New Win7 Computer Installation

[lajackson]

I ran into a hitch with one PC that was still using an HP LaserJet 1100. The 1100 only has a parallel interface and the new PC's don't have one.* I thought about installing a PCI parallel port card, but the 580 needs a "shortie" bracket (like many rack-mount servers) and it's almost impossible to find cards like that locally. Mail order would be the only way. I also thought about a USB to Parallel cable, but the reviews on them were quite mixed in their success rate, and again, mail order only. I discussed this with the FM people and they decided to issue this particular unit a new printer. (YMMV)

Starting a year or so ago, our FM group began to replace any HP LJ 1100 printer that even looked at you funny.

[mhicken]

Just a clarification - if you are upgrading from a windows XP machine (which is likely), the location of this file on your old computer is "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\LDS Church". If your new computer is also XP (my FM is downgrading all our replacement computers), you will need to put it in the same location on the new computer. Only if you have Windows7 on the new computer do you need to put it into ProgramData.

I recently upgraded all of our machines to Windows 7. This was very helpful in making the process go smooth. There was one more thing I had to do in order to get MLS to run. After copying the "LDS Church" files to the new machine I had to change the owner of the folder and propagate that ownership down to it's children. Here's how...

1. Right-click on the "LDS Church" folder and choose "Properties"
2. Click on the "Security" tab
3. Click the "Advanced" button
4. Click the "Owner" tab
5. Click the "Edit" button
6. Select "Clerk" and enable "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects"
7. Click "OK" 3 or 4 times until you are out of the properties window.
8. Launch MLS

One other thing we did was to create an "Admin" windows account in case one of the wards ever changes their "Clerk" password. Overall the upgrade process was very smooth thanks to the information in this thread.

[crislapi]

After copying the "LDS Church" files to the new machine I had to change the owner of the folder and propagate that ownership down to it's children. Here's how...

1. Right-click on the "LDS Church" folder and choose "Properties"
2. Click on the "Security" tab
3. Click the "Advanced" button
4. Click the "Owner" tab
5. Click the "Edit" button
6. Select "Clerk" and enable "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects"
7. Click "OK" 3 or 4 times until you are out of the properties window.
8. Launch MLS

I recently had a graphics card go bad in one of my units. The replacement computer's OS was Windows 7. I mounted the old hard drive in the new computer to try and recover the files. This little trick was also necessary in order to copy the files over as well.

[Mikerowaved]

I recently upgraded all of our machines to Windows 7. This was very helpful in making the process go smooth. There was one more thing I had to do in order to get MLS to run. After copying the "LDS Church" files to the new machine I had to change the owner of the folder and propagate that ownership down to it's children. Here's how...

1. Right-click on the "LDS Church" folder and choose "Properties"
2. Click on the "Security" tab
3. Click the "Advanced" button
4. Click the "Owner" tab
5. Click the "Edit" button
6. Select "Clerk" and enable "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects"
7. Click "OK" 3 or 4 times until you are out of the properties window.
8. Launch MLS

One other thing we did was to create an "Admin" windows account in case one of the wards ever changes their "Clerk" password. Overall the upgrade process was very smooth thanks to the information in this thread.

I also recently replaced all of our admin PC's with the newer Dell's, and during the Windows 7 install, I named the only account "Clerk", so by default it became part of the Administrator group. I then used that account to install everything with. When finished, I created a "StakeAdmin" administrator account and demoted "Clerk" to a Limited User. This negated the need to go through the procedure you outlined.

So far, running the "Clerk" login with Limited User access has worked out, including auto-installing Microsoft & Sophos updates. I'm still waiting for a somewhat major MLS update to see what happens with that.

The only part (so far) that I see causing problems are the Adobe updates. Updates for both Adobe Reader and Flash Player cause the UAC to pop up asking for the StakeAdmin password to proceed. There's no real problem, other than those products (and possibly others, like OpenOffice.org) might fall behind in being patched and present a very small security risk until the STS can cycle through and update them. An Internet search for a solution only found others stuck in the same boat. Microsoft and Sophos updates are auto-installed using an elevated privilege, but Adobe has yet to implement their version of this.

We might come up with a plan, whereby someone like each Ward Clerk would have the password to the StakeAdmin Windows login, so updates don't have to wait possibly for months to be implemented. The way I see it is, there's nothing sacred about knowing the StakeAdmin password, as long as that account is not used to install software or make changes the STS is not aware of. It certainly can't get you any further in MLS than the regular "Clerk" login.

[crislapi]

We might come up with a plan, whereby someone like each Ward Clerk would have the password to the StakeAdmin Windows login, so updates don't have to wait possibly for months to be implemented. The way I see it is, there's nothing sacred about knowing the StakeAdmin password, as long as that account is not used to install software or make changes the STS is not aware of. It certainly can't get you any further in MLS than the regular "Clerk" login.

I understand the reasoning behind creating a limited user account, but just wanted to mention that the setup instructions do not require this. I would therefore infer creating one goes beyond the required security. Doing so is fine (in my opinion) if locally it is determined to be worth the tradeoff.

[Mikerowaved]

I understand the reasoning behind creating a limited user account, but just wanted to mention that the setup instructions do not require this. I would therefore infer creating one goes beyond the required security. Doing so is fine (in my opinion) if locally it is determined to be worth the tradeoff.

I completely understand. I also understand that when I read things like this...

Those using computers with Windows 7 (as well as those using XP) will not be required to run MLS as a Windows administrator.

...I take them at their word. Since no one had reported in the forum that they had successfully done this in a real environment, I thought I would give it a shot and report back my findings. I can almost hit our 3 buildings with a slingshot from my house, so if things should go South, help is only a couple of minutes away, not hours like a lot regions outside of Utah have to deal with. Makes for a good test environment.

[Mikerowaved]

Well, I was wondering how this was going to turn out and now I know. I have to give the MLS developers a D+ for claiming...

Those using computers with Windows 7 (as well as those using XP) will not be required to run MLS as a Windows administrator.

RUN MLS, maybe. UPDATE MLS, definitely not. When 3.4 was downloaded on a machine running as a "Limited User", the UAC popped up at least a half dozen different times during the update process requiring an Admin password each time to continue. IMO, this is unacceptable, unless a local user (like each ward clerk) knows the admin password to allow updates and patches to be installed without the STS having to physically be there each time.

[techgy]

Our stake has recently received new Del (Win7) computers which I will be installing over the next few weeks.
Wanting to insure that we stay within guidelines as to configuration, etc, I went looking for a set of installation instructions.
The only ones I could find were all for Win XP. Although this may be similar, I would expect that Win7 may have some differences.

Has anyone seen any instructions for a Win7 installation? I've already checked http://mhtech.lds.org and found nothing there that's current.

[nbflint]

unless a local user (like each ward clerk) knows the admin password to allow updates and patches to be installed without the STS having to physically be there each time.

I would make sure the Ward Clerk has a local administrator account but is trained to use the limited user account. This offers the highest level of security while allowing for MLS updates to be made by the clerk.

[crislapi]

Our stake has recently received new Del (Win7) computers which I will be installing over the next few weeks.
Wanting to insure that we stay within guidelines as to configuration, etc, I went looking for a set of installation instructions.
The only ones I could find were all for Win XP. Although this may be similar, I would expect that Win7 may have some differences.

Has anyone seen any instructions for a Win7 installation? I've already checked http://mhtech.lds.org and found nothing there that's current.

There are none. Just like the online trainings have not been updated to reflect the changes CUBS introduced, these have not been updated for Windows 7. The last time I set one up, though, I took notes of what the differences in setup procedure were. If I can find it, I'll attach it.