Program seems to insist on writing to a shared network drive

[Jace]

Hi, we purchased 30 copies of Oxygen 5.1 for our labs. It is running on Windows XP Pro. The first lab of 12 machines went smooth.

The other lab I have a slight problem with the install.
All of these machines were given temporary admin privileges on the lab account to install the software. The working lab they were just installed on the local admin account. This may be a reason but I am unsure why that would make the difference.

For some reason when the software is ran, with or without admin privileges, it tries to write and save data into a folder on my server.

I do not want the computer to write to this folder and they cannot when logged in as lab users. However the problem is if it cannot write to this folder then it doesn’t run.

If I make the folder writable then the software runs but they all are all pointing to this same folder. This is obviously not good as then all the software will be overwriting each others config files.

The folder it created is called com.oxygenxml One of the installs must have created it.
The files it creates are:
file.history
options
project.history

I have tried removing and re-installing the software but it always wants to write these files to that folder. The first lab writes this information to the Hard drives local and therefore runs fine. Weird indeed.

Any ideas what keeps telling the software to point to that com.oxygenxml
folder on the shared network drive? Can I make it point to a folder on the C drive?
Is there a condif file or reg key I can change? Any reason one lab would do this and not the other?

I am sure this is very easy to fix and I apologize if it is something very simple. I do not actually use Oxygen myself, I just install it

Thanks.

Jace

[george]

Dear Jace,

Oxygen stores the preferences (the com.oxygenxml folder that you noticed) in the user home directory. In general the users should have rights to write in their own home directory, however, if you want to control that you can use the user.home java property and specify a different location, on the C drive for instance as you wrote in your message.
To specify a java property you can use -DpropertyName=propertyValue passed as argument to java. If you are using the executable then you need to edit the oxygen5.1.ini file and add
-Duser.home=someFolder
in the Virtual Machine Parameters entry.
If you are using the oxygen.bat file then edit it and add the same
-Duser.home=someFolder
as command line parameter for the java command.

Best Regards,
George

[Jace]

First, thanks for the reply.

I have no write restrictions for the program to store anything on the "C" drive. The program can store its settings in the correct place. I *want* it to store its setting in the home user directory there!

The problem is, for some reason, it is setting these settings to point to a shared network drive instead. I never told it to do that in anyway. I don't want it to save there, I want it to save to the local drive.

I cannot get past the registration screen. When I paste the reg code in, it insists on writing this information, and the prefs, onto that network drive. If I do not allow it write access, it does not run. this is very weird. I have un-installed and re-installed it. Same results!

I cannot have all the machines writing to the same drive as that will confuse Oxygen, when more than one copy runs, all using the same files.

For now I do even have the shortcuts to the program showing since I cannot register or use the software on those machines.

I have to get this done so the students can use these machines for class.

So I cannot even get to a preferences file since I have to get past the reg screen.

Dear Jace,

Oxygen stores the preferences (the com.oxygenxml folder that you noticed) in the user home directory. In general the users should have rights to write in their own home directory, however, if you want to control that you can use the user.home java property and specify a different location, on the C drive for instance as you wrote in your message.
To specify a java property you can use -DpropertyName=propertyValue passed as argument to java. If you are using the executable then you need to edit the oxygen5.1.ini file and add
-Duser.home=someFolder
in the Virtual Machine Parameters entry.
If you are using the oxygen.bat file then edit it and add the same
-Duser.home=someFolder
as command line parameter for the java command.

Best Regards,
George

[george]

Jace,

Just edit the oxygen.ini file to contain something like:

Virtual Machine Parameters=-Xmx180m -Duser.home=C:

instead of

Virtual Machine Parameters=-Xmx180m

and you should have the problem solved.

Best Regards,
George

[Jace]

Jace,

Just edit the oxygen.ini file to contain something like:

Virtual Machine Parameters=-Xmx180m -Duser.home=C:

instead of

Virtual Machine Parameters=-Xmx180m

and you should have the problem solved.

Best Regards,
George

Thanks! I think this will work just fine. I searched but didn't find anything on the first go. I didn't have time to dive deeper into it.

Thanks again!