This document provides guidance on upgrading from IBM Notes 8.5.2 to Notes 9 including recommended settings for Notes.ini and Plugin_Customization.ini files. Key differences between the Notes client types are outlined as well as tips for installing the Notes client using NICE to retain user settings. Modifying features like the discovery page and adding packages like Sametime 9 are also discussed.

1. Installing and Upgrading to the New
Notes Social Edition Version 9
Andy Higgins,
IM Collaboration
andy@imcollaboration.com

2. Overview
• This presentation shares lessons learned from a
recent project upgrading a large environment
from IBM Notes 8.5.2 to IBM Notes 9
– More modern looking
– More potential for customization
– Configurability – The “Discover Page”
• Key differences in the Notes client types
• Recommended Notes.ini and
Plugin_Customization.ini settings
• Notes browser plugin

3. The IBM Notes 9 Social Edition Clients
• Notes client
• Notes Admin & Dev client
• Windows multi-user functionality
– No multi-user Admin/Dev client

4. The Notes Client
• The Notes client can be set as a single-user or as
a multi-user install.
– Single user install is for when you know one user per
machine and data stays in one place
– Multi-user install, then the data directory will be
created under the
C:Users<username>IBMNotesData path.
• A benefit of the multi-user install allows for
Windows user account data protection security
on the IBM data directory. Additionally, the multi-
user install is the recommended way to install
Notes at present.

5. The Admin and Designer Clients
• The Admin and Designer clients can only be
installed in single-user mode.
• Identify who needs Admin and Designer
before roll-out
• Use NICE (Notes Install Cleanup Executable) to
put a new installation in its place but retain
the data and settings of the old client

6. Installing the Notes Client
• Regardless of whether you are running a webkit install or installing as part of a script, your
first step in the install process (after removing old plugins through the Windows add/remove
programs) is to run NICE on the program files only
• NICE.EXE –rp –qn
• This will remove all of the program files in the directory apart from the Notes.ini which must
remain for the overlay install to work correctly. –qn makes the process invisible.
• The next step is to install the 9.0.1 single-client package directly over the 8.5.2 client.
• For the all-client (Admin and/or Designer) option, do the same thing as above. The all-client
package can be installed over the 8.5.2 client or the 9.0.1 Notes-only client package. It can
even be installed over the 8.5.2 all-client package.
• Using the above methodology, you could even install a Notes-only client over a previous
Notes Admin/Designer install and maintain the user’s settings.
• Using NICE is a best practice when moving from one version of Notes to another. It’s also
recommended when moving from a single-user install to a multi-user install, especially
because it keeps the Notes.ini on the single-user install in the program files directory (it
doesn’t remove it, so the multi-user install can use the Notes.ini that existed before from the
single-user install).

7. Adding the IBM Sametime 9
Embedded Client to the Package
• I don’t need to document adding Sametime 9 to your Notes
9 install here as there is an excellent blog article from the
IBM install team that explains this very clearly:
http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/installblog.nsf
• Essentially the post explains how you can remove the
Sametime 8.5.2 embedded package from the Notes 9 client
and then add the Sametime 9.0 embedded client right back
in.
• The above is a special case, and it isn’t currently possible to
do the same thing with, say, the IBM Connections plugin
package

8. Changing Things in the Standard
Notes 9 Package
• In the Notes 8.5 releases, just about every
additional package was included in the
released product.
• In the V9 release, IBM has taken the opposite
tack and removed just about everything.

9. Notes Minder removal

10. Recommended Notes.ini Settings for
IBM Notes 9
• Following are two important recommended Notes.ini
settings when installing the v9 package:
• create_r9_databases=1
Include this in all clients’ Notes.ini as it will create all
new DBs with the new ODS v52 which is now available
using Notes 9 (For more details see this post on the
IBM Domino and Notes wiki).
• $ENABLE_ADDITIONAL_KEYSTROKES=1
This setting enables some keyboard shortcuts that
seem to have been removed in V9, so it is
recommended that you make them available for clients
that use them.

11. Notes Browser Plugin
• I really like the new Notes Browser Plugin (NBP). It works nicely and
allows seamless access to all Notes databases using your local
browser. The only database it won’t access, however, is your mail
database, but that is accessible using the Notes web mail access, so
NBP will refer to the web mail interface.
• Following are a couple of tips and tricks for Notes.ini parameters
that you can include to make NBP work better:
• BrowserUseHttpForiNotes=1 will allow you to connect to IBM
iNotes over HTTP instead of HTTPS.
• INOTES_REDIRECTOR_PATH=<Server Host Name or IP address> is
required when you need to use specific redirector server and/or
port (For further information, see the
• Unable to access iNotes from Notes Browser Plug-in IBM Technote).

12. Embedded HTML in Mail Items
• Be careful using Internet Explorer 10 with Notes;
rendering HTML inside of the Notes client (in mail
items) doesn’t work too well if you have the
setting in your Notes client set to use the
operating system browser. IBM currently suggests
you disable the HTML rendering by OS embedded
browser option using the following Notes.ini
setting:
• BrowserRenderDisable=1
This checks the setting in the Basic Notes client
Configuration – see next slide

13. Contrary to what is printed in some sources, this setting disables the use of the
operating system’s embedded browser. For Windows, this is always Internet
Explorer; it is not the OS default browser as set by the user. It also is not
referring to the Notes embedded browser, the code which is effectively used
when this setting is set to 1 (Be careful, it’s confusing!)

14. Plugin_Customization.ini
• There is a plugin_customization.ini file in each package
(in the deploy directory) but the ones that really matter
are the one in the Notes package and the one in the
Connections plugin package.
• At install (of the specific package) the
plugin_customization.ini file is copied into the install
directory and applied to the installation. Thus the
changes to this file are startup parameters that we
need to have set a certain way at install.
• Plugin_Customization.ini is NOT the same as Notes.ini

15. plugin_customization.ini file settings
com.ibm.rcp.ui/com.ibm.notes.client.discoverpageshortcut=true
This setting allows for the display of the Discover Page shortcut:

16. com.ibm.rcp.ui/com.ibm.workplace.noteswc.views.NotesHomepage=true
This setting allows for the display of the Notes HomePage
shortcut:
plugin_customization.ini file settings

17. com.ibm.rcp.ui/com.ibm.notes.client.workspaceshortcut=true
This setting allows for the display of the Notes Workspace
shortcut:
plugin_customization.ini file settings

18. com.ibm.rcp.ui/102=true
This setting allows for the display of the Notes Contacts shortcut:
plugin_customization.ini file settings

19. plugin_customization.ini file settings
• com.ibm.rcp.jfaceex/overrideAutoStart=com.ibm.rcp.gettingstarted.GettingstartPerspective
This stops the “getting started page” appearing automatically
• com.ibm.rcp.ui.browser.launcher/USE_EMBEDDED_BROWSER=false
Use the OS web browser, not the built-in Notes web browser
• com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.alertmanager/pref_event_0_option_1=false
This means don't bring window to front for one-to-one chats
• com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.calendar/notes_available=true
This feature and the one below ensures that the Sametime
Calendar integration plugin is enabled by default.
• com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.calendar/notes_enabled=true

20. Modifying the Eclipse Features
Example – to remove OpenSocial feature:
• Edit the install.xml file to configure the OpenSocial feature to
not install by changing the value below:
<installfeature default="false" description="%OpenSocial.description"
id="OpenSocial" name="%OpenSocial.name" required="false"
show="true" version="9.0.20131022-1138">
• When customizing the install.xml file for supplied features,
focus only on the installfeature element, not the sub-level
feature element.
Note: Do not edit any installfeature element whose “required"
attribute is set to true.

21. The Eclipse Install
In basic terms, the Eclipse installation piece is done “within” the actual
Notes client install (the MSI installer). You can see this reflected in the
MSI logs when, at certain points, the MSI goes into a waiting mode.
This is essentially where it has handed the installation process off to
the Eclipse install; the Eclipse install returns to the MSI install and
passes parameters telling it whether the Eclipse install has been
successful or not. This is important because you need to look here to
check if the MSI install fails as it may not be a problem with the MSI
but with the Eclipse install. You can debug a problem by viewing the
Eclipse logs under C:NotesDataworkspacelogs. Under this location
you can see “error” and “trace” logs – the former being less
descriptive. Look at the lowest numbered one for the most recent
information; most times it’s fairly obvious what the problem is.

22. Changing the Discovery Page

23. • The discovery page is controlled by the file populatedTemplate.txt,
which is converted on client startup to populatedHTML.htm. The file
populatedTemplate.txt comes from within the gettingStarted plugin. In
order to be correctly implemented, the startedpageTemplate.tmp file
needs to be modified and added back into the gettingStarted plugin in
the package. The key thing is to have the whole getting_startedXXX.jar
file re-signed after it has been edited. If this is not done, the install will
report a provisioning security error as it is designed this way to stop
people from editing these plugins without authorization.
• The file that needs to be modified is in the updateSite.zip of the Notes
install package. Extract the specific plugin shown in Figure 9 from the
plugin directory in this zip file.

24. • When you have the plugin jar file, change the ending from JAR
to ZIP (as essentially that is all this file is – a compressed file).
Then unzip the file and you should see the contents shown in
the next slide:

25. • We see the startedpageTemplate.tmp file, which is the same file that gets
laid down as the populatedTemplate.txt file after the install. This is the file
that you need to modify. Any CSS files or image files that you might need
also should reside here.
• After you have modified the plugin, zip the gettingstarted file back up and
rename it as a JAR file and then sign it just as explained under “Signing and
adding new features to the kit” half way down the page at this location: (
IBM’s documentation on signing plugins).
• After the plugin has been signed, re-add it to the updateSite.zip file. Be
careful when doing the recompressing of the zip files as it’s easy to create
the zip file with an incorrect folder structure.
• The updateSite.zip file can then be added into the installation build.

26. The end (of the presentation)
• Hope this has been of use
• Questions at the end in the chat
• Contact me at Notes Discussion Group Blog
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• THANKS FOR ATTENDING and see you at
ConnectEd 2015!!