How to? Create a portable version of TCMD to use on other computers w/o installation

[evensenm]

I'm a little confused by the documentation, but what exactly do I need to do to put a registered copy of TCMD v21 on a USB Thumb Drive that I can run on someone else's computer without needing to install the product on their machine? I've got a thumb drive with a bunch of freeware diagnostic and recovery tools, including a bootable version of Windows PE, and instead of or aside of running CMD.EXE, I'd like to have TCMD/TCC on that thumb drive which I can run for any command line usage needs. Obviously I don't want to install anything on the target machine's hard drive, so I just want TCMD/TCC to run directly from the thumb drive (and of course be registered). Does the "USB (Portable) Key" option actually install a portable copy of TCMD/TCC on the USB drive, or does it just store registration information on the USB drive and I must do something else to actually install/copy the software to the USB drive? Also, would it still be possible to "Unregister" the USB drive just like with a computer registration, in case I want to use a different USB drive in the future or want to free up that registration? Just curious about what I should do to create a totally portable version of TCMD/TCC to use on someone else's computer without installing anything on their computer.

 

[rconn]

You need to tell the TCMD installer to install on the USB drive. When you register, you select "USB (portable) key" and the registration routine will place the key on the thumb drive instead of the default location on C:.

You can unregister a USB installation the same way as if you installed on C:.

 

[vefatica]

What's the procedure if you want it installed on both a fixed drive and a portable drive? Whichever you do first, won't the Windows installer (when you try it again) give you only the options to repair or uninstall?

 

[evensenm]

I ran into that problem too, which was part of the reason for my original post. I ended up setting up a virtual machine (w/o Take Command being installed in it) and used it to install TC onto the thumb drive, and registered it with the USB key option within there. The thumb drive installation works successfully on multiple computers that I tested it with. But it still seems like an issue to have to use another computer or VM to install the thumb drive version without having to uninstall from your main computer first.

 

[DMagician]

Done as written, installation and registering is OK, "ver /r" shows the "Registered to... ... ..."
but after exit and restart, goes to:
"Your evaluation period expires in 25 days"