W0007

Installing From A CD-ROM To Run From A Network Drive.

Platform: Windows
Program(s):

These instructions are no longer supported. It is usually more efficient and cost effective for you to upgrade to the latest version rather than following these instructions.

Versions before version 4 are 16 bit applications. These are not suitable for use on modern operating systems and cannot be run on 64 bit versions of Windows.

Do not follow the instructions below for newer versions of Betsi the Tudor Dog, The Evacuees, Guardians of the Greenwood and Patch the Puppy. The newer versions of these products use a standard MSI based installer. You can use the standard system software distribution policies (see Microsoft Knowledge base articles 314934 and 816102), or other tools which work with MSIs, to push the products out to each workstation. You can also do a stand alone install.

You can download a utility to set the CD path for The Evacuees, Betsi, Guardians of the Greenwood & Patch the Puppy here.

To set up one of the listed programs to run from a network drive rather than a shared CD-ROM drive you need to follow the instruction outlined below.

Program NameServer Space Required (Approx)'.ini' File Name
Betsi the Tudor Dog140Mbbetsi.ini
The Evacuees160Mbevacuees.ini
Find it, Fix it120Mbfifi.ini
Guardians of the Greenwood350Mbguardian.ini
Patch the Puppy300Mbpuppy.ini

Solution:

NB You need a network licence to share any of the listed programs on a network.

Server setup
  1. Create a new folder on the server for the program (e.g. betsi).
    NB This folder must be accessible from a READ ONLY network share.
  2. Copy all the files and folders except those in the root folder beginning with '_' to this new folder. Not all versions of the CDs have files in the root folder beginning with '_'. If your clients have Acrobat Reader installed then you do not need to copy the Reader folder.
  3. Change the permissions on the copied files and folders to Read & Execute, Read, List Folder Contents.
    NB If you have write or change permissions on the files / folders then you will be prompted for the CD-ROM when you run the program.
Client Setup
  1. Create shortcuts to the program file on the server.
  2. Use the utility downloaded above to set the path to the folder you created in step one of the server setup.

    or

    Edit (or create) the programs '.ini' file in the client machines windows directory (usually c:\windows) to contain the following lines:

    [Paths]
    CD=<pathname>

    Where <pathname> is the path to the program directory on the server e.g.:

    [Paths]
    CD=\\server1\shared\winapps\betsi\

Once the '.ini' file has been setup on one client machine, it can be copied to other client machines.

NB: If the path specified in the .ini file is not valid when the program is run, it will ask for the CD-ROM. In some network configurations UNC names do not work properly and a mapped drive needs to be used.