Question

Photo of Jacob Smith

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Windows 10 Install

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We are a small church and are interested in Rock RMS.  All we really need is the membership and attendance portion of the system and it would only be used on two internal computers.  What I'm wondering is, is there any way to install on a Windows 10 system and the just allow that other computer to access the Rock?  I’ve read all the documentation and it only talks about installing on servers and setting network settings.  Any help or hints would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.

  • Photo of Jim Michael

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    Win10 does have IIS included (optional install), and SQL Server Express is freely downloadable/installable, so in theory you could install and run Rock on a local web server and it would run fine (in fact, I'd be shocked if it didn't as that's how Rock is run in Visual Studio during development). Then the second machine would just point at the first machine with a browser. That said, there are some tricky things you'd likely need to set up... using "hosts" files on both machines so you can go to a friendly name in your browsers, giving the "server" machine a static IP so it doesn't change, etc. You would also want it to be a speedy machine with a few gig of ram, minimum.

    I think it's doable, but are you sure it's not easier to just go with a cheap-ish web host? (or do you not have any internet connectivity?) You would also need to consider backing up your data if you did it locally like that, and backing up SQL server is NOT as simple as copying some files to a thumb drive. That's my .02!

    • Hock_Hin Lee

      Hock_Hin Lee

      Agree with Jim that you will need someone with a basic knowledge of networking. However, this can be stage 2 after you get Rock running on one of your computer and it is a quick one time setup.

      • Arran France

        Arran France

        I echo everything Jim says here but I'd encourage you to think about whether Rock is a good fit for you or not.


        Like most things in life, there's a tension to be managed when choosing your ChMS. Rock is incredibly powerful and has the bonus of being free but comes with an initial time debt as well as an investment in learning, on top of that if you're self hosting there's the need to be willing and able to maintain your installation. You can mitigate a lot of the maintenance with a managed package provided by a Rock partner and you can also mitigate a lot of the configuration with a bit of consultancy, but obviously that all costs a lot more than a DIY approach.


        If you're a small church it's worth thinking about if you have the time and capacity to invest or the funds to make investment easier.


        If you're not sure or want to ask questions I implemented Rock in a small church last year (when things were a little harder) and would be more than happy to answer any questions you have. You can find my email in my profile.

      • Photo of Hock_Hin Lee

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        For testing, I managed to install Rock on my Windows 10 notebook without much problems (following where ever possible the Internal Hosting manual).  However, my notebook has many versions of SQL, SQL studio.  The response time is quite reasonable.  My Windows 10 was upgraded from Windows 8 that came with the notebook.

        I have tried installing Rock on other machines with different combinations of Windows Server and SQL download options.  Those that did not work were mainly due to .Net Framework 3.5 not shown/surfaced in the Server configuration, even though the modules have been successfully downloaded and installed.