Portable HP Prime Emulator
#1

Is it possible to install the HP Prime Emulator on portable USB stick so that i could switch between several PC's without install the Emulator locally (because of restricted user rights on pc's on universities or high schools)? That would be a smasher - also compared to TI !

#2

You should try copying all the files from the install folder on your USB stick and see if it works when launched directly from there, on another PC.

Also, just so you know, the TI-Nspire community emulator is just an .exe to run, nothing to install ;)

#3

Quote:
Is it possible to install the HP Prime Emulator on portable USB stick

Yes, that's quite simple! :-)

You only need to change one string in HPPrime.exe with an hexeditor, and that's the Unicode-string APPDATA which should be changed to HPPRIME (for example). After this patch the data files are no longer put into %APPDATA%\HP_Prime but instead into \HP_Prime in the current main-directory (on the USB stick).

Do you know how to make this patch with an hexeditor, or should I provide a ready-to-use solution (i.e. an automatic patch-file)?

PS: Or an other idea which needs no patching at all:

1) copy your installed HP-Prime folder to an USB-stick

2) in this folder on the USB-stick create a batch-file 'PortablePrime.bat' (or 'PortablePrime.cmd' if you prefer) with the following content:

@echo off
set APPDATA=.
start HPPrime.exe
3) now always start the Prime-emulator with 'PortablePrime.bat' (instead of directly with 'HPPrime.exe') - this will create (and use) the data-directory 'HP_Prime' within your emulator folder on the USB-stick.

There may be only one problem: it could be that you need admin rights to (temporarily) change the %APPDATA% variable - I don't know because I'm always working as admin on my PC. If this method works only as admin, then the above way with patching the HPPrime.exe must be used.

Franz


Edited: 3 Oct 2013, 9:01 a.m.

#4

Yes, the emulator will run just fine from anywhere. It does not yet have a "use local directory" setting for file storage though. I will put that in the list of possible future enhancements. Thank for the suggestion.

TW

Edited: 3 Oct 2013, 10:15 a.m.

#5

Wow! That works like a charm. I used HxD and chose replace all with UNICODE check box, well, checked.

Thank you Franz for the tip.

#6

Quote:
Wow! That works like a charm. I used HxD and chose replace all with UNICODE check box, well, checked.

Thank you Franz for the tip.


You're welcome, Miguel.

And if you don't want this data directory 'HP_Prime' to be in the root folder of the USB-stick, then you can just use the same trick I've described in my PS:

Run the emulator with a batchfile (as in my previous posting), and simply make the 2nd line 'set HPPRIME=.' (if you have replaced APPDATA by HPPRIME). Instead of '.' you can also use any other folder on your USB-stick.

Franz

#7

Thank you Franz. But i'm not an expert in Hex-editing. Can you provide a ready-to-use solution for me?

#8

Quote:
Thank you Franz. But i'm not an expert in Hex-editing. Can you provide a ready-to-use solution for me?

Ok, here are both methods:

http://www.hpmuseum.org/guest/fhub/method1.zip

http://www.hpmuseum.org/guest/fhub/method2.zip

Method1 is a patch for HPPrime.exe (just unzip it to the emulator folder and run Patch.bat): this method creates the data folder in the root of the USB-stick.

(BTW, running Patch.bat once more restores the original HPPrime.exe again, it works like a toggle)

Remark: works only for the last (i.e. current) emulator version from 13.8.2013!

Method2 is just a batchfile: unzip it to the emulator folder and run PortablePrime.bat whenever you want to use the emulator. This method creates the data folder within the emulator folder (and doesn't need to modify HPPrime.exe, thus will also work for any future versions).

Choose whatever method you like more ... ;-)

Edited: 3 Oct 2013, 5:23 p.m.



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