Synology NAS; Laptop & Tablet accessing media and library from NAS.

[Patch]

So, I currently have a local installation of MusicBee on my laptop.  All of the media is on a separate USB drive (D:), and, the MB Library is in the local Music Folder on the laptop (C:\Users\Patch\Music\MusicBee).

I've just bought a cheap 8" Win8 Tablet to use with my hi-fi in the lounge.  Same room as the NAS and the laptop. The Tablet will be connected to the hifi aux in with a cable. Old School.

I want to be able to use the tablet as a player only.  Any work I do on creating playlists, downloading and adding music to my library, etc..., will be done on the laptop.

What is my best method of doing this?  Would it be to drop a folder on the NAS with a Portable version of MusicBee on it, and a folder for all of my media files on the NAS too, and, just create a link to MusicBee portable on the Tablet and the Laptop?  

How do I transfer my settings from my current local installation, to the portable version that I'd load on the NAS.

Is there a more elegant way of doing it? I want to be able to access the media and the library from the tablet, even when the laptop is not powered on...

Very grateful for any assistance here.  

[frankz]

https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=23076.msg134880#msg134880

I do what's described in the post above with the addition of now also having MB portable in a shared network folder and running that copy from the remote machines. One library, one set of music files, one copy of MB to keep updated and configured.

[Patch]

That post was super useful - thanks mate!

One library, one set of music files, one copy of MB to keep updated and configured.

Can you set the library locations in the preferences of the MB portable version?  

So, is it the case that, you have a standard install on your laptop, another standard install on your desktop (your desktop is your server, so, it always has to be powered on?) and, a portable version in a share on your desktop, with all 3 MB's pointing to a library and music files on your desktop shared folder(s)?

Feels like it would be even easier for me.  With a folder on my NAS containing my media files, and, a copy of the MB Portable .exe, that I would access from either my laptop, or, my tablet. I'm guessing that the portable .exe will ask for a location for the library file(s) to be stored when I start it?

Is there a way to copy my display settings from my current local install (on my laptop) to the new portable version on my NAS?

[The Incredible Boom Boom]

So, is it the case that, you have a standard install on your laptop, another standard install on your desktop (your desktop is your server, so, it always has to be powered on?) and, a portable version in a share on your desktop, with all 3 MB's pointing to a library and music files on your desktop shared folder(s)?

Feels like it would be even easier for me.  With a folder on my NAS containing my media files, and, a copy of the MB Portable .exe, that I would access from either my laptop, or, my tablet. I'm guessing that the portable .exe will ask for a location for the library file(s) to be stored when I start it?

Is there a way to copy my display settings from my current local install (on my laptop) to the new portable version on my NAS?

Up until two days ago, I used one instance of MusicBee on several different computers from a mapped network drive located on the main hard drive of my server. However, two of my computers have higher resolutions than the computer I initially set MB up on years ago, so I had been using those two computers in lower resolutions than they are capable of. I've had the idea of copying my MB instance to the local drives on each computer for forever, but had been too lazy to follow through.

So far, this set up seems to be working fairly well. I tried this at home yesterday and was successful, so right now I'm in the office, using a personal computer I leave here that is VPN'd to my home network, which is where my server (and subsequently music files) live. MusicBee was robocopied to my Documents folder and I currently have the Plugins, Skins and Library folders symbolically linked to MB folder on my mapped network drive, where the original MB instance still resides. This way, I won't have to manually manage the most major changes I'll make to MB, but - most importantly - I can use MB on my other computers in their native resolutions without having to fix the paneling when I open the program on another computer with a different resolution.

[frankz]

So, is it the case that, you have a standard install on your laptop, another standard install on your desktop (your desktop is your server, so, it always has to be powered on?) and, a portable version in a share on your desktop, with all 3 MB's pointing to a library and music files on your desktop shared folder(s)

No.  I have MB Portable in a shared folder on my Desktop (which, yes, is always on).  I open that same copy from each of the three locations, always from the \\DESKTOP\MB location (even on the computer where it resides) so that nothing in the ini file ever references C:\MB.  Same for the library - all files are imported from their \\DESKTOP\Music location so that D:\Music never sees the light of day in the library.