System Requirements
- PII or above, 128M
- Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista
- Latest Windows patches
- Email clients such as Outlook Express, Netscape Mail, Mozilla, or MS-Outlook [Optional]
- Web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Netscape, or Firefox [Optional]
- Windows Phone Dialer [Optional]
- MS Excel [Optional]
To share the database in Local Area Network, a standalone Firebird database server should be installed on a host machine where the database file is saved.
Installation
Run "setup.exe" in the zip file and follow the prompts.
Default Installation
Generally, you need to be a power user to install the program, though normal users can all use the program and the data.
You will see 4 installation types:
Full installation -- Install the program for current user. The database files and other data files will be copied to "My Documents\My Contacts", and the program shortcuts will only be visible to current user. By general settings of ACL (Access Control List), only current user can access the databases installed.
Full installation for all users sharing the same database -- The database files and other data files will be copied to "Shared Documents\Shared Contacts" (X:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Shared Contacts) , and the program shortcuts will be visible to all users.
Full installation with custom data folder -- Similar to "full installation", you may define a folder to store the data files.
Full installation with custom data folder for all users -- Similar to "full installation for all users sharing the same database", you may define a folder to store the data files.
Programs only for upgrading -- Install "OpenContacts.exe" only.
Manual Installation for More Users on the Same PC using Different Databases
As you might have the noticed, the the Start-in folder of the shortcut to the program might be different from the target folder. For example, the target is "C:\Program Files\Open Contacts\OpenContacts.exe", and the Start-in folder is "C:\Documents and Settings\Andy\My Documents\My Contacts" , which contains the data files for user Andy. That is, OpenContacts.exe will look at this folder for data.
You have to login as power user or administrator to do the following job.
Copy the whole folder "C:\Documents and Settings\Andy\My Documents\My Contacts" to "C:\Documents and Settings\NewUser\My Documents\" , then copy "default.gdb" from the program folder of Open Contacts which might be "C:\Program Files\Open Contacts" in order to replace the data file of user Andy. Then create a shortcut with the Start-in folder "C:\Documents and Settings\NewUser\My Documents\My Contacts".
Installation for Multiple Users in Local Area Network
Please refer to the network data sharing guide.
Green Installation
If you want to use Open Contacts on an external drive such as a USB memory stick, you may download the portable installation package, and extract them to a new folder in the external drive.
Portable Installation
If you have installed and used Open Contacts in your PC and want to use the address book database sometimes on an external drive, please follow the instructions below to copy the files to a folder of the USB drive.
1. Create the whole program folder (by default located in X:\Program Files\Open Contacts) to the USB drive so you will have folder "Open Contacts" and the files on the drive.
2. Go to the Open Contacts' data folder, by default it is either "My Documents\My Contacts" or "Shared Documents\Shared Contacts" (X:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Shared Contacts) , highlight all contents,
and copy them to the Open Contacts folder on the USB drive.
If you want to save a few bytes for the USB drive, you may delete unins000.dat and unins000.exe which are for automatic un-installation.
Please make sure the value of field Database contains no absolute file path.
[General]
...
Database=mydata.GDB
DemoDatabase=demo.gdb
DisableCOM=1When you plug the memory stick to different computers, the drive letter assigned to the memory stick may vary on one from another. Without assigning absolute file path, Open Contacts will always look at folder Data regardless of the drive letter assigned to the memory stick.
By default, Open Contacts will provide COM interfaces for other applications such as Google Desktop Open Contacts Plug-in to call. However, you might not want your program interacting with other programs of the host computer, so it is better to tell Open Contacts not to publish COM interfaces in advance. To do so, make sure in the INI file "DisableCOM=1". Without providing COM service, the memory footprint of the program will use around 300KB less.
With option DisableCOM on, Open Contacts will not write permanent data to Windows Registry.
If you will have chances of running the program on Windows 2000 machines which might not be fully patched, you might need to copy "msvcp71.dll" and "msvcr71.dll" to the program folder of the external drive. These two files are Microsoft redistributed files, installed by Windows XP or Windows patches. And Open Contacts redistributes these two files as well during normal installation.
To find out more about portable applications, please visit www.portableapps.com. In particular, Open Contact can interact well with Portable Thunderbird.
Specification
Database engine: Firebird Embedded, or Firebird
Maximum database size: 2 or 4 GB
Numbers of data fields: unlimited
Length of field value: 128 bytes
Length of field name: 36 bytes
Numbers of sections: unlimited
Length of section name: 36 bytes
Levels of categories: unlimited
Length of category name: 64 bytes
Numbers of links between a contacts and others: unlimited
Length of relationship name: 64 bytes