Installing Secondary Instances of LM

The Literary Machine is designed to serve as a universal database for everything you want to store in it. But you can work with several copies, or instances, of the program. Each instance stands as a separate database. You can use one, say, for a research project and another for everything else.

Question: Is it possible to run several instances at the same time?

Answer: Certainly in different machines connected in a Workgroup. With LM Pro you can run several instances in the same machine if you rename the "lm.exe" file to new separate names. (Eg. lm_2.exe, lm_archive.exe, etc). Also note that you can enlarge the LM screen with a second monitor, making room for more LM objects.

Question: How can I pass data between sessions/instances/databases?

Answer: Use the XML data sending facility. It will transfer, items, words and concepts in the background. (In LM Pro 2.2 this applies to Bibliographic References as well.) See "LM as Groupware" in LM2000 Help.

To create a secondary database, just copy the “Literary Machine Professional Edition” directory to another location in your PC. Then open this new folder and double-click the program file (lm.exe) to run LM from there.

Note: If your database contains data originally created in LM 2000, create a short path to it. Database files made by LM 2000 cannot have full-path names longer than 79 characters. So the path to and INCLUDING your program directory's name must be less than 63 characters long.

To create a desktop shortcut to your secondary database, select the lm.exe file in it, hold down the RIGHT mouse button, and drag it to the Windows desktop. Release the button. In the pop-up menu that appears choose Create Shortcut(s) Here. Rename this shortcut so that you can tell it from the one to your primary instance of LM.

Can’t find the original LM program directory? Or maybe you have multiple instances of the program and forgot which database you’re in? Choose Utilities > Show Database Location Info. The Information box that appears tells you where to look.

Use a wallpaper image to show what database you are in. (LM Pro users will discover the database location in the window title.)

In the "Literary Machine Professional Edition" folder you should find many files and some subfolders. The program file is lm.exe. The LM Pro database files are in the subfolder named db.

To uninstall a secondary instance of LM, just delete the “Literary Machine Professional Edition” folder it's in.