that were procured more than 4-5 years ago. So you can't necessarily depend on the FM group to do this. Since there are no records at your stake level now, it's a fairly big job to create this inventory, but once you have it, it's not very hard to maintain.

Good luck in your new calling, and feel free to post questions to this forum -- there are several of us around who have had the stake technology specialist calling for several years and we're happy to help.

Thanks guys. After I wrote that post, I thought "Duh, do a search first." and found quite a bit of the material you've already mentioned. My first and most pressing task when they called me was to make the stake conference broadcast work (we had kind of a home grown system that broke horribly when we added a new building), but now that's out of the way and I need to get to doing all the other things that come with the calling. I'm sure I will have many questions along the way.

Just as a quick check, if the administrative computers are Dell GX 270, then they were probably supplied when this program started - which was 5 years ago and are probably due to be changed out.

I think some Dell GX280 may be "up" for replacement now.

Any Dell 740 are "too young".

If you have a non-Dell or something less then a 2GHz, then there's a good chance that pre-dates the program and is due for replacement.

Again, this is on the administrative side. The FHC side is a little more complex ...

Alan_Brown wrote:Instructions are at http://mls.lds.org for installing the Local Unit Security Suite on new computers. ...

Thanks! That is exactly what I was looking for (but didn't find on my own).

natet wrote:How do I find out how old the computers are in our stake?

Our stake went onto MLS with a new batch of computers six years ago. Our FM group knows how old our computers are because they asked us a few years ago.

If you do not have an inventory, you might wish to start there. Then, if the FM group really does not know how old they are, you could ask one of the clerks who has been around a while for an estimate, and you could call the Dell help line with the serial numbers for an exact date.

If all of the computers are the same, you probably got a batch when the stake went onto MLS. Otherwise, it gets harder. But, as Alan pointed out, once you have a good inventory, it is easy to maintain.

Amazingly, our FM group did have some inventory records. I need to verify it, but it looks like they had all the computing equipment in inventory. The majority of them were installed in 2004, but it looks like our FM group is suspending all replacements (except for failures). I'm looking into memory upgrades instead. I'll have to find a good place to find memory that old.