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Copying Eclipse to another user's account on Windows [message #1843318]

Fri, 23 July 2021 12:54

Mike Baker

Messages: 3
Registered: July 2021

Junior Member

I need to be able to copy a user's entire Eclipse installation from one Windows 10 computer to another user's account on another Windows 10 computer.

I thought that it would be as simple as this:

1/ copy Eclipse's main directory to the destination computer
2/ copy the .p2 directory to the new user's home directory
3/ copy the .eclipse directory to the new user's home directory
4/ update the username entries in eclipse.ini
5/ update the username entries in .p2\pools.info

Unfortunately after doing the above, when the 2nd user launches Eclipse, the splash screen shows but then Eclipse presents a pop up saying that "An error has occurred. See the log file".

This is the content of the log file:

!SESSION Fri Jul 23 13:13:38 BST 2021 ------------------------------------------
!ENTRY org.eclipse.equinox.launcher 4 0 2021-07-23 13:13:38.422
!MESSAGE Could not find extension: reference:file:org.eclipse.osgi.compatibility.state_1.2.300.v20210212-1137.jar
!ENTRY org.eclipse.equinox.launcher 4 0 2021-07-23 13:13:38.453
!MESSAGE Exception launching the Eclipse Platform:
!STACK
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter
at java.base/java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:433)
at java.base/java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:586)
at java.base/java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:519)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.invokeFramework(Main.java:650)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.basicRun(Main.java:590)
at org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.Main.run(Main.java:1461)

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated
TIA
Mike

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Re: Copying Eclipse to another user's account on Windows [message #1843329 is a reply to message #1843318]

Fri, 23 July 2021 14:33

Ed Merks

Messages: 33140
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

I'm not sure I would ever try to do this. One just doesn't know the 10, 100 or 1000 places where absolute URLs or absolute file system paths refer to the original location in the various files.

It would seem better to replicate the installation. Create a new basic installation with the installer. In the source IDE, use File -> Export -> Install -> Installed Software Items to File. In the the other target IDE, use the File -> Import -> Install Software Items from File.
You'll probably have to remove all the things you've copied, ~.p2, and ~.eclipse...

In the future, you may wish to look at Oomph where you can define your own products such that you can easily replicate a known installation across any number of users.

https://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse_Oomph_Authoring

Ed Merks
Professional Support: https://www.macromodeling.com/

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Re: Copying Eclipse to another user's account on Windows [message #1843334 is a reply to message #1843329]

Fri, 23 July 2021 16:32

Mike Baker

Messages: 3
Registered: July 2021

Junior Member

Ed Merks wrote on Fri, 23 July 2021 14:33

I'm not sure I would ever try to do this. One just doesn't know the 10, 100 or 1000 places where absolute URLs or absolute file system paths refer to the original location in the various files.

It would seem better to replicate the installation. Create a new basic installation with the installer. In the source IDE, use File -> Export -> Install -> Installed Software Items to File. In the the other target IDE, use the File -> Import -> Install Software Items from File.
You'll probably have to remove all the things you've copied, ~.p2, and ~.eclipse...

In the future, you may wish to look at Oomph where you can define your own products such that you can easily replicate a known installation across any number of users.

https://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse_Oomph_Authoring

Thanks for the above and agreed, my current approach is lacking. I was only trying is as I'm new to Eclipse and didn't know of any other way.

The reason I'm looking for a way to essentially duplicate one user's development environment is that our developers are not permitted to download any software over the internet.
Instead, a member of another team downloads the software and scans it before handing it on.

Ideally we need some way for the other team to install eclipse *and all plugins* and then to duplicate that setup to be used by as many developers as needed.

Sadly it looks to me as if the export facility you suggest only exports metadata describing the software configuration. If I'm right then the destination pc will still end up downloading the components, something which isn't allowed.

Do you know of any way of achieving what I'm trying to do or is it a case of getting to grips with Oomph?

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Re: Copying Eclipse to another user's account on Windows [message #1843341 is a reply to message #1843334]

Sat, 24 July 2021 05:51

Ed Merks

Messages: 33140
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

I guess you need more than just one of the packages that you unzip from here?

https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/

These of course don't use a shared bundle pool. The installer by default uses a shared bundle pool but you can control that (disable that ) via the menu on the upper right. If you install additional software in such an installation (that doesn't use a shared bundle pool), everything should be self contained and the installation should support "roaming", i.e., it should be possible in principle to move/copy the installation to a different location.

Ed Merks
Professional Support: https://www.macromodeling.com/

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Re: Copying Eclipse to another user's account on Windows [message #1843354 is a reply to message #1843341]

Sun, 25 July 2021 11:13

Mike Baker

Messages: 3
Registered: July 2021

Junior Member

Thanks. Let me see if I understand this then.
From the above, my understanding is that there are two ways to set up Eclipse to support 'roaming':
One is to get the zipped form of the distribution. The other is to use the executable installer but to disable pool sharing in the installer.
Am I correct?

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