Office 07 on an ext HD

[vpvitucci]

First I want to thank everyone that responed to my previous question. So
thanks if you happen to read this one as well.

How about loading Office'07 on an external HD? Such as a WD Passport. Right
now I only have Office'07 loaded on 2 computers, so theoretically the
external HD would be the 3rd drive and should therefore work....no? And would
give me the portabiltiy I want and safety in the case of a pc crash.

Let me know what ya think.

Thanks

 

[Michael]

Installing to an external drive will install, but in terms of portability,
that will not work. When you install Office, a huge number of files get
added and modified on the local Windows installation. If you take that
drive and try to run it from another computer that it was not initially
installed to, none of those files will be available as well as changes to
the registry. Also, Office requires activation. If you try to run Office
on a different computer, it too would require activation. You are only
allowed so many activations.

Michael

 

[Rainald Taesler]

First I want to thank everyone that responed to my previous
question. So thanks if you happen to read this one as well.

Yes, we do ;-)
But why did you open a new thread?
It's the same issue as in your previous thread and it would have been
better to keep things together. Bad to have things in two places now
:-( :-(

How about loading Office'07 on an external HD? Such as a WD
Passport.

The issue is the same as with a flash-drive - technically and legally.

1.) As said in the old thread, Office apps are heavily relying on the
Registry.
The WG HDDs you are having in mind are coming with "FreeAgent". This is
just "Ceedo" [1] which in the old thread "YouBetcha" had been pointing
to.
One can use that with the Add-on "Argo" to install applications. You'd
have to buy the add-on. [1]

Since YouBetcha's suggestion I ran several trials of installing ON on a
stick/SB-card in my Vista-system. No success so far. I always got
errors.
In the Ceedo forum I read that the install should be run under XP, so I
re-installed my old HDD with XP. It did not install properly with the
first attempt where I had unselected everything which is not core ON.
In the very moment the system is trying to install an the SD-card with
the full content of the ON-CD. It seems to take forever.
I'll report how things develop

Right now I only have Office'07 loaded on 2 computers, so
theoretically the external HD would be the 3rd drive and should
therefore work....no? And would give me the portabiltiy I want and
safety in the case of a pc crash.

2.) The question of the necessary licence has been raised in the old
thread already.
It's not easy at all and we'd have to go through the EULA in detail.
I suggest that we should continue in the old thread.

At first sight I think that an install on a portable devices and the
usage on other computers will not be covered by the permission for a
third computer.

Rainald
[1] http://www.ceedo.com/
[2] http://www.ceedoready.com/addons/eng/argo/index.php

 

[vpvitucci]

Thanks for the input. Sorry for the multiple threads, point well taken.

First I want to thank everyone that responed to my previous
question. So thanks if you happen to read this one as well.

Yes, we do ;-)
But why did you open a new thread?
It's the same issue as in your previous thread and it would have been
better to keep things together. Bad to have things in two places now
:-( :-(

How about loading Office'07 on an external HD? Such as a WD
Passport.

The issue is the same as with a flash-drive - technically and legally.

1.) As said in the old thread, Office apps are heavily relying on the
Registry.
The WG HDDs you are having in mind are coming with "FreeAgent". This is
just "Ceedo" [1] which in the old thread "YouBetcha" had been pointing
to.
One can use that with the Add-on "Argo" to install applications. You'd
have to buy the add-on. [1]

Since YouBetcha's suggestion I ran several trials of installing ON on a
stick/SB-card in my Vista-system. No success so far. I always got
errors.
In the Ceedo forum I read that the install should be run under XP, so I
re-installed my old HDD with XP. It did not install properly with the
first attempt where I had unselected everything which is not core ON.
In the very moment the system is trying to install an the SD-card with
the full content of the ON-CD. It seems to take forever.
I'll report how things develop

Right now I only have Office'07 loaded on 2 computers, so
theoretically the external HD would be the 3rd drive and should
therefore work....no? And would give me the portabiltiy I want and
safety in the case of a pc crash.

2.) The question of the necessary licence has been raised in the old
thread already.
It's not easy at all and we'd have to go through the EULA in detail.
I suggest that we should continue in the old thread.

At first sight I think that an install on a portable devices and the
usage on other computers will not be covered by the permission for a
third computer.

Rainald
[1] http://www.ceedo.com/
[2] http://www.ceedoready.com/addons/eng/argo/index.php

 

[vpvitucci]

Just a thought, I guess my best bet for portability will be either using
Office Live workspace or maybe a non MS ap such as OpenOffice. Reallly like
OneNote and the rest of Office'07 though.

First I want to thank everyone that responed to my previous
question. So thanks if you happen to read this one as well.

Yes, we do ;-)
But why did you open a new thread?
It's the same issue as in your previous thread and it would have been
better to keep things together. Bad to have things in two places now
:-( :-(

How about loading Office'07 on an external HD? Such as a WD
Passport.

The issue is the same as with a flash-drive - technically and legally.

1.) As said in the old thread, Office apps are heavily relying on the
Registry.
The WG HDDs you are having in mind are coming with "FreeAgent". This is
just "Ceedo" [1] which in the old thread "YouBetcha" had been pointing
to.
One can use that with the Add-on "Argo" to install applications. You'd
have to buy the add-on. [1]

Since YouBetcha's suggestion I ran several trials of installing ON on a
stick/SB-card in my Vista-system. No success so far. I always got
errors.
In the Ceedo forum I read that the install should be run under XP, so I
re-installed my old HDD with XP. It did not install properly with the
first attempt where I had unselected everything which is not core ON.
In the very moment the system is trying to install an the SD-card with
the full content of the ON-CD. It seems to take forever.
I'll report how things develop

Right now I only have Office'07 loaded on 2 computers, so
theoretically the external HD would be the 3rd drive and should
therefore work....no? And would give me the portabiltiy I want and
safety in the case of a pc crash.

2.) The question of the necessary licence has been raised in the old
thread already.
It's not easy at all and we'd have to go through the EULA in detail.
I suggest that we should continue in the old thread.

At first sight I think that an install on a portable devices and the
usage on other computers will not be covered by the permission for a
third computer.

Rainald
[1] http://www.ceedo.com/
[2] http://www.ceedoready.com/addons/eng/argo/index.php

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Just a thought, I guess my best bet for portability will be either
using Office Live workspace or maybe a non MS ap such as
OpenOffice. Reallly like OneNote and the rest of Office'07 though.

Is there a note-taking application in Open Office?

Rainald
P.S. I was successful with my install on a stick with Ceedo + Argo. ON
runs on my computers not having ON (under XP as well as Vista).
I'll report in the old group

 

[YouBetcha]

Very interesting!! Kudos for "sticking it out" (sorry, couldn't help the
pun).

 

[Josh Einstein]

Though kinda like using a bazooka to hunt, you can check out VMWare's ACE
product. With it you can create compact virtual machines that are deployed
to a removable drive. They will literally boot up a full Windows
installation on any Mac or PC and using their "unity" mode, you could have
OneNote just appear on the desktop like other apps.

I haven't used ACE but I do use VMWare workstation and on modern hardware
(such as an Intel Core 2 Duo) the performance is exceptional. But again,
this may be a bit of overkill because it requires you to create a complete
Windows installation on the VM image. However, it's not limited to OneNote
at all.

Josh

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Very interesting!! Kudos for "sticking it out" (sorry, couldn't
help the pun).

It's not *ME* to be held liable!! <gbg>
It just was *YOU* who had mentioned this possibility!!

It works.
Not too fast in my testing environment with an SD card (to be honest:
that slow that it is hardly usable).
But it works!!

As said, I will report in the thread where you had come up with this
solution.

Thanks a lot - once more - for pointing to Ceedo!!

Rainald

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Thanks for jumping in, dear Josh!
WE (or at least me) have been missing You in this newsgroup and - the
more <!> - in the TabletPC newsgroup.
The latter has become really dull and week after week I am missing the
knowledgeable input from your side (as well as Rich's participation)
{siiiiigh}..

Though kinda like using a bazooka to hunt, you can check out
VMWare's ACE product. With it you can create compact virtual
machines that are deployed to a removable drive. They will
literally boot up a full Windows installation on any Mac or PC and
using their "unity" mode, you could have OneNote just appear on the
desktop like other apps.

I haven't used ACE but I do use VMWare workstation and on modern
hardware (such as an Intel Core 2 Duo) the performance is
exceptional. But again, this may be a bit of overkill because it
requires you to create a complete Windows installation on the VM
image. However, it's not limited to OneNote at all.

Following "YouBetcha"'s hint in the previous thread,
(Message-ID: <[email protected]>)
I meanwhile was successful in installing OneNote on an USB-stick
(SD-Card + Reader) with Ceedo plus Argo.
It needs nothing more than installing "Ceedo" and installing ON from
there (using the "Argo" installer from there).
It works from each portable storage device (regardless of its type).
Simply fantastic!!
AFAICS with a medium fast enough OneNote might be made "portable".

I would appreciate it if we could work together on this topic.
As to my experience making OneNote really *portable* would be the best
thing after the invention of "sliced bread" (<gbg>).

Rainald
P.S. Thanks for pointing to "ACE". Will check the other day.
P.P.S. From my experience with my students, IMHO OneNote would really
be a "winning" application if it would be "portable".

 

[YouBetcha]

I commend you for taking this on because it is one thing to know about a
possibility, and quite another thing to put forth the effort to try several
packages and make it work (and I'm sure it took a few tries!).

I think now the slowness of the flash drives are something of a barrier, but
this ultimately makes the software more useable to a broader audience. Not
everyone owns a laptop, others are restricted from installing software
directly on their work computers. Or they like the privacy aspect.
Eventually, the flash drives will become big enough and fast enough to make
this worthwhile, I think (although, USB hard drives are now very large and
affordable, and reasonably compact).

Plus, again, I think that if this all isn't within the scope of current
licencing, it should be (you are using one copy of the software for your own
use, and meeting the "one copy of a book" analogy).

 

[Rainald Taesler]

I commend you for taking this on because it is one thing to know
about a possibility, and quite another thing to put forth the
effort to try several packages and make it work (and I'm sure it
took a few tries!).

Yes, I had to try it several times and I was not successful under Vista.
Following a suggestion in Ceedo's forum, I then tried it under XP (using
my second PC and inserting the old HDD with XP).
It needed several trials there too. I could not manage to make a "slim"
install with ON only (leaving out the additional MS Office tools etc.).
Too bad that there is no list of the "essentials" ON has to be installed
with :-( :-(
But in the end I was successful with a full install of the downloaded
trial version. It took very loooong. But is this is possibly due to the
fact I tried it with an SD card.

And it's really slow when run a computer which does not have ON
installed.
Ways faster when the stick is attached to a computer which has ON
installed. Then ON is running from the computer even when started from a
stick.

I think now the slowness of the flash drives are something of a
barrier,

For sure.
I'll get a "fast" stick the other day and try it again.
Probably a "solid state" disk would be a possibility.
I do not have one {siiiigh} and they are too expensive just for testing
:-(

but this ultimately makes the software more useable to a
broader audience.

I fully agree.

Not everyone owns a laptop, others are
restricted from installing software directly on their work
computers.

Yes. I see this daily when passing out "student' computer pools". ON is
not installed there and it would be of tremendous help could the users
plug in a stick or a disk and work with that.

Or they like the privacy aspect.

YES! This for sure is an aspect as the cache contains everything and it
can be read!

Eventually, the flash
drives will become big enough and fast enough to make this
worthwhile, I think (although, USB hard drives are now very large
and affordable, and reasonably compact).

AFAICS 2.5" USB-drives are small enough to carry them around.

Plus, again, I think that if this all isn't within the scope of
current licensing, it should be (you are using one copy of the
software for your own use, and meeting the "one copy of a book"
analogy).

I have not yet gone through the licence issues.
The "one copy of a book" analogy IMO has never been valid for anything
from MS.
It was the "Borland no-nonsense" licensing scheme (I came across that
with "Sidekick" back in 1965 when I got the IBM XT). Hardly any other
software producer followed this line.
And I doubt that MS will accept this. Would require quite some
re-thinking.

Did you check the MS EULAs?

Regards
Rainald