Are there any thumbdrive applications for...
1 - File Copying
... I'm trying to copy the entire My Documents folder to another disk and XP Pro tells me some of the file names are to long... and then aborts the copy. Then I have to spend a lot of time to try and find out which file... change the name... then completely start over as the XP Copy command won't resume where from where it aborted.
2 - Disk Imaging Application
... We need a simple thumb drive application that will let us...
..... Create an image of a hard disk (Saved to a CD or DVD, of course)
..... Re-Deploy the image back to a hard disk
This will be used in a classroom application where you want to get 20 computers back to the original configuration before a new class starts (re-image once a week)
3 - Concept Mapping
... Is there a thumb drive application (or cloud app) that will do Concept Mapping like the program Inspiration ??
Thanks for any help.
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Edit: Updated link to Freemind.
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
since there are far too many apps around which will make a copy or image or what ever, but many are not capable of restoring anything without lot of hand work after.
Copy can be done by software called snappshot (google for) which operates from stick and is small.
But to restore it? Huuh, you need to boot into dos, other tools into linux and then restore the system partition.
For my XP it takes I think some 2hrs, so do it 20x times? Vista needs then be repaired from the original installation disk etc. Well yes, the people who sell you all this will tell you: we sold you a backup software, not a restore software.
Mostly people can not very well explain how to restore system with it without pain.
OK, there is expensive imaging software on the market, this will allow you to do the op on all 20 units at the same time if you have the money to spend.
It will not be cheap in such case anyway.
In one computer school around the corner they use:
PC boots quiet and goes into virtual machine where the 'school' system is installed.
When needed, the virtual machine is stopped, and all PC in the class get the same virtual machine back.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
- FreeMind: I tried to download and use FreeMind 0.9 Beta but for some reason it didn't seem to want to run on my XP Pro machine. Maybe I'll try later... but then I'm wondering if it is for Mac ? Is there a FreeMind forum where I can post questions abot the program?
- Toucan: I've downloaded this and will try it.
- Virtual Machine: I'm not sure how to set up a "virtual" XP machine on an XP Box... but that sounds like a much better idea than attempting to restore 20 images every week. Maybe someone would help me learn how what software we would need to setup "virtual machines" and install MS Office or other software for a classroom environment.
Thanks for all the help everybody.
There is a Freemind Portable here https://portableapps.com/node/10952.
Do you have Java installed on either the hardive or pendrive? I use it occasionally for mind mapping ideas for my course.
Dell XPS M1530 Laptop
Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 2.5GHz
4GB Ram
256MB GeForce 8600M GT
The launcher is for Windows, but the .jar file is (I believe) is Java written to run in most Java environments.
If you are having trouble making it work, please provide information in the FreemindPortable topic. In particular the .\FreemindPortableBeta\Data\settings\FreemindPortableSettings.ini has two lines of debug information that might help to figure out what's happening ...
But it would be off-topic to go into it more here.
MC
Take a look at Clonezilla http://clonezilla.org/ . This looks like it will do what you need for imaging, but you will have to do the final analysis.
Clair
http://partedmagic.com/
Which is an open source disk partitioning software.
I've used it from a Live CD, and it is very easy to use - GUI frontend and all that.
It also includes a copy of Partition Image, which is the basis for Clonezilla, but I haven't used that yet.
Both sites have instructions on making them work in bootable USB drives, and lots of screenshots.
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
If you're just looking to roll back machine changes, then a much easier solution would be Returnil or DeepFreeze. These two programs remove all changes made to a computer during a session via simple reboot. Returnil is free for personal use, but the pro version has some nice features like persistence between reboots if you choose. To make permanent updates, you can just take the machine out of it's "frozen" state, make your changes, and re-enable the protection.
Otherwise, for that many machines you're looking at some software like Ghost that can restore an image from a central network location.
EDIT: just checking it out, and Clonezilla also looks good as a Ghost alternative to restore to all your machines at once via network.
Image for Windows works; have used it with PortableApps under both native and GeekMenu configs.
I "built" my install of it some time ago using the Portable Apps Compiler toolkit from hereabouts.
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-windows.htm
You _WILL_ need to install the Phylock Open Files extension as well if attempting to use this on a server machine in the same way with PAC - which means you need to start Phylock from your menu before using Image.
IfW isn't hugely powerful in terms of options, but it IS fast. I've used it to replace a failing boot array in a Dell server in under 2 hours, and it can also resize partitions on the target as required.
Note that this is not freeware, but a] it is very cheap and b] the according to the author the license is a one time payment and then install/use as many times as you require it.
Hope this helps,
Robert