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:

1. Download the zipped up Cayra folder.
2. Make a new folder C:\Program Files\Cayra
3. Move Cayra.zip there and unzip it
4. Right click on C:\Program Files\Cayra\Cayra.exe and select Create shortcut in the context menu.
5. 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. 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.
6. 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.

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 Vic’s 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.