Clerk computer slow, possible to re-image?

[dajoker]

I heard from one of the ward clerks that their clerk computer is almost unusable due to its slowness. Since this is usually caused by software more than hardware (spinning rust hard drives aside), I'm curious if there is a way to tell the thing, once critical data are backed up (if anything useful still exists on there... we're in the USA so MLS is not needed/used anymore), to rebuild/re-image itself. If so, I suspect this computer will be like all the others in the stake, meaning slow, but not unreasonably slow considering the hardware and software installed.

Sometimes computer vendors have a separate partition which can be used to restore to a factory setting ("Boot from recovery partition"), but I do not know if that's an option with church computers. I saw a thread on here about church HQ being able to trigger the completion of the setup process somehow, but it wasn't this exact situation but was for a new computer that hadn't been set up properly. The primary purpose of this computer seems to be connecting to the printer to print temple recommends, and enter donations into LCR, so nothing remotely proprietary or stressful for any computer from the past couple decades.

Is there a way I can tell this thing to start over so it might be clean (of bloatware, of malware, of fragmented filesystems) again?

Thanks.

[russellhltn]

The first step is to see exactly what's slow. I've had computers or WiFi blamed for the inability to get into LCR on a Sunday. I'd make sure the blame is correctly placed, otherwise you could spend a lot of effort and accomplish nothing.

I'd also check to see what the status of the updates are. If the computer is downloading and applying an update, it's going to be slow. I have ours programmed (in the BIOS) to come on late Wednesday night and run until the power settings put it into hibernate. (I'm also not worried about being in a room too hot to run when the A/C isn't on.)

[dajoker]

Good thoughts, and I had the same questions, and should have included the answers in my original post.

The report I had was that everything was slow, from browsing (to get to LCR) to printing. When I saw it, the requests to print (Ctrl+p) would take thirty (30) seconds to even show the "print screen" to then allow one to hit {Enter] to send the job to the printer. On every other clerk computer (fast though they are not) and on other computers I think we all use the same procedure gives an instant prompt. The browser was also insanely slow. Opening Chrome would not show a screen for a minute, and everything is very laggy in the user interface, not necessarily loading. The boxes all have wired ethernet connections, and using the same wires for my laptop shows decent speeds (Google Fiber, even at the low rates, is still plenty fast to load anything) so it definitely seems to be the computer.

The software updates are all completed, not that I would expect a software update to significantly improve this type of performance (because it never has for me in a human-noticeable way, no matter what the benchmarks show about getting 5% time savings off of a 100 ms benchmark test executed a million times).

Any other troubleshooting steps I can take, other than booting to something else, or is there a way to get it rebuilt? Considering how many people use these, and how wide open they are to doing whatever (including installing "helpful" software that probably shouldn't be on there), I'm surprised this (re-imaging) isn't something that happens more often, especially now that many of us no longer need MLS, which was probably the hardest part to set up again.

[brad_p]

We get this complaint often from several our clerks. It's usually due to at one or two of these things:

* The hard drives are magnetic spinning drives, and rather slow ones at that.
* An older computer which needs to be updated (we had one computer that was 10 years old!)
* The computer is in the middle of a big Windows update.

Before we got computers replaced, I was authorized by my stake president to replace the hard drives with SSDs, funded by the stake budget. SSDs are getting cheap now, you should be able to find quality manufacturers for under $40.

The tricky part about such hard drive replacements is you have to have some device or mechanism that can do a full hard drive clone.

In whatever you choose, I would recommend fixing the problem. It's maddening to work on computers that slow. Clerks put in enough work already that they don't need to be burdened by programs taking minutes to do basic tasks.

[russellhltn]

not that I would expect a software update to significantly improve this type of performance

I don't expect an update to speed things up, but the process of updates can be a real drain on resources. It's more about getting to the destination rather than continuously traveling.

I'd also check the age of the computer. Generally they're replaced every 5 years (for Windows machines), although I've heard a few comment that FM won't replace them unless they're faulty. All the Dells and Lenovos I've seen have date of manufacture near their serial numbers. Our oldest computer in our stake (current 3 years old) came with a SSD.

Any other troubleshooting steps I can take, other than booting to something else, or is there a way to get it rebuilt?

You may want to consult Computers Overview in the Help Center. Particularly the step on removing unauthorized software. I'd include unauthorized browsing extensions as well. Opening task manager would help determine what is using up all the CPU and/or Hard Drive resources.

I'm not seeing anything about reimaging. Since that does change from time to time, I'd call GSD about the current instructions on that. It may be they just want you to download Win10 and reinstall from that, then run the provisioning software.

[dajoker]

Thanks for the replies.

I called the Global Service Desk (GSD) and they walked me through some testing and ultimately said re-imaging (after backing up anything important) is probably best. In case others run into this, the Tech Wiki (linked at the top of the forums, though I had not noticed that before) makes this sound pretty simple:

https://tech.churchofjesuschrist.org/wi ... _Computers

I have not tried it yet, but basically you boot from a recovery partition, wipe the thing, download some provisioning software (licensing the box maybe adding other things too), and Bob's your uncle. If I do this myself I'll try to report back on the work effort, time taken, etc., but the steps in the wiki look pretty good after a casual review.

[RyanGard1977]

If the computer is older than 5 years, it's time to be replaced. I've had some luck with running the disk cleanup app and clearing up a lot of stuff that way, and also running a USB flash drive dedicated to Ready Boost (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyBoost ) until the stake tech specialist is able to replace the computer. The newer computers run much better. The older Lenovo/IBM little slot desktops did not have much memory so they bogged down quicker.