I can't see Frenchy Pilou's reference either. If any of you have seen it, what is he referring to?

Alex -
Thanks for your thoughts. My sys admin isn't very Senior college teacher friendly in that the cluster disk images are only made just before the beginning of the semester. So if after classes start you find need for anything to be added you've got to wait until next semester. So at this point I'll have to find a different way to deal with plug-ins.

Your plug in loader looks very useful. From the description at your website, it looks like a perfect addition to the USB disk installation. And I won;t have to wait for the sys admin.

RE: templates. We do use templates. That's one thing that's neat about having a working copy on the USB drive as I don't need to tell it each time I start up what template I want. You tell it once and it remembers.

The weakness of the templates (that I wish they'd fix) is that the tool palettes are not part of the templates. The tools that show up when I start from the disk image version of SU7 are the basic default set regardless of the tools that were in use when the template was made. We have to customize the tool palettes each day of class. The USB drive version gets around this problem.

I've never modofied a shortcut before. I didn't know that a shortcut could address two different locations.
Target: "C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 7\SketchUp.exe" "USB:\SketchUp\my_template.skp".

Obviously the first part starts up SU7. The second parts seems to point to a template file. It looks like you might be telling the app to open that file. But won't that just open the template without changing the preference setting for where to find the default template? (which is what I need to do)

Also, can you elaborate a bit on this thought?
"It might also help to add the USB drive folder to the "Start in:" box"

The "Start in: box" isn't familiar to me... nor do I understand what this suggestion will accomplish.

Thanks,
John

GATA -
Thanks for those threads. It's looks like I was able to accomplish the same thing without any mojo from MojoPac or ThinApp. I let the Wizard take care of the issues regarding the registry files. (about which I know nothing except that I shouldn't mess with 'em.) I simply arranged things so that the Wizard never thought there was another installation of SU7 on the computer.

If you want to try out this method of making SU7 portable here's what worked for me.

1. Deinstall SU7 from my main hard drive HD
2. Downloaded the SU7 WinXP installer put a copy on both my desk top and my USB drive.
3. Made a Google SketchUp7 folder and put it on the top level of the USB drive.
4. Run the installer from the USB drive.
5. When asked for where to install the app I entered the path to my new folder on the USB drive.
6. Finished the install. (Took about 30 mins!!)
7. Made a backup folder and copied the Google SketchUp7 folder into it leaving the original on the USB desktop.
8. Ran SU7 from the USB drive to make sure everything worked.
9. Ran the installer and Deinstalled the SU7 that was just installed on the USB drive. The contents of the backup SU7 folder were not touched. The contents of the home-made Google SU7 folder were erased as expected. Unplugged the USB drive from the system.
10. Switched back to my main drive and ran the installer there. I had to first "deinstall" SU7 even tho I hadn't installed one there. (If you don't do this the Wizard thinks you want to make some changes to the last installation. So yes I had to deinstall SU7 twice. This was a surprise to me and may be related to the issues discussed in an earlier thread.
11. Ran the installer again and this time installed SU7 on my HD in the default location.
12. Everything worked well here too. So now I had a working installation on my HD and a copy of a working installation in the backup of my USB drive.
13. Reconnect the USB drive and copied the contents of the SU7backup folder to the top level of my USB drive. Went into the SU7folder and made a shortcut for the SU7 .exe file. Put copies of the shortcut where I needed them. Done!
    14 Now I have 2 SU7 shortcuts on my desktop. If I click one it starts up SU7 from the main HD and if I click the other it starts up from the USB drive. So far I don't see any interferences. And I store most of my drawings in a file on the USB drive. As far as I can tell I have no problem opening them from either installation.

Be interested to hear if others have similar success. Or if you have any problems. I don't want to damage my students computers.

John

Here's the question: Will there be unexpected problems for students at home? (You'll have to read further to understand.)

I'm teaching SU7 at a local Senior College. Because the University's cluster system disk image erases all personal files it is impossible to create and save fully customized SU workspaces. This causes a headache with the students as every time they come to class they have to re-customize their work areas.... very time consuming and annoying.

The only workaround I've found is to install SU7 on a USB flash drive and run it from there. The install wizard didn't like it. It wouldn't let me install a working version on the USB drive unless I tricked it. But I was able to create a working version on the USB drive. It took a bit of doing... copying file sets, and uninstalling and reinstalling SketchUp off my system's hard drive and the USB drive. But I apparently now have Working independent versions on both my system hard drive and on a USB drive.

In brief "beta" trials with my own system I have not found any problems. I can operate from either installation and it seems to work just fine. But I am a little leary because the Wizard wouldn't let me do it unless I lead it to believe there was no other SU installation visible.

I'd like to give each student a USB drive installed version of SU for use in class. Since they all will have their own SU installations at home, are there any possible hazards if one of them should run SU7 from the USB drive at home?

I'm most familiar with the Mac. Details of WinXP operations are not my area of expertise. Can some of you more familiar with WinXP hazard some guesses as to whether there'll be any bad effects of using the thumb drive for portability?

Thanks.
John

Hi Jeff - It's a little hard to diagnose exactly what's happening without a bit more detail on how you went about moving the prefs.

The best way to do this is to create a template (See SU Help) and save it on your flash drive.
Any setting you make in the preferences including your keyboard shortcuts will be saved there along with whatever "styles" setting you select.

Once you have it safely tranfserred to your hard drive, you must go back to Windows/Preferences, select the template item then browse and select the template file you made and saved from the other machine. For me this seems to work even across the Mac/Win platform divide.

HTH

John