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NotesINI
NotesINI allows you to maintain consistent settings in the Lotus Notes client configuration file (NOTES.INI).
It is particularly useful for companies that wish to set or enforce and maintain particular NOTES.INI settings before the Lotus Notes client starts.
Although Lotus Domino 6 and 7 uses Policies to control common client attributes, these Policies are not comprehensive which is where this application is of great benefit.
NotesINI does not start the Lotus Notes client (NOTES.EXE or NLNOTES.EXE) after it has updated NOTES.INI settings, however, an example of how to run this program is provided below.
NotesINI v2.2.0.1 (Size 244 KB) Freeware
Compatibility:
R4, R5, R6, R7
How it Works:
The NotesINI program will read the configuration settings in the NotesINI.ini file and the use this to determine where the client's NOTES.INI file is located. The program then reads the NotesINI.cfg file to get all the settings you want to apply to your user's NOTES.INI file used by the Lotus Notes client.
The NotesINI program normally works silently to update the NOTES.INI file. Users do not need to click on anything.
If there is a problem, the program will quietly write/append to an error log file called NotesINI.log in a path defined in the NotesINI.ini file.
NotesINI uses the following files:
- NotesINI.exe - The program which does the work.
- NotesINI.cfg - Contains the configuration settings you want to apply to the NOTES.INI file.
- NotesINI.ini - Contains settings for the NotesINI.exe program. It tells NotesINI.exe things like how to locate where your Lotus Notes is installed or whether to run in debug mode.
Running NotesINI:
Since NotesINI does not start the Lotus Notes client, you will need to execute NotesINI as part of a script.
Typically this involves running the program as part of a pre-execution script available from application deployment packages like Novell Zenworks, Microsoft SMS, etc. In any case you will want the NotesINI configuration files to be centralised on a user accessible network drive so that you only make one central change to the NotesINI configuration files without having to push the changes to all the clients.
Below is a simple example of a batch file which will run NotesINI and then start the Lotus Notes client.
Obviously for this example to work, you have to assume that:
- the G drive contains NotesINI and its supporting files (as an example only)
- all the users can access the network drive G:
- the user's Lotus Notes Data files are on H: drive (as an example only)
- the Lotus Notes client is installed on the local PC in the same path for all users
@echo off
G:\Apps\NotesINI\NotesINI.exe
C:\Lotus\Notes\Notes.exe =H:\Apps\Notes\notes.ini
cls
If you are experiencing problems with NotesINI, then make sure that you check the NotesINI.log file which is written to the path specified in the NOTESINI.ini file.
Most issues are caused by users using Lotus Notes which was not installed in a standard path, uses a NOTES.INI file invoked from a different path or file name, or do not have permission to see a drive/path defined in either NotesINI.ini or NotesINI.cfg.
