> Hi,
> 
> Here at the computermuseum and the planetarium at the 'Fachhochschule'
> (University of Applied Sciences) in Kiel, Germany, we have a handful of
> connected computers running windows 2000. Currently I'm using POV-Ray 3.1g
> installed locally on only one of these computers, but I want to have 3.5 on
> *all* of them, and hopefully we'll have more POVers here. To avoid having to
> install POV-Ray on each of these computers, I would prefer to (let my admin)
> install it only on the server and use it on all other computers via network,
> but of course running locally.
> 
> Is it possible (and sensible) to provide POV-Ray for these computers in this
> way without any admin-activity (except for installation on the server)?
> 
> Will POV-Ray need to write to any directories on the server (when executing
> locally)?
> 


Povray can be installed on a network drive.
And it can write to a network drive (even if it is really ineffective).

In fact, an application usually does not care if the drive is local or 
remote... but there is another issue: simultaneous usage of the same 
files by different users...


> Will each user have its own editor settings / list of open files / file queue /
> rerender and continue information / MRU list / POVRAY.INI / QUICKRES.INI etc.?
> If so: are the individual settings stored locally or are they available on all
> computers?


There is three caveat: the Registry, ini/povengine.ini and renderer/rerun!
*.INI are usually in the shared installed "renderer" directory... you'd 
better turn that subtree read-only once installed on the server, but I 
do not know how to resolve conflict for rerun!
I'm afraid of conflict regarding ini/povengine.ini due to multiple 
simultaneous access...


> 
> What is different (during installation / for the users), compared to a local
> one-user-installation?


Every users will have to write to its registry part (local!), but the 
files would need to be installed only once on the server...


> 
> What else do I need to know?
> 
> I would be glad if someone could help me with this.

Would it not be simpler to put the pov-installer on the server and let's every user
install povray locally

(even if it waste the local disk space) ?

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