Beersmith on my flash drive thingy

I imagine the registration information is stored in the registry, while I believe in beersmith 1.4 it was stored on a file in the beersmith folder. At least there is a file in there called something like registration or something like that. Is there any chance the registration/activation data could be stored locally in the folder like in beersmith 1.4? I understand the concern for licensing, but software like this has a huge advantage of being portable. Maybe have a flash drive installation option where you can either install to a machine statically or have a flash drive version. Personally, I'd rather have the flash drive installation so if I had to make a choice I would easily choose the flash drive installation. I need my beersmith on the go since I work a lot and like to formulate recipes at work, or wherever I may be and have the free time.

Just another quick idea, some programs allow you to export a portable license. Perhaps that could be an option for Beersmith 2. Beersmith would look for in the primary location for the activation and if it does not find it, it can look in the same folder that holds the .exe file as a secondary location. The portable license would need to be refreshed by the program hosted on the main computer every 30 days or something. Maybe this would be too complex, but if someone copying the program and giving to someone else would be a concern, this could be a solution. Programs where I have seen this require you to select "Export portable license" from the file tab in the main install which could be your host computer. In some cases, you are required to pass the portable license file from computer to computer you want to use. This is a bit cumbersome if you are exporting from PC to PC, we do this with Autocad and it can be pain when going between PC's but to a flash drive would work pretty slick. But if you are able to export your license file to the flash drive, the only time you have to transfer it back is if you want to use it on your host computer without using the program on the flash drive.  I don't know if that would work for beersmith, I'm just brainstorming here.

Considering at this time, this topic has the most replies for a non-sticky post in the beersmith 2 thread, I think it is a sought after option that may be worth looking into.

I didn't even bother to install BS2 to my computer.  It was installed directly to my flash drive, right next to v1.4.  I'm far from home now, and haven't had the opportunity to try my flashdrive install in my home computers.  Honestly, portability is a huge boon for this type of program.  The ability to run 1 instance of Beersmith on my flashdrive is much more important to me than having two licenses.  With v1.4, I was constantly working between my work computer and 3 home computers using only 1 instance of Beersmith.  Not having this ability with BS2 is going to greatly diminish it's usefulness to me.

Brad, are there any plans to reinstate portability in BS2?

If not, I guess I'll be stuck with v1.4 forever.  :-\

Hi,
  The main reason for the change was to separate the documents from the program itself.  I ran into serious problems with BeerSmith 1.4 when Microsoft went to Vista and basically altered how every file in the "Program Files" directory was stored.  After Vista, everything written to the main program directory was put in the virtual store which most people could not find, access or backup.  This was also true for Windows 7.

  So when I built BeerSmith 2 I purposely separated the program files from the documents, and put all of the documents under your Documents/BeerSmith2 directory.

  I also built in the ability to change your Documents directory (on the File menu) - so you can host your documents on the flash drive and move between work and home.  Also you can already install BeerSmith on two computers using one registration code.

  In the fall I'm thinking of building a server option so you can have your recipes hosted in the cloud and access them from multiple computers.

Brad

Thanks for the explaination. I am using beersmith 2.0 on the laptop in my brewhouse and my main laptop and pointing to the flash drive. I can get by with that without issue. I just became too used to being able to work on things at the time I have now....like at work. From my flash drive. But since I have V1.4, I can still keep 1.4 on my flash drive, work on recipes or dink around with tweaking something, then still open the saved file from my flash drive in 2.0. But 2.0 is so slick I would much rather use that than version 1.4.

The cloud idea would be pretty sweet. Would you have a server license option where the program would pull the license information from the server?  Boy, you could open up a whole new world there. By selling (at a higher cost of course) a 10 user license (or licenses in blocks of 5)you could open up to a whole new market. Then Beersmith 2.0 could be purchased by a homebrew club and 10 users could use the program over the network. They could all swap recipes in the cloud and store club recipes on there as well. It would be a win for the clubs, and for you. The club could use that as a pitch to new memebers that with membership comes access to the clubs purchased version of Beersmith. It would also be a really great option for Microbreweries where they may have several brewers. I don't know if that is what you envisioned, but when you said server and cloud, that was the first major uses that popped into my head.

I have this issue as well.
Seems that when I use BS2 on my work computer the Flash Drive is assigned the F:\
But on my laptop it is assigned the G:\

I know I can change the assosicated drive letter in windows
this is under control panel --> Administrative Tools --> Computer Management
Then select disk management. right click on your flash drive and choose "Change Driver Letter and Paths"

You have to change the drive letter to the driver letter that the machine assigned the flashdrive when the application was first installed (i think)

It works for me then, but it is a real pain.  not to mention that on my laptop F:\ is assigned to a different drive.  So to get around the problem, I probably have to reinstall BS2. 

Really for the moment I think I might just go back to BS1.

joshuahardie said:

I have this issue as well.
Seems that when I use BS2 on my work computer the Flash Drive is assigned the F:\
But on my laptop it is assigned the G:\

I know I can change the assosicated drive letter in windows
this is under control panel --> Administrative Tools --> Computer Management
Then select disk management. right click on your flash drive and choose "Change Driver Letter and Paths"

You have to change the drive letter to the driver letter that the machine assigned the flashdrive when the application was first installed (i think)

It works for me then, but it is a real pain.  not to mention that on my laptop F:\ is assigned to a different drive.  So to get around the problem, I probably have to reinstall BS2. 

Really for the moment I think I might just go back to BS1.

Click to expand...

I had tried this, but did not have consistent results. On some machines it would work just by making sure it used the same drive letter and on other machines it still wouldn't run without asking for registration information.