Replacement computers, how to??

[lorraine1950]

OK, glad to know cntrl/alt/del is not that necessary, one less thing to worry about.
1) Where do I find that cable? Will KMart or WalMart have it? If not, it's a 300 mile trip one way to Phoenix.
2) Should I buy multiple flashdrives? How big should I get? Do they have to be rotated as we did with the floppies? I know K-Mart has those.

Words cannot express how much I appreciate all your time and help on this nightmare. Thank you very much.

[aebrown]

1) Where do I find that cable? Will KMart or WalMart have it? If not, it's a 300 mile trip one way to Phoenix.

Certainly both KMart and Walmart would have such a cable. If you're like me, you've ended up with a few of them lying around, since lots of printers, scanners, and other USB devices come with them. Those are the cables that have the normal flat USB plug ("A") on one end and the squarish plug on the other end ("B") which goes into the hardware device.

2) Should I buy multiple flashdrives? How big should I get? Do they have to be rotated as we did with the floppies? I know K-Mart has those.

It's always good to have multiple flash drives. Policy requires that you take backups offsite occasionally, so you'll need at least two. A floppy could only hold one backup, so rotation was important. But a 1GB flash drive can hold far more backups than you can make in a whole year, so you don't actually need to rotate drives -- just put your backups on one flash drive for local storage, and another for offsite storage. Flash drives occasionally fail, so some people would recommend that you rotate a couple of drives just for failover purposes.

Words cannot express how much I appreciate all your time and help on this nightmare. Thank you very much.

We're happy to help -- we've all been in similar situations at some point ourselves.

[lorraine1950]

Thank you so much.
Actually I have no cables laying around. I get rid of them as fast as I can, we have no room for them anywhere here. Maybe the FM group has some, but I doubt it. I'll check, hadn't thought of that. Thanks for the description, I know what I'm looking for now.

When I download the Adobe Flash Player I still get the error message "Error 1904.Module ...... as previously mentioned. Any ideas? I know you said it's not really necessary except for doing the online training, but President wants it on here since we do use the online training for Stake Leadership training of Clerks and Assistants, Exec Secs and Assistants.

edit: Also, I don't see the LDS background photos like the old machine had, and President likes. Where do I get those?

[russellhltn]

ussell, I'm at user accounts now, ther is no "advanced" tab. All it says is "pick a task", and in the list is "change the way users log on or off"; when I go there it offers only two choices, "Use the Welcome screen" or "Use Fast Switching". If I select welcome screen, I can also select fast user switching, but if I don't select welcome screen, the switching is not available, and it says by not using the welcome screen it will use the classic logon prompt. Nothing about cntrl/alt/del.

OK, different interface. Use the Welcome screen.

As for the backups: in the past, the new machines have come with a 2G flash drive. I wonder if they've discontinued that?

[lorraine1950]

Yup, digging around in the boxes I found one 4G Kingston Traveller flashdrive.
I'll use the Welcome screen, thanks.

[aebrown]

When I download the Adobe Flash Player I still get the error message "Error 1904.Module ...... as previously mentioned. Any ideas? I know you said it's not really necessary except for doing the online training, but President wants it on here since we do use the online training for Stake Leadership training of Clerks and Assistants, Exec Secs and Assistants.

I assume you really mean that you are installing (not simply downloading) the Adobe Flash Player. I googled the Flash player 1904 error and found a promising post. Perhaps that will help. It refers to Flash Player 9, but I imagine the steps are essentially the same for version 8. I found other posts that recommend modifying several registry keys, but that's a bit scary and I wouldn't recommend doing that.

Also, I don't see the LDS background photos like the old machine had, and President likes. Where do I get those?

Those are files on the old computer. You should be able to find them by going to Control Panel > Display, then on the Desktop tab, find what file is used for the current desktop. Then that image is probably in C:\Windows, and you can copy it from your old computer to your new computer using the flash drive. Those steps are from memory (I don't have an XP machine handy right now), so if they don't work right, I'll try to get you better steps tomorrow, or someone else can fix the details.

[jdlessley]

3) Following instruction to change the computer name to LU-XXXXXX with our unit numnber, the machine won't let me because it says there is already a computer with that name. I'm guessing that's the old computer? How to fix?

The only time you should have a problem naming a computer the same name as another is when both computers are on the same domain. You most likely are not on a domain since you are setting the computer up as a stand alone administrative computer. I really don't have any idea how you were trying to change the computer name, but I do know that if you follow the procedures in the Microsoft Knowledgebase article 295017 you can in fact change the name to LU-XXXXXX. Since you are not joining a domain or a workgroup the following are simplified instructions from the article:

To change the computer name for a Windows XP-based computer, use the Computer Name tab in the System Properties dialog box. To locate this tab, use one of the following methods:

• Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
• Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK.
• Click Start, click Control Panel, double-click Performance and Maintenance, and then click System.

To change a computer name follow these steps.

1. Click the Computer Name tab, and then click Change.
2. Type the new computer name in the Computer name dialog box.
3. Click OK three times, and then restart the computer.

When I download the Adobe Flash Player I still get the error message "Error 1904.Module ...... as previously mentioned. Any ideas?

Sometimes there are problems with the install files in the temporary directory and/or with registry settings. I recommend clearing out the temporary directory and unistalling the Adobe Flash Player if any version is installed.

To clear the temp directory click "Run..." from the START menu, enter %temp%, and click "OK". Delete all the files and folders that appear in the Temp directory. You may not be able to delete all the files being used by the System. If you get a message that says the file cannot be deleted because it is in use, do not be concerned about that file. Just continuing deleting all the rest.

Use "Add or Remove Programs" in the Control Panel to remove the Flash Player if it exists.

Once both the temp directory is clear and the Flash Player is uninstalled you should not have any problems doing a fresh install. You can either download the installer or run it from the web, if you have an internet connection, at the Adobe Flash Player web page. The latest version is 10.1. There should not be any compatibility problems with Church applications when running Flash Player 10.1.

Also, I don't see the LDS background photos like the old machine had, and President likes. Where do I get those?

Those background photos (commonly called desktop wallpaper) can be found in the C:\WINDOWS\Web\Wallpaper folder on your old computer. You can confirm the photos that you want to transfer by going to the Desktop tab of the Display Properties and seeing what the background names are that you want to transfer.

[jdlessley]

@E&LDow,
When downloading and installing Adobe products from the web the Adobe Download Manager (ADM) must either be installed or updated. Most of the time it is installed/updated silently (you do not see any prompts or UI messages). The error you are getting may be related to the ADM install/update. In addition to uninstalling Adobe Flash Player you should also uninstall the ADM. Once the ADM and Flash Player are uninstalled, once again check and clean out the temp directory.

Note: There are uninstallers at the dowload site I previously mentioned that can help uninstall the Flash Player you are having difficulty with.

Edit: I was wrong in my previous post that you could download the installer from the website to which I linked. Use the URL http://fpdownload.adobe.com/get/flashpl ... yer_ax.exe to do what Adobe calls "manually" installing the Flash Player without using the ADM. Just click the save button to save it to a drive or removable media. The version for the link is 10.1.

[russellhltn]

The only time you should have a problem naming a computer the same name as another is when both computers are on the same domain.

I'm not sure, but I think there's a significance chance of problems if they are simply on the same network. TCP/IP and/or NETBIOS may prevent two computers of the same name on the same network.

At any rate, there should be no problems if the other computer is disconnected or shut down (although it might require rebooting the new computer so it forgets about the other one.)

[jdlessley]

I'm not sure, but I think there's a significance chance of problems if they are simply on the same network. TCP/IP and/or NETBIOS may prevent two computers of the same name on the same network.

At any rate, there should be no problems if the other computer is disconnected or shut down (although it might require rebooting the new computer so it forgets about the other one.)

I've had two computers with the same name on the same network, but only for gateway operations. I did not name either computer when they were connected to any network, including the internet. My recommendation would be to have both computers disconnected from the network when the new computer is renamed. As you said it may be necessary to reboot the new computer after it is disconnected from the network to clear settings before renaming.

In this situation it would not be necessary for the old computer to be connected to the network during the setup of the new computer. With it disconnected the naming issue should be mute.