SciFinder Scholar (MIT ONLY)

SciFinder Scholar 2007 Installation

• You need to have MIT Certificates installed on your computer in order to download SciFinder Scholar.
• PC installation (Windows® 2000 (SP3 or higher), XP (SP1 or SP2), or Vista)
• Mac installation (Mac OS X 10.4)
• Linux note (not supported by the Libraries)

Windows version 2007

• Download "site.prf" file which identifies you as a member of MIT community.
  • Note: if you are upgrading your SciFinder Scholar, you may skip this step!
    • Create "c:\SFSCHLR" folder on your hard drive.
    • Right-click on the file "site.prf" and select "save link as...." in to the SFSCHLR folder. This file is not readable; do not open it!
• Download the self-extracting executable file of the SciFinder Scholar client
  • Download sfs2007.exe and save it to your desktop.
  • Start the installation of sfs2007.exe by double-clicking on the icon.
  • Follow the prompts to complete the installation.
    • Accept the default installation path (C:\SFSCHLR).
    • The installer will ask "Do you have a disk labeled Custom Site Files?". Click No and complete the installation.
  • You may want to install SFS toolbar for starting SFS quickly from the browser window.
• Copy a SciFinder Scholar shortcut to your Desktop.
  • Click Start | All Programs | SciFinder Scholar 2007 and then Right-Click and hold the mouse key on "SciFinder".
  • Drag "SciFinder" to your Desktop while holding the right mouse key.
  • Release the right mouse key and choose (left mouse click) "copy here" from the pop-up menu.

NOTE: if you use EndNote or other citation managers with SciFinder Scholar, you will need to import a new filter.

SciFinder Scholar for Mac OS X 2007

• Download the executable file of the Scifinder Scholar client
• Download sfs2007-macosX.zip and save it to your desktop. (This is an ~22.6 MB self-extracting executable).
• Double click the "sfs2007-macosX.zip" icon to unzip or expand it. If this doesn't work, use a latest version of a decompression program, such as "Stuffit Expander" to expand it.
• Move this file (SciFinder Scholar) to the Applications folder on your hard drive (often called HD:Applications on Macs).
• Download "site.prf" file which identifies you as a member of MIT community
  • Note: if you are upgrading your SciFinder Scholar, you may skip this step!
• Add macosx_site.prf to Application Package - follow the instructions on http://www.cas.org/support/academic/sf/tech/schosx/sfsosxinstall.html from the step 4.1 onwards!
• This file is not readable; do not open it!
• rename the file as "site.prf"
• Make an alias of this file to run the program from your desktop.

Note: If you are using Leopard OS X (10.5), check "Open using Rosetta":

• Go to the applications folder
• Right click or (ctrl click) on SciFinder Scholar application.
• Select "Get Info"
• Check the box "Open using Rosetta."

Note: this procedure is written for OS X (10.4), prior versions might require slight modifications of these instructions. For instance, site.prf file should not have a .txt extension and should not be text format. Please contact Chemistry Librarian for help.

NOTE: if you use EndNote or other citation managers with SciFinder Scholar, you will need to import a new filter.

Linux note (not supported by the Libraries)

SFS has been reported to work perfectly using WINE (http://www.winehq.org), an open-source implementation of the Windows API designed to allow Windows software to be run under linux.

The version of WINE packaged with Ubuntu 5.10 was used in testing, and the installation instructions for Windows should be used, with appropriate changes made for the virtual windows environment in linux.

With Ubuntu 5.10, this means creating the folder ~/.wine/drive_c/SFSCHLR, and copying the site.prf file to this directory, and running the installation program SFS2006.exe from the location you download it to. This should launch the installation program.

To run the software under linux, you will need to use the command 'wine sfschlr.exe' in the directory where you installed the software (typically ~/.wine/drive_c/sfschlr.exe)

This page was last updated on 02/07/08