Off Line Storage

[farview]

I am currently installing Armory .96 and Bitcoin Core version v0.14.2 on a Windows 7.  The Core is syncing now with the online machine.

Does the air gaped machine need to have Core installed?  Or do you just load Armory form the zipped files?  Do the library files need to be unzipped and installed or will this occur automatically?

Thanks for the advice.

[goatpig]

Your offline machine only needs Armory.

Or do you just load Armory form the zipped files?  Do the library files need to be unzipped and installed or will this occur automatically?

Depends what OS your offline signer runs. If it's Windows or OSX, you only need the respective release package. For Linux, you will need to install the dependencies as well. The 0.93 offline packages have that stuff in there, so you could look at these.

[farview]

Thanks for the info!  I now have the offline storage and brought a watch only wallet into the online computer.  It hasn't synced yet but I have nothing on this wallet yet anyway. 

I have two other wallets, Electrum and Samourai that do have some bit in them. So just to confirm:
Use import key into a new wallet from the Electrum and Samourai wallets so that I can see the amounts and spend them from either place.
or
Sweep to drain those accounts into one of the Armory only wallets which will incur fees.

Thanks a lot for your help and patience!

[goatpig]

You are better off sweeping the funds than importing.

The most efficient way forward is to create a short term wallet, import the private keys into that, sync it then move the coins out on a low fee/during low traffic. This way you keep the private keys offline while side stepping the priority fee rake. You can even RBF with this setup (allows you to start on a really low fee and increment as needed).

The sweeping interface is too streamlined to allow for this level of control, and it would require you to expose the private keys to the online machine to begin with.

Once this all done, you can get rid of the short term wallet.

[farview]

Thanks for the help!  Been through the whole set of transactions to and from offline with no problems.  The whole concept and package is very slick once it is set up.  The seemingly awkward and time consuming set up with the bit core is actually the beauty of the system since it provides the non centralized abilities.

For other users who may new to this as well, the offline storage is a storage for the private keys only.  It is not a mirror showing balances (it can't since it is offline).  It is only used to sign the online transactions with the offline computer.  All activity is tracked and carried out via the online machine.  This may be obvious to those with more skills, but I had to do a lot of reading to figure that out.  All the info of the transactions and the accounts exists in the chain, not on the offline "storage".