Run Rhino From USB Drive

Rhino Rhino for Windows
1

Is it possible to run Rhino v4 portable from a USB drive so I can switch between my laptop and desktop computers?

If so what must be done to get it to work?

Thanks

2

Hi Rhinoman - No… but you can install Rhino on two computers that are in your control and which will not be using the same Rhino license at the same time, ever.

-Pascal

3

Hi Pascal,

It’s probably on the heap somewhere but:
It would be great to have a system where I can transfer my rhino setup with all options etc from workstation to workstation.

This would be a system where I have a USB stick with all relevant options stored.
When I run an executable from the stick, it searches for the Rhino installation on the machine. And if found runs it yet with the settings from the stick.

my2c
-Willem

5

There’s a lot more than settings and licensing that would need to change about Rhino to be able to run it from removable media. Right now, Rhino gets a bunch of information about installed plug-ins, template files, and other localized resources from a combination of the local file system and the Windows Registry. Also, some arguably unnecessary parts of Rhino (like seeing thumbnails of 3DM files in Windows Explorer) wouldn’t work.

There’s no effort being made to make Rhino runnable from removable media, though we do see a future where settings could be sync’d to one of our servers via your Rhino account. This might make it easier to drop into a familiar environment on any computer. Yet even that has quite a lot of work to do, as I imagine you’d want not only your settings and toolbars, but also your plug-ins.

6

Hi Brian,

Yes it will indeed be a major project, I realize that. Currently however it’s not very straightforward to keep 2 installations of Rhino synchronized when it comes to basics like toolbars en settings/options.

For me it would already be very useful to be able to sync a scheme between 2 systems. Better still if I could distribute a scheme over various installations.

But for now I guess you guys have bigger fish to fry :fish:

just my2c
-Willem

7

That’s a markedly different problem. Synchronizing settings and toolbars is much easier than letting Rhino run from a USB stick. But you’re right, neither are on the docket for V6.

8

In my post this what what I was trying to propose, in a apparently convoluted way:

Basically the executable I was proposing would handle the on the fly parsing of settings stored on the stick towards the Rhino executable.

IN other words: The Rhino executable installed on the machine would get an argument to make it load/read all settings-options-toolbars in a file/archive/folder stored on the stick. Instead of loading the settings from the machine.

-Willem

-Willem

9

Oh, I see. I wasn’t getting that.

Would you be opposed to just signing in to Rhino using your Rhino Account and bypassing the stick completely?

10

Willem,

You can keep toolbar files, scripts, render content, template files and the like in Dropbox, and point your Rhino installations there. Works great as long as you don’t leave Rhino open on both machines at the same time, then you get file conflicts.

2 Likes
11

Nope, that indeed would be the 2017 version as opposed to having to carry hardware around. :slight_smile:

I would however make it so, one can have multiple setups/schemes saved in one account. Much like I now use 2 schemes for different type of projects.

-Willem

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12

Hi Willem,
some weeks ago, we made a wish on the same idea you are explaining.
We asked to perform a better use of Rhino schemes linked to an User Login.
The idea come out from the “Login” in the wip splash screen.
So,

  1. User can choose the schema to load during splash screen (modeling, rendering, cnc, visualization… etc. etc.)
  2. Scheme and toolbars are saved locally and on Mcneel servers to have sincronization between different computers and to have a backup too (how many times we had to rebuild interface due to Rhino’s opening problems?)
  3. If you have a .3dm with a scheme saved toghether, you can choose to load it when opening the file.
    Other benefits from making a user login would be the link to discourse or mcneel assistance so Rhino could give a direct access User - McNeel.
    To manage locally scheme access we asked to use zoo as license/scheme/toolbar manager… could be… don’t know…
    Here’s the italian discourse post http://it.discourse.mcneel.com/t/wip-6-login/1140?u=lucio_zadra
    Ciao
1 Like