Make a portable installation of Skychart

A portable install mean you install Skychart on a removable media (USB stick) and you can plug it to any PC to run the application without any further configuration.
This require a version more recent than 3.7-2196 to properly handle any change in the media mount point on different computer.

The example is given here for Windows but you can do almost the same on Linux, in this case use the tar installer for an easy setup.

The commands suppose your removable media is mounted on E: change accordingly if it use another letter.

This description use mostly a command line window for the clarity of the explanation but you can also use the equivalent graphical tool.
To open a command line window use the Start menu → Accessories → Command Prompt

1) Create a new folder on your removable media:

E:
mkdir portable_skychart
cd \portable_skychart

2) Copy the program code:

xcopy /S "C:\Program Files\Ciel\*"  Ciel\

If you not want to install the Skychart software on your computer, see the additional steps below

3) Create a folder for the program configuration:

cd \portable_skychart
mkdir userdata

4) Create a startup script:

cd \portable_skychart
notepad skychart.cmd

Type the following and save the file:

@ECHO off
set basedir=%CD%
start %basedir%\Ciel\skychart.exe --config="%basedir%\userdata\skychart.ini" --userdir="%basedir%\userdata"

Now you can plug this USB stick on any (Windows) computer and run the program with a double click on skychart.cmd.

Optional steps

Extract Skychart without running the installer setup

You need a specific program to extract the files from the Windows installer without to run it.

1) Get innounp from http://sourceforge.net/projects/innounp/files/ and put the file in E:\portable_skychart :

2) To extract the files use 7zip or the following command line:

unrar e innounp036.rar

3) Get CdC windows installer from http://ap-i.net/skychart
A portable install require a version more recent than 3.7-2196. Copy the file in E:\portable_skychart

4) Extract the CdC files without running the installer:

innounp.exe -x skychart-3.7-2196-windows.exe

5) Rename the application directory:

move {app} Ciel

6) Delete the unneeded files:

del innounp036.rar  innounp.exe innounp.htm install_script.iss skychart-3.7-2196-windows.exe
rmdir /S {userappdata}

Do not let any trace in the registry

If you not want to let any trace in the registry of the computer you need to inactivate the server functionality. Otherwise a registry key indicating the connection port is created.

cd userdata
notepad skychart.ini

Locate the line starting with AutostartServer, set the following and save the file:

[main]
AutostartServer=0

Copy the program setting

Since skychart-3.7-2196 it is possible to copy the configuration file skychart.ini from an existing installation to the userdata folder.

Another option is to save and reload a chart using the menu File/Save as , File/Open.