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Exist any way, how to place the PHP project with MySQL database on CD/DVD with full functionality? My client would like have his presentation on the CD and this CD he'd give his customers.

And the idea is, that these customers just put the CD into their PC and run the complet web presentation on their computer...

Is that sci-fi or exist any way to do that?

Thank you

user984621
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    Sounds as though your client is like my grandpa: "*can't you print out the Internet and post it to me?*" – eggyal Apr 27 '12 at 19:49
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    Why not just find a webhosting company and put the project on a website? That way you can just provide a link and save your client a bunch of CDs – Jeff Lambert Apr 27 '12 at 19:51
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    @eggyal your grandpa rocks! :))) – user984621 Apr 27 '12 at 19:53
  • @watcher the project is up, but the client wants to have that also on CD... don't search there some sense, it's nonsense - I know. But it's client's wish... – user984621 Apr 27 '12 at 19:56
  • @eggyal: http://www.w3schools.com/images/downloadwww.gif (sadly this image is hosted on w3schools, but what the hack) – Madara's Ghost Apr 27 '12 at 21:01

7 Answers7

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The CD/DVD will have to have Apache/MySQL/PHP available to it - what you're looking for is a "portable webserver" to be run from the DVD. I used something called The Uniform Server some time back with pretty good success.

GDP
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    Just to shorten the amount of stuff that has to load and could go wrong here, I'd go with this solution and switch your database over to SQLite3 or some other file-based DB. MySQL probably won't like attempting to load files that cannot be written to. – Brad Apr 27 '12 at 19:55
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Well, the only solution I can see is not use a server-side language (seeing as there is no server here), but use only HTML+CSS+JavaScript to make your presentation, hard code the content with the HTML, and don't use a database.

Burn all of that on a CD (have an index.html page on the root folder) and when that is run from a browser, it should work.

Madara's Ghost
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Since most folks have internet access these days, I'd make an index.html file with a meta-refresh to a regular web page online. You can even make an autorun.inf that launches that file, but note that most computers have autorun functionality disabled these days.

Brad
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  • Just for the record, [Only about a third of the world's population has an internet connection](http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm) :P – Madara's Ghost Apr 27 '12 at 20:33
  • @Truth, No doubt, but I'm narrowing my scope to those that are going to be looking at a web application, have a computer, and an optical drive. – Brad Apr 27 '12 at 20:56
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You can checkout Server2Go. I only found it via googling so I can't speak as to how well it works, but it seems like it has everything you're looking for.

Jeff Lambert
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You can create an entire live Linux environment that they can boot off of a CD. Take a look at Knoppix. Their wiki has instructions for mounting the OS, customizing it, and recreating the disk image.

Another option might be to use VMWare ThinApp to virtualize your entire application bundle (MySQL Server, application server, etc.).

Marcus Adams
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  • I think, given the context, this is likely not to be acceptable to the client: one suspects they want something to run in their customer's existing environment, merely on inserting the disc - rebooting alone would deter most users; booting from a CD might well be beyond them and entering an unfamiliar environment would probably cause them to freak out and think they had a virus! It is entirely contrary to the UX of pretty much every other such marketing CD that I've ever seen. – eggyal Apr 27 '12 at 20:40
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On your client computer set up the server, php plugin, and mysql. The server should point to the cdrom as the root directory. Then copy all the web files onto the dvd. Do not forget to create databases on the client computer.

chris
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I just tried CDsite from the SourceForge website. It came in handy for a similar requirement of mine. However, note, works only on Windows XP. The EXE file failed to run in Windows 7.

Whirl Mind
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