I was inspired by tonyben's post.
These memory sticks or more correctly Disk on Keys (DOK) can be found very cheap these days. I have seen them given away at conference booths even.
Tonyben's method is great and allows the complete contents for the Users "My Documents" directory (including the mjusbsp where MagicJack stores it's files) to be relocated onto one of these cheap DOKs. While tonyben's method frees more space by relocating the entire "Documents and Settings" folder to the DOK; it does require registry edits and everything in the user's folder is relocated. If the DOK fails then this could be a problem since all of the data in the users "My Documents" folder would be lost and not just the MagicJack data.
The method I describe below simply places only the directory MJ uses on the DOK. The MJ directory updates can then be as large as your DOK. You don't need a very large DOK. MJ is currently only using the 65.3MB so even a 256 DOK would be almost four times as large as needed currently.
You can use a larger DOK if you like and also use the same DOK to install programs to instead of C:\Program Files and to keep other data on as well like perhaps the Portable Applications Suite.
However all you need to do to solve the MJ space problem is described below.First if it is running go to taskmanager and stop all magicjack processes (magicJack.exe and perhaps mjsetup.exe).
I downloaded the Junction Program from Sys Internals and had a go at it. The junction program has a small foot print and consumes about 147K of disk space itself. You'll need to place this some where on your path so the c:\ is a good place.
The first thing I ran into was that in order for Junction to work the DOK must be formatted NTFS. The standard format command only formats in FAT or FAT32. Fortunately HP provides a free format utility which can format the DOK as NTFS. The format utility consumes about 897KB of drive space but, you can install this on another computer and format the DOK before plugging it into the thin client if you choose.
I include a description and commands for those interested in knowing exactly is taking place. But if you just want to try this the easy I provided a simple procedure for accomplishing the task between the lines of equal marks below. (THE CRIB VERSION)
It is the files which are placed into MagicJack's folder (mjusbsp) which are growing with successive updates and therefore causing problems. Therefore in order to cope with this we need only to relocate that single folder. The advantages of only relocating the single folder are that no registry edits need to be performed and if the DOK get broken it is no big deal since only MagicJack's data would be lost and if it is missing MJ automatically rebuilds it the next time it is loaded. We will take advantage of that below.
First on the thin client lets open a command window. If you haven't already made the command prompt a shortcut you can find it as C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe (I drug this over to my desktop and created a shortcut there); but you can just double click it in the system32 folder to get it open.
Most folks will have MJ installed under the Administrator account in their thin clients; if not then you will need to substitute the username you have it installed to for Administrator in all of the following.
The MJ data folder is located in C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\mjusbsp. It is this folder we want to map to a different location on the DOK.
While you can map this to any folder name you wish on the DOK for me it is most straight forward to simply duplicate the same folder structure path as that on the C: drive. My DOK shows up as D: in the "My Computer", if you have other devices using usb then your DOK drive may be a different letter and you will need to substitute your DOK's drive letter for D: below.
Next we will do two things. First create the container for our linked directory on the DOK. Second delete the contents of the magicJack directory on C: to free up drive space. Remember magicJack help instructions tell you to delete the mjusbsp directory to assist in the rebuilding of a failed magicJack. When MJ's update is run it will download and restore the contents of this directory. After Junction has performed it's magic; this restoring will actually take place on the D: drive container we created however so file space is no longer taken up on C: by the MJ files.
In the command window type the following:
md "D:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data"
del "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\mjusbsp\*.*" /S /F /Q
Now it is time to create the symbolic link using Junction. Again assuming your setup use the Administrator account and that your DOK is D: (if not adjust the following accordingly).
In the command window type the following to create the symbolic link.
junction "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\mjusbsp" "D:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\mjusbsp"
Ok we should now have a symbolic link.
Next we need to remove the original C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\mjusbsp which is the signal for MJ to reload it the next time it runs.
rd "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\mjusbsp"
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THE CRIB VERSION
You can just copy the following code into a .bat file on your TC to have it perform all the Junction steps outlined above if your running MJ as Administrator and your DOK is D:. Or just click the link to use the make-junction.cmd file I already created for you and save it to your TC's C:\ directory and then double click on it. The .cmd file simply executes the commands for you. Remember you need to have already placed jucntion.exe from the download link above in the c:\ directory also and have a NTFS formatted DOK plugged in to the TC before executing the .cmd file.
make-junction.cmd
Code: Select all
md "D:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data"
del "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\mjusbsp\*.*" /S /F /Q
junction "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\mjusbsp" "D:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\mjusbsp"
rd "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\mjusbsp"If your Magicjack doesn't start automatically this time then go to Control Panel and locate the larger of the MagicJack drives. Right click on it and select properties confirm that it is about 17MB. If it is then close out properties. Right click on the drive again and this time select format and FAT as the file system type. After the format is complete then run the update just like you did before. After update is complete MJ should start up; if not navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\mjusbsp\in00000. There is a file there called setup.exe. Drag a sortcut of that file into your startup folder. Commit your changes and reboot.
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Any future changes MJ makes will be saved to the physical D: drive which should have plenty of room. If it ever fails you just need to run update procedure again on a new DOK. Junction's magic of creating the symbolic link will persist.
To undo all of this later just open a command window and type the following:
junction -d "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\mjusbsp". Then go through the update process above.
