How to install Picasa Starter
Huck Rorick
earlboss
The problem is that PicasaStarter is installed in different ways
depending on what the user wants to use it for. In general,
PicasaStarter needs no installer or installation routine. You simply
unzip and copy the files in the zip file to a directory of your
choice. We generally make a folder called PicasaStarter on the drive
it is going to be used on and copy the files into that directory. If
it is going to be used on a portable drive the folder should be on
that drive, and the same if it is on a network drive.
The FAQs on this site suggest several ways to use PS, but we are going
to be revising the FAQs to include more basic installation
instructions, because at the moment they can be confusing to someone
who is new to the program even if they have used Picasa for a long
time.
What are you planning to do that requires PS, or do you just want to
try it out? In either case I can give you some hints about setting it
up.
Make sure you have backups of your pictures and the Picasa Database
before you risk trying out any new stuff!
Can you tell me your set up?
Where do you have your pictures?
Do you have a drive dedicated to Pictures?
What OS? XP? Win7?
Are you trying to use it on a network? Portable drive?
Best Regards,
Earl
Huck Rorick
Hi Earl,
Thank you very much for your help.
My objectives are:
1. To have the Picasa database on an external USB drive. This is because I don't have enough room on my C drive.
2. To be able to attach the USB drive to another computer and access the Picasa database from there.
My setup is:
Laptop computer with Windows 7 and small (relatively) solid state hard drive
1 TB USB drive (which I have named "P" per suggestions in the FAQ)
New Desktop computer (on the way, not yet arrived) with Windows 7
I have all my pictures on "P".
They are in multiple folders. I don't want to group them all in one folder (there are various reasons for having them where they are). I basically have all my data for all programs of all types on the "P" drive. I keep some on C so that they are always accessible and fast to work with, but I copy them daily to P. I have more data on P than will fit on C. C has 250 GB storage with 125 GB used. P has 1 TB storage with about 375 GB used. I expect to add a lot more to P.
I think I might have already made some mistakes.
I created 3 folders on drive "P"
P:\PicasaStarter
P:\PicasaData
P:\PicasaProgram
I put all the PicasaStarter files in the folder P:\PicasaStarter
In PicasaStarter I set Base Directory to P:\PicasaData
PicasaStarter lists Full Directory as P:\PicasaData\Local Settings\Application Data\Google
I told Picasa to install itself in P:\PicasaProgram. Per your comment, that may have been a mistake. I don't know what will happen when I install Picasa on another computer. E.g. what if I tell the other computer to install in the same place on P? Would it be best for me to uninstall Picasa and reinstall on C?
Any advice for me?
Huck
earlboss
The only thing that I see as questionable is having the Picasa program
installed on the P drive. I think you will have to install it on every
PC you use PicasaStarter on anyway, and it will still put it's data in
the C drive apps data directory, so all you are saving is the Program
itself, and it is less than 100 MB (73 MB on my PC), so you are not
saving much space. I know you would like it to be completely portable,
and not alter the host PC in any way, but I don't think you have any
choice here with Picasa.
I would just put the Picasa program installer on the P drive, and then
use it to install Picasa on any PC that doesn't have it already.
After you install Picasa, when you run it on the PC for the first time
it will ask to scan everything or just picture directories. You can
interrupt that by going to tools - folder manager and exclude all
folders (Except maybe My Pictures if there are a few pictures the user
may want to look at there). This will make the database on the C:
drive very small, and I bet you won't be using much more than 100 MB
total space on the C: drive. That should be small enough for anyone.
I don't think you will hurt anything by experimenting with Picasa on
the P drive, I just don't think that will get you away from having to
install it on every PC, so why add that complication? But if you still
want to try it, go ahead! You can always uninstall it later.
The Pictures can be in any folder on the P: drive, like you have them.
I was just suggesting that for a lot of people those folders might all
be collected in a single containing folder so they would be easy to
move if you ever wanted to move them.
In your case you probably have the pictures in folders that also
contain other things like documents using the pictures etc. so just
remember that if you use Picasa to move a folder, it will move the
whole folder including all the documents and any other things in the
folder.
Havwe fun, and keep us up to date on anything you discover or have
questions on.
Regards,
Earl
> I told Picasa to install itself in P:\PicasaProgram*. Per your comment,
> that may have been a mistake. I don't know what will happen when I install
> Picasa on another computer. E.g. what if I tell the other computer to
> install in the same place on P? Would it be best for me to uninstall
> Picasa and reinstall on C?*
earlboss
Just one possible problem I can think of is that since your pictures
are spread out over the P: drive, you will probably have to set the
whole drive to Scan Always in the tools-folder manager. This could
cause a slight problem in that Picasa may want to scan the Database
which is on the P drive also. If this causes a problem you may have
to use the tools-Folder Manager to do a Remove from Picasa for the
Local Settings folder in the database.
Earl
> > Huck- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Huck Rorick
earlboss
I am glad PicasaStarter is working for you, and thanks for the
instruction sheet. I will use portions and ideas from it in the user
guide which we are creating for PicasaStarter..
I am in the process of creating the User Guide which you can see from
the Navigation bar on the PicasaStarter home page. (Click on "User
Guide")
The only thing I think you should consider is installing Picasa
normally on the C: drive rather than the P: drive, because this just
seems to me to be adding unneeded complication and I am an advocate of
the KISS principle. I would change my mind in a hurry though if it
can be shown that Picasa will run on the P drive without installation
on the target PC. I will be playing with this on a Virtual Machine
just to see what happens in this case.
You mentioned RunPicasa in your sheet. RunPicasa is a specialized
program that maps the portable drive to another drive letter so if the
drive is plugged in to a PC and is automatically mapped to a drive
other than the P drive, RunPicasa can remap it on the fly to the P
drive. I am not pushing this to you right now because of the added
complication, but we are working on incorporating this remapping
scheme into PicasaStarter and when this is done you will be able to
plug in the drive and not worry about which drive letter it comes up
on. Watch for it in the next few weeks (I hope).
Thanks for your feedback!
Best Regards,
Earl
> PicasaStarterInstructions.docx
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