Hi John,

> ...Is is possible to configure Guide to use the mpcorb in this folder rather than
> having to duplicate it in the Guide folder? For that matter, is it possible to
> use USNO B from this folder rather than downloading pieces from the internet?

Yes to both. Hit Alt-J and enter

MPCORB_PATH=c:\other_folder

and Guide will look for mpcorb.dat in the folder c:\other_folder. (I was going to
refer you to a discussion of this on the Web site. Except there isn't one. I _thought_
this was documented... it really should be!)

Use of USNO B1.0 _is_ documented, at

http://www.projectpluto.com/update8d.htm#b1_from_hard_drive

> 2. I also have a small, laptop with a solid-state hard drive and no DVD. I do
> have a portable DVD for installing programs but don't normally carry it. My
> hard drive space is somewhat limited but I do have an sd card where I could
> put all the Guide files from the CD. I would install Guide from the CD but
> how do I configure it to look for the additional files in a drive other than
> the one used for installation?

Second inquiry about this today... and I'm sure I'll get a lot more; I'm regretting
that I did not address this issue in the user manual. Here goes:

There are a couple of ways of going about this.

(1) You can put the DVD and memory stick/SD card in one machine, and run 'setup.exe'
from the DVD. When prompted to select where Guide is to be installed, choose a folder
on the memory stick/SD card. It ought to install just as if you were installing to a
"traditional" hard drive.

Then, use Extras... Install to Hard Drive and install as much, or as little, of
Guide as you wish. (If you install everything, you're looking at about three GBytes.)
Then put the Guide disk on the shelf.

If your memory stick/SD card is fast enough, you're done; just run Guide from there.
This has the advantage that you can "carry" Guide wherever you want. You can customize
it (set up your preferred display, latitude/longitude/time zone settings, and so forth)
and use it on any machine. You can also, while on that machine, simply copy the whole
shebang to that machine. Say your memory stick is drive f:, and Guide is installed as
f:\guide. Make a folder on your hard drive called c:\guide, and copy f:\guide to c:\guide.

(2) The second method is to put DVD and memory stick/SD card on one machine, and
just copy absolutely everything from the Guide disk to the memory stick. Then you can
put the Guide disk on the shelf, and install from the memory stick just as if it were
a DVD.

-- Bill