Family Historian User Group

Can FH be run as a portable application from a Flash Drive? I want to be able to take it with me to show other people how it works. Using Portableapps.com I'm able to run such programs as GIMP and Audacity from my Flash Drive. I'm hoping there's some way I can do the same with Family Historian. Would be grateful for any advice.

ID:6782

I have got it working using Camyo previously, but some people reported issues with antivirus programs see

http://www.fhug.org.uk/cgi-bin/index.cg ... y&num=6214

Thank you. I had a look at Cameyo, but I already have FH installed on my computer and I don't want to uninstall it as it took me ages to configure it exactly as I wanted it.

If you use the Backup and Restore Family Historian Settings Plugin, then you can Backup and UN-install FH, then RE-install FH and Restore to get ALL your settings back (except for the Location of the Projects folder, and the Backups folder).

Thank you for that. I'll give it some thought. I've done so much configuring of FH to suit me personally that I'm a bit nervous about uninstalling it. I wasn't aware there was a plug in for backing up and restorining the settings. I'd like to use the plugin in any case as I've had several computer breakdowns that have caused me some heartache when I've had to reinstall. Can you tell me how to find it please? Also, having read the instructions on how to install onto a flash drive using Cameyo, it's as clear as mud. I could use some step by step instruction.

To download the plugin click on the link Mike posted in his message.

Thank you. I hadn't noticed the link.

OK, now I've installed the plugin - where is it and how do I use it?

You run plugins from the Tools>Plugins option on the menu and then double clicking on the option you downloaded, once there press the HELP button for details of how to use the plugin.

Thank you for all your help.

I too had a need for a USB version to use away from home. The http://www.cameyo.com solution worked well for me, but as I already had FH installed I created a VM a clean (WIn7) installation as I had the ISO file. Cameyo recommends using a virtual machine anyway.

Steps are:

1. Install Oracle VM, good instructions here https://www.extremetech.com/computing/1 ... al-machine
2. Run your new VM
3. Download and install http://www.cameyo.com on your virtual machine. You probably only need to read the introductory page to the guide here http://www.cameyo.com/doc/index.html
4. When Cameyo runs for the first time it will prompt to "Capture an installation" which takes a snapshot of your system before installing FH.
5. Install FH on your VM (I installed V6 and then the 6.2.2 upgrade)
6. Then run the final stage of Cameyo to capture the after installation state of the virtual machine. That's when you click "Install done"
7. It creates executable file, in my case a file "Family H.cameyo.exe" which was 108MB
8. Copy this to a USB stick and run it from another machine

Can you satisfy my curiosity?
When the USB is run on another PC where are the Windows Registry settings and the C:\ProgramData\Calico Pie\Family Historian\ folder of settings files?
My suspicion is that they all revert to defaults.

There is a description of how Cameyo does this here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameyo. When you run the app the first time it creates an extra folder on the USB with a set of system files and folders. The next time you run the app it starts much faster, in fact not much slower than a desktop installation.