ZBrushCentral

Can I run Zbrush from an External HD?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Can I run Zbrush from an external HD? I ran across someone who formated windows were he can plug his external into a USB and it will boot to windows, but it is very complicated and beyhond me. I am just wondering if without doing all of that stuff, can you use a nomral external, and say run Zbrush, like you run Firefox, from it, and thos other program adons, and games and what not…
Also, even if I boot to windows, is it still not possible because of the licensing that is in the registery? ARe there any extensions that plug into the USB, which act as a normal plug in for a harddrive in the case? So I can just turn off the comp and change the boot to, without opening the case and plugging it in that way, I doubt the shcool would like that.

I am stuck at school with just lightwave 9, and that is frustrating, I would love to be able to use zbrush there, to learn. Learning is so fun, if it is possible to run from external, that would be awsome… THanks for time.

#2

I would like to know as well. But as far as I know, it probably can’t be done, due to the licencing system that ZB uses. I do it with modo though and it works a charm =]

#3

wow with modo nice, Can you please tell me the exact external HD you bought. im about to buy a one and would love to know.

#4

I just use any old flash drive really since the prog is less than a hundred megs. You just need to edit the startup parameters so it looks for the licence file within the same folder. That way the entire program is self containing! Awesome stuff. I don’t think ZBrush works the same way though.

#5

ZBrush is linked to several elements of your computer. Yes, it can be run from an external drive, but only when that drive is connected to the same computer as when it was activated/registered. Connecting the drive to any other computer will prevent ZBrush from launching.

Since external drives are slower than internal drives and ZBrush uses the drive that it’s installed on for virtual memory, you would see a loss of performance by doing this. (A USB drive is not practical, either – even the largest are still too small for high density mesh editing.)

#6

Like Aurick said, it is tied to your computer’s hardware.

But I always install on a secondary partition, or secondary drive so that when I have to upgrade my Boot disk/partition or re-install the system or something, I don’t have to get a new licence key, because the install was not affected. I run a single license of ZB on my workstation and also on my Laptop. :wink:

[note] the laptop install is only good for tutorials, reading the online manual, and practice, using screen-rez documents. For serious work with huge files or models, you need a powerful workstation with 4-16 Gigs of ram.

#7

Really? I would think that after wiping your primary partition and hence your registry clean, you’d have to reinstall ZB anyway.

#8

yea, how do you get around the registry? I was thinking about installing all my apps on a diff hd then the os… do you save your registry or something?