. Can the freesurfer subject directory be copied from one computer to another?

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1

Hi MNE users. Can the freesurfer subject directory be copied from one computer to another? I happen to have a MacOS computer where i performed all my freesurfer reconstructions also bem and the trans fils, and now I need to produce inverse model on another computer (windows). I copied all the files and folders including the subject directory. While the bem solution and src could be obtained from reading the files from external hard drive where i had copied all the folders, when i try obtaining the inverse model, it says that the subject directory is missing.

Is there any solution to this?

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Yes, you can copy the freesurfer directory between computers. I dont’ believe Freesurfer has been ported to windows - so if you need freesurfer for the processing it will likely crash (e.g. watershed_bem and make_scalp_surfaces call freesurfer under the hood.)

Many MNE functions allow you to assign subjects_dir when you call the function - so you can manually assign it during the function call: mne_function(…, subjects_dir=‘C:\\…PathToSubjectsDir’, subject=’…’).

Another option is to assign the subjects_dir to the system variable while using python. If the subjects_dir is not provided during the function call, the function should try to find the system variable SUBJECTS_DIR.

import os
os.environ['SUBJECTS_DIR']= 'PathToSubjectsDir' 
mne_function(..., subject='...')

We routinely copy the subjects_dir between Linux systems and Mac. I don’t know how this works with windows, but it should be similar. Hope this is helpful.
-Jeff