What is Desktop 5.5 ?

[atticusewig]

What is Desktop 5.5 ?

Supposedly it will require 4 CDs from Church Headquarters.
Supposedly it will involve Stake Technology Specialists to
to format Hard Drives.
Supposedly it will be required to be installed on all the computers
in the Stake at the same time.
Supposed it will be required wherever there is a high-speed connection.

Which begs to ask, what is it ?
Does it spell the doom of our current MLS ?
Will it put an end to our belovedly buggy AFARIA ?

I've heard lots of anecdotal accounts, what is the
official answer to this one ?

Thanks,
Atticus Ewig

[ronald_schoedel-p40]

It's just a standard desktop image, with pre-approved programs, preconfigured, to run "out of the box", so to speak. It will have Open Office and a PDF generator as well as current MLS software. It is just a means of standardizing what is on Church PCs, much the way most companies have a standard desktop install.

Ronald Schoedel

[thedqs]

And 5.5 is made for your type of computing needs, other versions of 5.5 are for mission computers, administrative computers, it is just to make sure that the church keeps itself in the limits that the license agreements have set.

[Vir-p40]

Right, we understand that the desktop is created specifically with all those applications that are required to work on any MLS computer, as it has been so far And that is fantastic in case you have an English environment. But, what about those of us who work with different languages? Are we going to have versions of that desktop in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, German, and Dutch, for example? Or are we to do as in many Family History Centers where we have to live with a standard desktop in English and the users fighting to understand what they are doing or reading?

[thedqs]

If I remember correctly the church did have localizations of the operating system and office tools for their offices in Brazil and MLS was in the local language in the ward buildings. I don't know about eh family history centers, but what other software might you be refering too?

[ihenpecked]

I am hearing a lot of complaints from the clerks that the computers have slowed significantly since Desktop 5.5. All our units have the Dells issued by the church. Anybody seeing any slowdown?
Mike

[oscarschultz]

I am hearing a lot of complaints from the clerks that the computers have slowed significantly since Desktop 5.5. All our units have the Dells issued by the church. Anybody seeing any slowdown?
Mike

Definately there were some problems. On our machine printing was printing at about 8 pages per minute (HPLJ1100). After the upgrade the print speed went to 1 page per 3-5 minutes. Removing the printer and reinstalling the printer corrected the problem. The desktop is now working about the same - the overall "feel" is about 10 to 20 percent slower - Nothing really problematic however the machine "feels" slower. turning off the background image and stopping the screen saver improved the responsiveness about 5% - just enough to be noticed for a few minutes.
Suggesting to everyone to keep the number of open apps to a minimum has helped performance as well. running both openoffice and MLS concurrently slows everything down.
The machine is much nicer than either the 486 or the 233 pII we had before. Everyone appreciates moving off the old dos systems. Training new folks takes a lot less time now.
Uploading the weekly information was slower but seems to have improved during the last 2 weeks.
Thanks
oscar

[ericb]

I am hearing a lot of complaints from the clerks that the computers have slowed significantly since Desktop 5.5. All our units have the Dells issued by the church. Anybody seeing any slowdown?
Mike

This is a common complaint I've heard as well. The stake computer specialist for our stake, as well as an adjoining stake, are requesting authorization from their stake presidency to purchase additional RAM for each computer (making 512MB total). I imagine the church would have gotten a good deal from Dell had this been done as a collective effort for all affected units -- wonder if this was ever pursued.

[russellhltn]

You may want to upgrade just one machine and see how much it helps. From what I've been hearing, it doesn't seem to help as much as you'd think it should.

Edit: There was a new post today. Someone timed the changes from 256MB to 512. Significant improvement in booting and signing into MLS. Improvement in the time from clicking print to the print dialog. Improvement in switching tasks and shutting down. But over all, not a whole lot of change to MLS speed including the actual printing.

[daddy-o-p40]

All the RAM in the world will not fix the switch to Norton Anti-Virus. By its nature it is very invasive. It modifies the Windows XP kernel extensively and subsequently torpedoes performance. Our stake has boycotted this upgrade.