Lightroom catalog together with network

Question

Hello, i have a home network with Lightroom on my base computer. The Lightroom catalog is also stored here. The pictures are on a central server, connected to the network. This works fine. But: i want to use a second computer in another room with Lightroom installed to see the pictures by using the Lightroom catalog. But this is not possible, because the catalog is not allowed to stay on a network server!!! It should be there so that it can be used within a network (therefore i have one!) Does Adobe or anybody has a solution? Thank you very much

Answer 1

To: Bill
thanks for the tip on substitutiary locomotion for LR using a catalog across a network (obscure kid's movie reference there!). I tried it, and it works. On WinXP, that is.
For everyone viewing this, the process is as follows:
You have an LR catalog on another computer in your local network, that you want to access from your computer.
In Window's Explorer on your computer, "map" the network drive (on the other computer) that holds the folder with the catalog, or perhaps even specifically that folder, to a virtual or single-letter drive on your computer, say "x". (And note, the quotes I place around things are there by me to delineate exactly what you type, do not type them in yourself. Only type what is BETWEEN the quotation marks.)
Then access the command-line (DOS level) editor on your computer through the menu system, "Start | Programs | Accesories | Command Prompt".
Type "cd\c:\"
(The above step may not be needed, but I was taught to make my commands from a main-drive location, not a subfolder. Back to the little routine.)
At the prompt, "c:\ ",
type "subst p: x:\"
where "p" stands for any free local drive letter on your computer, and "x" is the local drive letter you mapped the other computer's LR catalog drive or folder to. NOTE THE CLEAR SPACE BETWEEN P: AND X.
Now, open LR on your computer, tell it you want to open a new catalog, and choose the drive-letter that you typed where I use "p" as the drive to find it on, navigate to the folder that has the ".Ircat" folder on it, select it, click on "open".
If you get a message that it cannot access files across a network, simply click on the drop-down box to the right titled "choose" and select the folder-path on the "p" drive and it will now load.
It takes half the time to do this that it does to read it!
I tested this by exporting a small folder as a catalog, copying that folder to another machine, doing the mapping\substitutiary routine above, and accessing it (only from one computer at a time) sequentially from both computers, changing a couple things each time, without saving back to the XMP either manually or automatically.
After doing several changes I then closed the catalog without saving either manually or automatically to xmp. All changes were there immediately on opening the catalog with the other computer. Virtual copies, exposure changes, ratings, labels, keywords ... all saved from both computers to a local drive on the one computer, and readable and useable from the other computer.
You do need to keep from using both at the same time, like duh, but then, we've managed to use file-sharing across our network here for several years with up to 5 people accessing files without both being on the same file at the same time in ANY program, CS, word processing, whatever.
Of course, anything one EVER does it always at your own risk.
Neil