[texhax] does TexLive mess with hard drive or any other part of computer?

[Karl Berry]

Hi Chris,

    Reason I ask is I am wondering whether my kids could use the TexLive DVD 
    on computers at school.

That would be cool.

    H:\susie, or whatever.  Do 
    you think that TexLive could use that directory for the .fmt files, etc? 

Yes, it could.  (Probably a subdir, h:\susie\texmf, as things can get
quite voluminous.)

      Or does it have to be the C:\ that is the physical hard drive in the 
    particular computer?  

It can be any directory.

The worst problem I can see is that you have to run the TL installation
program and choose the directory to use, as well as muck with the path
setting in autoexec.bat or whatever to find tex on the DVD.  I am not
sure what the windows install is like these days.  It would probably be
good to take a look at that.

Another possibility is protext (tug.org/protext).  I am pretty sure that
it has the same needs-a-local-directory issue, but installation could
potentially be a little easier.  Check out the install doc available on
the web site and see what you think.

    And are those files executables that could be potentially harmful?

No.  They are just data files.  I can't imagine any way that they could
cause security problems.

Best,
Karl