USB portable hard drive

[chris ashdown]

Quick Question

If I use a portable USB hard drive, can I load Actinic onto it and run it from any computer.

Is Actinic self contained within say "program Files" or does it place files in windows directories

[NormanRouxel]

Actinic makes lots of entries in the Windows Registry.

If you have a couple of systems not running Actinic then you could test it and see:-

Make sure the new drive is using the same drive letter on both systems.
Install Actinic on both systems into the same folder on the portable.
Now load a Snapshot of your real system.
Close Actinic, switch the drive to the other system and load the Snapshot again.

Once that is done see if it will let you make changes on one system, close down, move the drive and see if the changed site works on the other machine.

I've not tried the above but as long as neither test system is running your real site then it won't hurt to experiment.

The real test would be - what will happen when Actinic gets a new version. You'd have to run the upgrade twice. This might confuse Actinic as you'd have to upgrade one system, then move the drive and upgrade again. The second system would come up with an upgraded site folder and database but with the old Program folder.
You might have to make a snapshot and start this exercise from the top instead.

Norman

[chris ashdown]

Thanks Norman, but not really what I would like to do. Which is have a portable system that I could just plug into any computer and run.

Am i right in assuming that even if I put a operating system onto the usb drive, that I could not start it up as the main drive (simular to the old "A" drive) because it would not recognise the usb drive untill a operating system was running.

[NormanRouxel]

Which is have a portable system that I could just plug into any computer and run.

Actinic needs those registry entries so it must be Installed on each system (even if all the files end up on the portable drive) in order for the registry - which is part of Windows to contain the necessary information and for Windows to have all the database drivers it needs.

Am i right in assuming that even if I put a operating system onto the usb drive...

Apart from not being able to boot, the Operating System is tuned (at install time) to the hardware it is running on (motherboard, graphics card, etc, etc) so there's no way you could switch a drive between systems as easily as you'd like.

If you really need to to this then I'd look at a budget laptop.

Norman

[chris ashdown]

Ok I admit defeat.

Many thanks for your time and effort Norman as usuall your advice is both helpfull and your knowledge inspiring

Regards

Chris

[cazz124]

my husband says...... you can do it if you have windows installed on the usb hard drive and change the bios settings on the main computer to boot from the usb device in preference to the one it should be using, on IBM computers it gives you the choice eg press f2 to boot from another device,
not quite the portable system you were lookng for!
how bout a small cheap laptop instead
HTH
Carolyn