I've not done this on Windows, but Zotero doesn't need to be installed - you can just run it, I figure zotero.exe

I mean the standalone and not every program has to be in stalled, not even on Windows. Have you tried just running it?

Hmmm, does anyone else have an idea how to use the standalone version on windows 7?

Thank you!

Hannes

Dear 02debutante!

Thank you for your nice answer. Its good to know that it works at all. I already downloaded the programm two or three times (http://www.zotero.org/support/3.0). Still no idea what to do... Its a pitty because zotero seems to be a really good programm compared to similar free ware programms...

Thanks for the link. I disabled all the add ons and it still doesn´t work. It is extracting and afterwards I click "run as current user", but than nothing happens.

Anyone any ideas? That would be really nice!

All the best,

Hannes

Hi HannesK,

I have just had a look at the windows installer of zotero standalone. The downloaded file is, in fact, an installer, so adamsmith's suspicion that there might not even be a need to install anything was not totally correct (s/he is right though, that there are programs that don't need any installation - you just unpack them (or not even that) and start using them).

However, the installer doesn't do much else then unzipping the zotero program contained in the downloaded file and copying it to from a temporary directory (or "folder", in Windows speech) to a user specified destination. This knowledge, then, can help you solve your problem: from your description it seems that the installer actually does the unzipping-to-a-temp-directory part so you could just grab it from there. In my case, everything gets unzipped to C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp\7zS1FE3.tmp (this is an old XP installation, on a newer Windows version the temp folder is likely elsewhere - I don't know much about Windows) where you find a "setup.exe" file and a "core" directory.

As a first step you could try whether launching setup.exe initiates the installation process as you would expect it, but if it does not, "core" contains basically the whole zotero standalone program, so just copy this to wherever it is you store programs (on a German language Windows XP that would be most likely C:\Programme) and rename it from "core" to something more meaningful, for example, "Zotero SA 3.0". This folder then contains the file "zotero.exe" which is the actual program. For your convenience you could create shortcuts to this file (right click and select "Create Shortcut" and then move the shortcut somewhere, e.g. your Desktop).

Good luck,
krueschan


P.S. quite likely, your temp directory is called something else than in my example. If you have trouble locating it, you could search your hard drive for "zotero.exe" to find the temp directory.

Might have been the case for the alpha version and I confused that.

Yes, earlier versions didn't have installers.

krueschan's advice might help, but note that Zotero just uses a standard installer that installs to Program Files, so if it's not working for you there's something strange going on on your system.

adamsmith wrote

and while I'm not actually adam, I am actually "he"

Ok. Thanks, I think I knew that before but I am always trying to make the point of using both personal pronouns in internet forums when I am not certain about how the addressee wants to be addressed. Avoids mistakes that might make people feel very uncomfortable and maybe it also makes other people realise how they often just assume everybody on internet fora to be male.

Greetings:

I am also having problems running the Standalone. Followed all the advice above and in the other thread and was able to get it to run. I noticed that it was not loading unless I had the box checked in Properties: Run program as an Administrator. When I went looking for it today, the shortcut was missing from the desktop. I opened it from the Programs folder and I got an error that the MOZCRT19.dll was missing. I tried reinstalling and even adding a copy of the .dll file to the Zotero folder, but it still won't run?

I can still use it through Firefox, but would rather use the Standalone( too many distractions with the internet up ;-)

Thoughts?