Is there a way to install App Inventor Tools with the Emulator for Windows on the C:\ drive such that the user's profile doesn't grow by 9.01GB (ie: Users<username>\AppData\Roaming\AppInventor folder)? I would like the emulator to work, but I do not want each user profile growing by so much.
Another way of saying this is I would like to install the emulator for all users on the hard drive but independent of the user profile?
PS: Please don't point me to the AI Companion, I understand the AI Companion and how it works. This question is specific to the emulator only.
Three things you could adjust in C:\Program Files\MIT App Inventor\extras\App_Inventor.avd\config.ini:
Change disk.dataPartition.size to be something smaller like 100 MB. The data disk needs 2x the actual amount specified here because there is a base image then QEMU has a copy on write mirror.
Change fastboot.forceColdBoot to yes and fastboot.forceFastBoot to no. This will prevent saving the RAM snapshot to memory on shutdown, which should save 1.5 GB or so.
Adjust sdcard.size to be something smaller and/or set hw.sdCard to no.
You could also try adjusting hw.ramSize down but that may have unintended consequences.
Thanks Abe, I've tried other emulators in the past, and was trying to stick with the "default" emulator, which I like overall. Still, food for thought!
I will also point out that our emulator package is just the stock Android Studio emulator with some additional plumbing around it to let App Inventor connect to it easily. You can always build your own emulator configuration in Android Studio and load the companion onto it. The downside of course is that how Google has architected things may not be conducive to a small footprint on disk.
