How can I install the CSD Portfolio so that all users can access it?

Install in a system directory

As of 2023 the CSD Portfolio is designed to allow installation without admin rights and defaults to being installed in the user's home directory. However if the account running the installer has admin rights, it is possible to install in a system folder such as C:\Program Files\CCDC (Windows), /usr/local/CCDC or /opt/CCDC (Linux), or /Applications/CCDC (macOS).

Licence activation

If an older version of the CSD Portfolio was installed, the licence configuration and activation will be preserved when it is uninstalled and replaced by the latest release.

Activating the software at install time will only activate it for the current user. See How do I activate the software for all users? to activate it for all users after installation.

Telemetry setup

As above, if telemetry has been configured for all users for an older version of the CSD Portfolio, this will be preserved for the new release.

To enable or disable telemetry for all users, run the telemetry_helper command which can be found in the ccdc-utilities/telemetry-helper subdirectory of the CCDC installation folder. This must be run from the command line as an administrator - on Windows, type "cmd" into the search bar then select "Run as administrator".

To enable telemetry for all users:

telemetry_helper --yes yes

To disable telemetry for all users:

telemetry_helper --no no

Start Menu and Desktop shortcuts

On Windows desktop shortcuts need to be copied to the CommonDesktopDirectory special folder and Start Menu shortcuts need to be copied to the CommonStartMenu special folder. You can use PowerShell to locate these folders e.g.

[Environment]::GetFolderPath('CommonDesktopDirectory')

On Linux desktop launchers can be found in the desktop subdirectory of each component e.g.

ccdc-software/hermes/desktop/hermes.desktop

They are installed via the desktop-file-install command e.g.

sudo desktop-file-install hermes.desktop

This command will add Hermes to the GUI menus for all users.

On macOS any app installed to a subdirectory of /Applications will automatically show up in Launchpad.

Path

On Linux and Mac you may wish to add each component's bin directory (ccdc-software/conquest/bin, ccdc-software/mercury/bin etc) to the PATH variable for all users so that the applications can be more easily run from the command line.

File associations

The 2023 installer no longer sets file associations automatically at install time as it would be impossible to set them for all users without admin rights. Also some users may want to associate .cif files with Mercury, others with enCIFer and others with Hermes. However you may want to set some file associations for all users, in particular .istr files with IsoStar.

On Windows you can set default file associations for all users via Group Policy:

Changing Default File Associations In Windows 10 and 11