- Current version
- v0.1 [en], 2005-02-27
- Download skypescraper-0.1.zip (39KB), Delphi 5 source code included.
- freeware, open source
- Abstract
- Skypescraper is a small console application that launches Skype™ from an USB device. It copies profile directories from the USB device to where Skype expects them.
- Operating systems
- Windows. Should run on any flavour of Windows but was tested on Windows2000 and Windows XP only.
- Licence
- Skypescraper is freeware that comes without any warranty or support. Thus you use it at your own risk. You may even use it in commercial products as long as you mention me as original author somewhere. If you make modifications to the source code, you must maintain the original copyright notice and publish it under the same licence. For the exact conditions, see LICENCE.txt that is contained in the download package.
- Stay tuned
- I set up an RSS news feed to keep you informed about changes to my website. Not all of them will contain update information for my programmes.
Installation/preparation
Skypescraper is a standalone console application that does not need to be installed. Make sure to read the warnings below before using Skypescraper. Follow these steps to prepare Skype to be launched from USB devices:
- Simply create a directory on your USB device where you put skypescraper.exe and the Skype.exe file from your Skype installation
- Next, copy your Skype profile directories to the same directory.
The profiles are usually located at
%APPDATA%\Skype, which in an English Windows installation usually points toC:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\Application Data\Skype. (Note that theApplication Datadirectory is usually hidden)
To launch Skype, execute skypescraper.exe which will do the following:
- Look up the location of where Skype expects the profiles
- Copy all profile directories from the USB device to this location (warning: I do simply overwrite existing profiles. So be careful, you might destroy existing user data!
- Launch Skype.exe from the same directory in which skypescraper.exe resides
- After Skype is shut down by the user, Skypescraper copies (if the profile has existed before) or moves (if the profile did not exist) the profiles back to the USB device.
Warnings
Be warned: Skypescraper does simply overwrite existing profiles. So do make backups! Also, I do not check if there's enough space on the USB device. So you might also lose data due to full hard disks/devices.
I wrote this programme entirely for my own purposes and I do not recommend anyone to use this programme. If you like to have Skype on an USB device, take the responsibility of possible data losses on the host computers and understand how Skypescraper works, feel free to download the application and use it.
If Skype is already installed on your "target computer", be aware of the fact that Skype will ask for the account password when it is launched normally again. So make sure the owner of the computer knows it.
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Created: 2005-02-27 — last update of web site: 2010-06-27
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