Mike Goodold (@GoodoldsOnTwitter) just commented at on my August 2010 post about Cayra that the developers hadn’t done a good job of specifying requirements.
Well, sadly Cayra became orphan software years ago, so no one from Intalev, the originator of this nice little free package, will reply – I’ve tried several times to contact them because Cayra was open source at one time, and we had a volunteer willing to maintain and enhance it. But Intelev never responded. As I mention here, I saw a comment on Twitter that it doesn’t work on Windows 7. When I wrote that, I didn’t have a Win 7 PC to test it. I was using it on Windows XP and Vista at the time.
Now I have a Win7 PC, and I tried to install it, but the way the Cayra installer tests for the .NET framework (it requires .NET 3.0) fails. As a result, it refuses to continue with the installation, even though .NET 3.0 is supported by default in Win 7. If you try to install .Net 3.0 in Windows 7 you can get into a confusion of instructions from Cayra and Windows that won’t resolve.
Never mind – Mike’s question prompted me to look for a way round this and I found one.
I copied the \Cayra folder from a Windows XP PC to a Win7 PC, and found that the exe file can be launched directly, so no formal installation is needed. I haven’t done a thorough regression test, but it looks OK. Cayra, being freeware, open source, abandonware and having no licence in the package, I think I can make this generally available without breaking any international treaties.
To get it running without an installer takes a little work, but not too much. Try this:
- Download the zipped up Cayra folder.
- Make a new folder C:\Program Files\Cayra or C:\Program Files (x86)\Cayra if your Windows is 64-bit.
- Unzip the contents of Cayra.zip there.
- Right click on Cayra.exe and select Create shortcut in the context menu.
- Drag the shortcut to the desktop (be careful to drag the shortcut, not the original .exe file – they have the same name). You may then want to remove the “.exe” from the shortcut filename if it appears (that will depend on your Windows settings). You might prefer to place the shortcut somewhere else, like C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs – then it’ll appear in your Start menu.
- It’s a good idea to delete or rename C:\Program Files\Cayra\Updater.exe, or you may get occasional error messages on start up when Cayra tries to check for a revised version and fails to get a response.
[Minor correction made to the above by Roy Grubb, 30 Sept 2013]
And you’re done.
Links:
- Cayra in Vic’s Picks
- Cayra’s main entry in Mind-Mapping.org
- download Cayra installer on Cnet
- download my fix for more recent OS versions
Vic
Have you checked Our Faves yet?
Subscribe to the RSS feed for news of regular
posts & follow me on Twitter for in-between
items about visual tools you never knew existed.
If you’re on Twitter and tweet about mapping topics,
tweet me — I’d love to know and follow you.