Wow... This is going to be a fun project for someone.
The computer will need:
- A running web server
- A running web server with PHP installed
- A place to write temp files
- A database server - running and configured to store the data on the local hard drive or somewhere with read/write access
Those are your requirements you'll have to work around on the CD.
My best bet would be a bootable flavor of Linux, like Knoppix (there's now a ton of these bootable Linux CDs out now). But you make it your own by stripping all the junk out but the database server, web server, and PHP (not sure if those are actually included in Knoppix or not). Then you'll need to package up your web site and data onto the CD. Then when the CD runs, you'll need to create a script that tells the DB server to point to the local hard drive. Then you'll need to copy the database over to the local hard drive (assuming it hasn't been done already - if it has, you'll want to skip this step unless you want to blow any data changes away). After that, the user then can fire up their browser and go to town.
Personally, that's too much work involved. If its an application that they need to run locally, I'd say port the app into a desktop software app. Or tell them they need their own web server and database.
