[gonzus]

I don't know what I would do without XBMC. Thank you guys!

I have been using a portable installation of XBMC on an external USB drive. The drive has three NTFS partitions (for historical reasons) with all my movies and shows. One of the partitions also has the XBMC Windows binary and all the files created by the portable configuration. The net effect is that I just plug this drive into any Windows computer and can use XBMC (from a shortcut that points to the USB drive), carrying all my media with me and even keeping up to date with movies watched, meaning, if I watch a movie in my Windows laptop and then plug the disk into the Windows computer at my living room, the movie shows up there as already watched. Pure heaven.

[I can provide on request details regarding how to achieve this configuration, but I am assuming this is well documented so I am not doing it right away.]

The latest variation on this theme is that I just got a small ARM-based Android box for my living room (MINIX NEO X5). I plugged it in, configured time and WiFi, installed XBMC from the APK, plugged my USB disk, added the appropriate directories with movies and shows, and wham!, I was up and running with my new "home theater". Pure joy.

But I have a question. There is something I would like to achieve and don't know if it is possible or how to do it. I would love to be able to plug the USB drive into the Android box and watch my movies, keeping all internal XBMC files (databases, actors photos, posters, movie status, etc.) in the USB drive, in such a way that then, if I plug the USB drive into a Windows box, all these files are shared across Android and Windows.

In fact, it would be even better if I could install both the Windows and Android binaries for XBMC under a .../bin directory in the USB drive, and run XBMC from that directory both under Android and Windows, every time updating the local files installed on the USB drive. This means I would have to create a "shortcut" on my Android system that points to the binaries installed on the USB drive (just as I do under Windows), but I would think that should be no problem. Additionally, I would have to find a way to make both binaries (run with -p) point to the same "portable data" directory, assuming the format for the files under that directory is exactly the same for Windows and Android.

Is this possible? Any hints how to achieve it? Sorry to have been a little long winded, I just wanted to describe my use case with no room for ambiguity.

Thanks in advance and best regards.

[sam1231]

Sorry I can not help with your query but can you please provide details on how I can create a non bootable usb version of xmbc that I can use. I have tried searching but can only find links to bootable versions

TIA

[gonzus]

Sorry I can not help with your query but can you please provide details on how I can create a non bootable usb version of xmbc that I can use. I have tried searching but can only find links to bootable versions

This is what I do:

1. Run the XBMC installer on a Windows machine where I want to run XBMC. This makes sure all the dependencies for XBMC (DirectX, C/C++ runtime) are properly installed.
   
2. Copy the whole XBMC folder that ends up being installed (say, from C:\Program Files) to my USB drive.
   
3. Make sure the letter that Windows assigns to my USB drive / partition is fixed and well known. For example, I will use "X:\\" to refer to it.
   
4. Create a shortcut on my desktop to the XBMC binary that I just copied to your USB drive.
   
5. Edit that shortcut and make sure it says "X:\...\xbmc.exe -p", to run it as portable.
   
6. Create a directory "X:\...\media" where I put all my movies / shows.
   
7. Add the appropriate paths fro mthe media directory to the XBMC library.
   
8. Uninstall the XBMC installation created on the first step. This doesn't do anything to DirectX and C/C++ runtime; leave those alone. You don't need XBMC installed on the computer because you will be running it from the USB drive.
   

Whenever I plug the USB drive into another computer, I have to make sure it is assigned the same drive letter (X:\); the very first time I run it, it may be necessary to install XBMC on that computer (and then uninstall it) to get DirectX and C/C++ runtime properly configured. Then I create the same shortcut and voilà, it just works.

That's about it. I have been using this setup for a couple of years, it works like a charm. Good luck.

[sam1231]

Thank you very much for our reply, I also came across this link as well http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=195802

Again sorry for Hijacking your thread, much appreciated