Topic: AutoCAD on External Drives

[Kheilmann]

I have a Portable External HD and I would like to make AutoCAD and all my VBA programs portable by  utilizing my ext. HD.  Do I need to install Windows on it?  If I do that do I need to set my BIOS to boot to USB?

I just trying to figure out the best way to utilize my new HD.  Part of me thinks it will only be good for storing my VBA and Lsp files for different customers. 

I appreciate any input...

Thanks

[Atook]

You could install windows, autocad, etc, and boot via the usb drive. As you said, you'd need to set the USB drive to bootable in the BIOS. I would expect a performance hit running the OS over USB. Keep in mind that while indeed the system would be portable, you'd have to set every machine you wanted it on to boot from USB, *IF* it supports it.

You might be better off trying to make some menu files, or profile files, or even install files that install your dvb and lsp files to the local drive from your USB drive.

[Keith™]

Please don't take this as an "already done it" idea, but it seems that AutoCAD can be installed on any HD you choose, i.e. if you have a subst drive, you can install on that drive. Thus if you setup the external drive as a drive letter unused on all computers, you should be able to install to that HD and simply address it on all of the other systems. Of course you should be aware of any licensing issues. I am not aware of any that would prevent you from installing it on a removable devise, but who knows ... for the longest time I had a removable HD tray with a carriage I could carry from work to home, thus I had everything regardless of where I was working at the time.

[Atook]

Doesn't AutoCAD create registry keys based on the install location? If so, you can't just install it on your removable, then take it to another machine and run the acad.exe. Correct me if I'm wrong, as I haven't done it. Now I suppose you could install it on the removable drive(same directory) on two or more separate machines, then move the drive back and forth between the machines in question. But you couldn't just take it to any machine and run CAD from the HD.

[Keith™]

Obviously you would have some difficulty in making it happen, however you could conceivably export the registry settings that AutoCAD creates and import them in a batch file for your shortcut to AutoCAD.

[Dnereb]

As far as I know Autocad has already made a feature to use autocad on several machines by means of the portable license.

And correct me if I'm wrong but i seem to remember it is not allowed to install Autocad on portable media of any kind in their E.U.L.A.

[Cavediver]

And correct me if I'm wrong but i seem to remember it is not allowed to install Autocad on portable media of any kind in their E.U.L.A.

Define portable...
One of my coworkers takes his PC home for rendering gigs, does that mean it's portable?  If not, what's the difference between pulling a hard drive out of the computer and taking the entire thing on the road?

I guess it's a moot point, as they do allow installation on a second computer.  Unfortunately, I don't think I can run 2007 on my home box, it's just not robust enough.  So, if I need to leave 2005 (actually 2002 right now) on that computer, where does that put me?

[MickD]

loading programs onto a removable hd 'might' work with some fudging on each pc (registry entries etc as already pointed out), files would be fine. Loading Windows or any other OS will not work as expected, every time you plug into into a different machine it has to 'discover' all the different hardware again and may involve a re-install for it to do this properly. Unless of course you have identical or at least very similar hardware which may make this more possible but unlikely in your case. Most versions of windows (particularly OEM versions of XP I think) actually read your cpu id and can only be registered to the one machine.
Perhpas some scripts or similar to load your files from your hd to the target machine would be quite handy or just use it as a huge usb drive for storage and do the tranfers as needed.
hth,
Mick.

[Kheilmann]

Thanks to everyone.  I appreciate all the input.
It looks like the best bet would be to just have my support files (menus, lsp, vba, etc.) on the PortableHD and have it setup as the same drive letter as my regular "work at home" scenario.  Of course I'll still have to remember to copy my files to my Portable whenever an update is made.  I guess that's not that bad.  I could just run it off of my portable all the time.  I think I'll test that and see what kind of performance issues I run across.

Thanks again.

I hope 2007 is each of your best year ever.  Many blessings...

[Keith™]

Like I said before, I used XP on a removable HD transported between 2 different computers. Each had a unique setup, but after getting the proper drivers setup, along with the proper hardware profiles, I was able to log into different profiles on each system. The software being installed on only one drive, but containing all of the system requirements worked great, particularly when I had to do work at home.

[Dnereb]

Define portable...
One of my coworkers takes his PC home for rendering gigs, does that mean it's portable?  If not, what's the difference between pulling a hard drive out of the computer and taking the entire thing on the road?

A Pc is not considered to be a media but a machine or station a HD, DVD, CD, Floppy, USB stick, Tape and such are supposed to be media becaus ther soul purpose is to store informatioan.... not to proccess information.