FireFly and PowerBASIC on a USB Key ?

[Jean-Pierre LEROY]

I would like to know if it is possible to install FireFly and PowerBASIC on an USB key; that way I would be able to run FireFly and PowerBASIC on various PC and Laptop.

Is-it possible ? as anyone else already try to do this ?

Thank you,
Jean-Pierre.

[TechSupport]

I run PowerBASIC on a USB connected external hard drive. I am not sure
if the registered version will work on a USB key because it requires your
username/key to be installed.....

[Philipp Emanuel Weidmann]

That's right. FireFly uses Armadillo for registration which stores its registration information in uncharted registry hives in the installation system's registry. If you copy the installed program onto an USB drive it will run as long as you plug the USB drive into the system on which it was installed. If you plug it into any other system it won't find its registration info and will default to unregistered mode at best, but most likely refuse to run at all since it thinks it's been tampered with.

[Roger Garstang]

The key is stored in the registry and the settings in the ini file.  Since all is really needed is the compiler and the api declares you could put FF in a folder and have another folder under it called PB and/or API and have the compiler and api includes there and setup FF's ini through FF by setting the locations in the options.  might even edit the ini so it has the locations relative if not already like .\PB\PBcompiler.exe

The key is just a simple registry location and I made a .REG import file for mine...the location has a weird name, so I don't know if it is an Armadillo thing or if Paul is trying to hide it, so I won't post the location, but SysInternals RegMon can find the location for you...just run it when it asks for the key and watch for where it is wrote.

[Philipp Emanuel Weidmann]

Well I guess if writing the reginfo to the registry on each system you are using it on is acceptable, you might as well save your registration information to a text file on the USB drive and whenever running FireFly on a new system just enter it into the prompt... that saves you from trying to delve into Armadillo's storage location which I actually think is hardware dependant (at least that's what the Armadillo documentation claims).