Portable Drive Installation

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Thanks to Alex B for taking time to write this. Portable Installation can be found by using the Custom Install option of MC. It's useful for installing MC to a USB drive or any portable drive, then running MC from it when attached to any Windows PC. It's only available from a licensed copy of MC.

The following are Alex B's instructions for moving data to a portable drive. It's also possible to just copy media files to the portable drive and tell MC to import them, but you won't get playlists, etc.

-- JimH

Since MC12, the Rename Files From Properties tool has now a new option: Copy to new location and update database to point to new location

Here is how you can use it:

  1. Create a cloned copy of your library with Library Manager.
  2. Connect your removable drive.
  3. Use the above mentioned tool for copying the files and fixing the database accordingly.
  4. Create a library backup file and save it on the same drive.
  5. Connect the drive with your laptop. (You need to make sure that both PCs use the same drive letter for the drive.)
  6. Restore the library backup file on your laptop.

If the library has excess files that were not copied you can remove them at any stage because the library is not your original library (alternatively, just use a view scheme rule to hide their presence).

This method fully preserves the playlists, view schemes and statistics.

The newly created library is not tied to the portable or standard installation. You can restore the backup file on either type of MC instance.

Unfortunately this system does not handle updates. However, if you have a fast external drive it should not be too slow to completely recreate the copied archive from time to time. If you just want to add a few recent albums you can copy them manually and import on the laptop.

Thanks Alex B



See http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=78020.msg530204#msg530204