STACS LOCAL MACHINE PRELIMINARY INFORMATION:

This is the most convenient way to evaluate the STACS application. All information is written to the local machine and a teacher can pose as an added student to sit a test. To evaluate STACS in this way, use the Local Machine version of STACS to create your teacher folder at home on your laptop or PC. However, you will need to carefully follow the instructions for adding teachers, classes and students if the teacher folder is ever going to be uploaded to a network for use with a full server version of STACS. In practice, teacher folders are best created on the server using a single teacher or multi-teacher version of STACS installed on a workstation on the network. Everything else works exactly the same as in all other versions of STACS. Full instructions are on the ‘Operating Instructions’ pages of the STACS manual in the AllSTACSExtras folder of the STACSLocalMachineInstallFolder folder or for download from the STACS website stacstesting.com. If you purchase a STACS Server Single Teacher version licence or a STACS Server Multi Teacher version licence, you can back up your teacher folder to an external medium, restore it to a laptop or PC running the Local Machine version of STACS and manipulate your teacher folder as you wish. You can then restore it to the server as and when required.

PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTION FOR INSTALLING STACS SERVER SINGLE TEACHER VERSION:

It is best to have region, Date/Time settings set to Ireland.

STACS LOCAL MACHINE INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:

Download the Local Machine version of STACS from the Downloads section of the STACS website stacstesting.com. This download usually appears in the Downloads folder of the local machine. Using Windows Explorer or otherwise, unzip your downloaded STACSLocalMachineInstallFolder.zip to a folder STACSLocalMachineInstallFolder folder. You need to have a folder called STACSLocalMachineInstallFolder containing a folder called AllSTACSExtrasFolder, a folder called STACSHowToVideosFolder, a folder called STACSSampleTestsFolder and individual files  STACSLocalMachineInstaller, STACSLocalMachineMain, STACSLocalMachineSitTest and STACSOffLineTestCreator.

Copy the STACSLocalMachineInstallFolder folder from your Downloads folder to the root of the C:\ drive of the Local Machine.

Open the STACSLocalMachineInstallFolder folder on the local machine and run the STACSLocalMachineInstaller (.exe) file found in this folder. This initialises STACS on the local machine. Normally, it will not be necessary to set the user permissions to Read / Write for Everyone using the ‘Share with’ or ‘Give access to’ option. Do not run the STACS Installer directly from the detachable medium as this will give an error when the installation finishes.

If the installer finds an instance of STACS on the local machine, you will be advised on how to proceed. When STACS is installed, create a shortcut to the STACSLocalMachineMain.exe file in the STACSLocalMachineInstallFolder folder in the C:\ drive. Copy this shortcut to the desktop of the local machine. Do not copy the STACSLocalMachineMain.exe file to the desktop, as the STACS Main Application needs to reside in the install folder to function properly.

You can access the STACS Main Application by double clicking on the desktop shortcut or you can run STACS directly from the install folder by double clicking on STACSLocalMachineMain(.exe).