Running from flash drive?

[rebecca.dahlman]

I have a user who is interested in taking his XML document on the road for collaboration and editing, and for various reasons can't take a laptop. He was considering just putting everything on a flash drive, and running it from there. I assume, though, that the Arbortext Editor would need to actually be installed on the computer he was using - he wants to be able to run directly from the flash without installation.

Am I missing something? Is there a way that he could run straight from a flash drive?

Thanks,
Becky Dahlman

[ClayHelberg]

I don't know of a way to install Arbortext to a flash drive and have it work
on any arbitrary system you plug it into.



As an alternative, you might consider setting up a virtual machine that
could be stored on a flash drive. Set up a minimal VM with nothing but
Windows, Arbortext, and maybe a PDF reader or whatever other utilities the
user might need in addition to Arbortext, and of course a copy of your
custom application directory. Then, as long as the remote computer has the
appropriate VM software, the user can fire up the VM and edit away. (The
VMware player is free to download and install from the web, as is
Microsoft's Virtual PC software.)



--Clay



Clay Helberg

Senior Consultant

TerraXML

[ptc-2916524]

Will the fixed Epic license key work if you run the VM on different
computers?

Allen

[AndyEsslinger]

Might work if you can figure out how to get a license to work. I
installed Editor on a removable hard drive once (not a flash drive, it
was long ago). I noticed that there was an empty directory created named
%windir%\Arbortext so that directory may need to exist on whatever
machine is running it. Couldn't make a fixed license work, but as long
as the PC could see my Arbortext license server a concurrent license
worked. You have to set APTLMHOST to point to a fully qualified path to
the license server. Worked inside the firewall, but wouldn't work from
outside, so ultimately the test was a failure.

Flash drive would probably be similar.

Best solution:
Since I couldn't get it to work, I eventually checked out a "demo"
license from Arbortext product support (arranged by my Arbortext sales
rep). The demo worked on any machine it was installed on for whatever
the time limit arranged with Arbortext (I think we did it once for 2
weeks and once for six weeks for trips to vendors). PTC may or may not
be willing.

Good luck,
-Andy

\ / Andy Esslinger LM Aero Tech Order Data
_____-/\-_____ (817) 279-0442 Box 748, Mail Zone 4285
\_\/_/ (817) 777 3047 Ft. Worth, TX 76101-0748

[ebenton]

I'm not sure about the temporary licenses from PTC. We don't have a
local sales rep who we can run these questions through, anymore.



A fixed license would probably work best for this, unless your company's
concurrent license server is not behind a firewall, which seems
unlikely. This would make the temporary license key useful, if it's
available.



FYI - In any case, unless later versions of Editor have changed, the
only thing you need to do to add fixed or concurrent license usage to an
installation that was originally only for one or the other, is to copy
from the Arbortext\Editor\dll directory the elmdlm.dll (for concurrent
licenses) or elmdsl.dll (for fixed licenses) to the Arbortext\Editor\bin
directory. As long as you have the license manager running and can add
the appropriate license key to it, that is.

[ClayHelberg]

I think so. You might have to define the VM with a hard-coded MAC address so
that it doesn't change when you run it on different hosts, but I'm not even
sure you would need that.



Clay Helberg

Senior Consultant

TerraXML