After checking with the beta program manager
if blogging about the beta for IBM Lotus Notes/Domino is allowed I’ll be
updating this site with some of the great new features that will be in
the 7.0.2 release that is coming soon.
As usual this is beta software, features
may change between the beta and the final release, indeed some features
may even be dropped in the final release but I think Microsoft have the
market cornered for that trick.
One feature that I have been looking
forward to in this release of Lotus Notes is Nomad. Announced at
Lotusphere 2006 as Project Wanda this feature allows you to install your
Lotus Notes client onto a USB key. You can then put the USB key into
any windows machine and the Lotus Notes client will startup with all your
settings.
Setup for Nomad currently requires that
you run the setup from the commandline so that you can pass in a special
commandline parameter. If you have access to the beta and you have a USB
key to try it on then the command line is :
setup.exe /a /v"NOMAD=1 TARGETDIR=E:
/qb+"
This will do a silent install of the
client on the USB Key that is showing up in Windows as drive E. If
your USB key is a different drive letter then just change the commandline
accordingly. The installation will take up about 340Mb on the USB Key.
I’d guess that in the final release the install proceedure will become
an option during the standard GUI install.
Once the install is done just remove
the USB Key and put it back in. if your system is setup to autorun from
USB Key’s then the autorun program on the USB Key will start and check
to see if Lotus Nomad has ever been used on the machine before, if it does
not detect any prior use on the machine then it will run a small installer
to setup a few entries in the registry and then start the Lotus Notes client.
The initial startup of the notes client is a little slower then if
it was running from the harddrive but that is probably due to the speed
of my USB key and the speed of USB in general.
After that the Lotus Notes client just
runs like normal. I could quit notes and move the USB key to another
machine and everything worked as if it was installed locally. I also had
the full notes client installed on one of the machine I put the USB key
into and the Lotus Nomad install did not interfere with the installed client
in any way. It was also nice to see that nomad worked perfectly when I
plugged the USB key into a Windows Vista beta machine.
Nomad really does do as it was designed
to do. A truly portable install of Lotus Notes that is going to be
perfect for certain groups of people. I can see this being used by the
IT person who runs around the office all day fixing problems, they can
plug in anywhere and grab their next assignment, or maybe the consultant
who needs to plug in at a customer site to grab some files from a document
repository back at the office. What other uses can you think of ?
Dec's Dom Blog 
My main concern is network access. Our mobile staff, like in many companies like IBM, can only access the office network using a VPN client.
How do you workaround this with Nomad? Or is it intended purely for “Island” use.
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very true, you would need to establish the vpn beforehand if you wanted to use this outside your network environment.
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My suggestion is that you look at how to get the VPN software loaded on the memory key as well. Susan Bulloch has been doing this with the “Nomad” beta for the IBM VPN…no issues.
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Unfortunately, company policy is to not put VPN software on non-company machine…so the user will need their laptop anyway 😦
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“if your system is setup to autorun from USB Key’s then the autorun program on the USB Key will start and check to see if Lotus Nomad has ever been used on the machine before, if it does not detect any prior use on the machine then it will run a small installer to setup a few entries in the registry and then start the Lotus Notes client.”What kind of Windows rights will the user need to have for this to work on the guest PC?
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Good question Timothy…
More importantly will it work in the BA Departure Lounge at Heathrow? I know BA use Notes…could this be arranged?
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I had a few too many comments for here, I made a brief posting…http://www.idonotes.com/IdoNotes/IdoNotes.nsf/dx/07132006013728PMCMIPQT.htm
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@5 – I asked the developer this just last week – his response: “Nomad requires only standard privileges. It only writes to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry key, which all users can write.”So NOMAD will run on any machine that has a USB port basically.
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@DeclanIs it possible to move an existing notes client installation to the USB or does NOMAD just setup a clean Notes Client ??Does Nomad updates the drive reference when you move the USB stick from one PC to another ??
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Nomad setups a clean installation on the USB key but there is nothing stopping you from copying over a notes.ini, id and bookmarks file to the key after the initial install is done.You would not be able to copy a notes install to a blank usb key a the special autorun files and the installer would be missing.
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Will this be a client only install or will we be able to use the Admin and Designer clients too?
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DOH! I don’t know how the post after this one escaped my feed reader…. I see now that I’d only need to copy over those files. Thanks, and ignore this…
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Am I doing something wrong?, or do you need a clean machine to setup Nomad. I have Notes already on my machine, and if I run the setup with those parameters, it does nothing on the USB. Do I need to uninstall Notes on my local machine and then install it on the USB? If true, that means one have to have a clean machine per installation, as one will write to the registry.
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Has anyone been successful in actually making this ‘Nomad’ thing work? I guess I’m stymied by the ‘prereq’ of ‘obtain the Notes client-only installation code and expand the filed into a folder on your hard drive.’ Does that mean ‘Install Notes 7.0.2 client’ (but not configure)??? If so, I’ve done that numerous times, and when I try the command line to install on my USB drive, it just never ‘takes’ and gives me a window telling me to go to the control panel to configure my device. Any help appreciated, as I think this will be a real help for our technicians.
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Has anyone been successful in actually making this ‘Nomad’ thing work? I guess I’m stymied by the ‘prereq’ of ‘obtain the Notes client-only installation code and expand the filed into a folder on your hard drive.’ Does that mean ‘Install Notes 7.0.2 client’ (but not configure)??? If so, I’ve done that numerous times, and when I try the command line to install on my USB drive, it just never ‘takes’ and gives me a window telling me to go to the control panel to configure my device. Any help appreciated, as I think this will be a real help for our technicians.
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can I used Lotus 7.02 Images to setup nomad ?. Can I just do this command ?
If I go out the company how to can connect to my domino server withdown used VPN. can I use NotesRPC to connect my server thourgh my Domino server IP.
Thanks alots
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