You can run Papyrus Author in its entirety from a USB stick (1GB or bigger) or from a USB external hard drive without having to install the software on your computer’s hard drive.

If you have a version of Papyrus Author on a USB stick, you can simply insert it into the USB port on your computer and run it from there. Just open the USB stick as a removable drive (in Windows on the desktop).

If you start Papyrus Author in Windows, it will check during start up whether Papyrus Author is registered in the system. If not, it will obtain the correct registration in Windows (by asking the user). To do this, Papyrus Author needs to be started in the context menu with administrative rights.

This allows Papyrus Author to correctly open a Papyrus document (*.pap, …) and with the correct version of Papyrus Author, for example when you double click on a Papyrus document without first opening the program.

The settings for this can be found under “Preferences,” “User Interface,” “Miscellaneous” with the checkbox: “  Ask when this Papyrus is not registered for its file types (important for running from USB sticks)”

This setting can be turned off or on.

This means that your hard drive will not be affected in any way when you only run Papyrus from a USB stick.

With Mac OS X Papyrus Author does not check whether it is registered in the system.

To open your Papyrus documents, simply pull them over to the Papyrus Author application icon. If you want to set Papyrus Author as your starting program, right-click on a Papyrus document and choose “Open with…” in the context menu. Under “Other…” you can choose the Papyrus Author version you would like to use as the default for opening your Papyrus documents.