Installing JCS on a new machine, or moving data

These instructions can be used when setting up JCS on a new machine, or when moving JCS data to a new location.

Registry Keys

JCS uses Registry keys to store the location of its Databases, Documents and User Preferences. JCS looks for registry keys in the following locations, using the first value it finds:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JCS\IFA Professional\
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\JCS\IFA Professional\
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\JCS\IFA Professional\

Within the IFA Professional key there are the following sub-keys:

JCS Database Paths
JCS Document Paths
User Preferrences (sic)
JCS Databases (no longer used, as of JCS 30.100)

For example when finding the location of the JCSAdmin.mdb JCS would first look in

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JCS\IFA Professional\JCS Database Paths\AdministrationDbPath

If that registry key does not exist JCS will then look in

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\JCS\IFA Professional\JCS Database Paths\AdministrationDbPath

If that registry key does exist, it will be used. Any value in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\JCS\IFA Professional\JCS Database Paths\AdministrationDbPath will be ignored.

Moving Registry Keys

If a user is moving machines we recommend that User Preferrences keys are exported from the users old machine and imported into the new machine. If the JCS Database Paths and JCS Document Paths will be the same on the old machine as the new machine (e.g. they are stored on a shared drive, and you will be mapping that shared drive with the same drive letter) you may choose to copy the JCS Database Paths and JCS Document Paths keys as well.

Moving JCS Data

Making a Backup

It is recommended to backup JCS data before moving it. You can use the Database Maintenance backup tool to zip up the JCS databases and documents to a location you specify.

Note, this procedure can take a while and all users will have to exit JCS before the backup can be performed. Before proceeding you should read the help for making backups. The can be found in JCS help by searching for "Database Maintenance" and clicking on the link to "Backup JCS Data".

1) Close JCS

2) Use Windows Search to find and open the "Database Maintenance" app

3) Log in with your usual JCS credentials

4) From the Database Maintenance menu, select "Backup JCS Data"

5) In the Backup JCS Data page there are options to "Include Documents" and "Include Documents Register External Documents". Including the external documents can make the backup take considerably longer.

Databases

The location of the JCS databases are specified in the following registry keys under JCS Database Paths :

AdministrationDbPath
CommDbPath
LicenceDbPath
PasswordDbPath
ProfileDbPath
WhatifDbPath
CommDbPath (optional)
CPTDbPath (optional)

All databases should have the same path. In the future JCS will stop supporting storing databases in separate directories.

The following files should be found in the Database Paths, they will need to be copied to the new location:

JCSAdmin.mdb
JCSComm.mdb (if this exists)
JCSCPT.mdb (if this exists)
JCSPass.mdb
JCSProf.mdb
JCSWi.mdb
JCSLicenceV3
Fixup.txt

Document folders

The location of your Document folders are specified in the following registry keys under JCS Document Paths :

ProfileReportsPath (REPORTS)
ProfileReportDefsPath (RptDefs)
StandardDocumentsPath (StdDocs)
UserDocumentsPath (UserDocs)

Note: The new data locations must have ‘Full Control’ permissions granted for each Windows user that will be using JCS.

Externally linked documents

JCS has the ability to store links to documents in the Documents Register. These are referred to as "Externally linked documents". These can be stored in any location accessible by the JCS user that creates the link to the document. JCS just stores the full file path to the document. After the migration, JCS will assume all documents are accessible from the same full path as on the old system.

You can check if you have any Externally liked documents:

Open the Documents Register, go to Reports, ensure you have selected "All Branches" and open the Documents Register report.

Select to filter to "Linked External File Only" and run the report.

You can also filter the Documents Register to show only those files:

In the Documents Register, ensure you have "<All Branches>" selected, open the filter page, select to filter to "Linked External File Only" and click the filter button.

Please contact us if you require any assistance in the following ways:

Producing a list of all externally linked document paths for your review.
Bulk updating document paths. For example if everything in F:/Data drive is now in G:/ClientFiles .

Installing JCS

Open the JCS login page of an existing JCS user and the currently installed version of the software is at the top of this window.

You can download the latest version of JCS at https://www.talkjcs.com/manual-update.html. For more information about which JCS versions are compatible with each other see Updating JCS.

You can download older JCS installers by going to a URL like:

https://www.talkjcs.com/installer/jcs/<version>/JCSInstall.exe

Replacing <version> with the relevant version. For example, to download the installer for JCS 35.000.05 you would go to: https://www.talkjcs.com/installer/jcs/35.000.05/JCSInstall.exe

Once the program has been installed the program database and document registry paths will need to be updated.