One word: Yay! Good to hear this redllar, I'm glad progress is going so well with PP.

Sorry for not saying much, my brain's currently frying on a Neverwinter Nights binge with some interludes of badly subtitled Hong Kong movies (namely, The Young and Dangerous series). Looking forward to a fully portable Google Talk and trying to break a new version of PortaPotty sometime soon.

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How much Keefe is in this movie? Miles O' Keefe!

Thanks for the offer to continue with the testing. This next version will probably give you some weird system problems, though. At least it is for me.

Hey all. The next version of the PP app/dll is now available for download from here.

The only thing new is the file system redirection, plus a few registry redirection bug fixes and a slightly modified launcher/builder. Both the registry and file system redirection efforts are still incomplete and no optimizations have yet been enabled. And the launcher/builder is still pretty much at a minimum.

You'll need to delete any PP registry ini's you have around as the reg_sz and reg_expand_sz values are now stored in the ini as Unicode hex strings only.

The registry ini's been renamed to portaPotty_registry.ini. By default all registry data is stored in an ini in the PP dll's directory. But placing an ini file named exeutableFilename_registry.ini in the directory that contains the app's executable will cause the PP dll to make use of that ini to store the registry redirection contents.

For now, the file system redirection is always tied to the directory that contains the registry ini in use for that given app. So having an app registry ini in the app executable's directory will cause the redirected file system to be stored there. As with the registry ini, the default redirected file system is stored in the directory that contains the PP dll.

The PP app has changed a bit as well. Now you drag-n-drop onto the appropriate button to perform the required task. D-n-d'ng onto the main window will do an app launch. Left-single-click on any of the buttons to bring up a few options. Changes to the "shadow" and "skin" settings options are only applied on PP app restart. The skinned mode's button's positions are hardcoded for now. If you want different app messages or button titles, they're located in the [Messages] section of the PortaPotty.ini. Just add your own test to the right of the "=" for the appropriate message. And the Launch button will store the path of each file dropped onto it and present those file's filenames in a list in the Launch button's left-click menu.

FINALLY AND WARNING: Over the last several days I've had a couple of weird system problems which originally made me think some sort of malware was the culprit. I now think it's due to some of the redirection that PP's doing. So please take this into account before and while you use this version of PP. The 2 problems I had were instances of explorer starting but failing to display and firefox crashing after being started. Both problems occured only once in a long while and went away after logging off and back on to the current user account.

Don't know if its still relevant to report this, but in 0.1.0 i got this message "Unable to "portablize" this file. Detours cannot see the IAT (1)" - perhaps this never happens anymore

Whenever I try to build a portable version of an msi file, it says "cannot open the file to be portablized". How can I fix it?

sweet!!! finally gonna get home and test it!

redllar can i ask why cant it portabilize delphi? Is it cuz dephli is defferendt from other PE files like .net files?

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check this out^

I was about to say, that I see you found a way around the small fonts but using small graphics... but it seems if you remove the png files it still runs, but with buttons instead - I think that is good. Its fine to copy an exe and dll to somewhere else, but if it ends up being a whole slew of files I would find it less that optimal.

As for the "Detours cannot see the IAT" continues - and yes it appears to be a Delphi file. Perhaps this was fixed in Detours 2.1 ?

Nope. That'll be there for a good long while.

I think you mean you got a "Unable to access..." message? If so, that's because msi file's are not executables (exe or dll). You can't make a portable out of them as they're basically just a data file like a .zip.

I don't know why and right now I really don't care why. That's for future work once I get everything else working.

I have no idea and I don't really care at this point. Not until I get the basics done first.

And what are the basics pray tell?

(Might one be totally wrong by suggesting that if it could function with the programs people wanted to test with, more testing would be done ? )

Folks, I'm making a request that no one post anymore in this thread unless you have something concrete to contribute in terms of testing feedback.

I'm asking this of you because I'm very busy right now and I'm trying to use the forum's post notification feature as a way of telling me that someone's posted some feedback that I need to see.

I know you mean well, and I thank you for the interest, and please don't take this the wrong way. I just don't have the time to play tit-for-tat and to answer questions that aren't in line with what's at the top of the priority list.

Okay? Thanks.

As for Kermode's question regarding what constitutes "the basics," the basics are the redirection capabilities only. And to test the redirection capabilities you do not need to build a portable version of an app; you only need to launch the app via PortaPotty.

I don't care about any other feature right now; not the gui or lack thereof; not the performance or lack thereof. And the last thing I will ever care about is the building of a portable version of an app. What good would any of that be if the redirection capabilities are broken? BTW, that was a rhetorical question and I'm not expecting any replies, please.

Hopefully that's clear enough. If not, your best bet is to just not post here unless you have some testing feedback regarding redirection successes or failures. And I'm sure Andrew wouldn't mind if you were to start another thread with your questions and/or requests in it. Just don't expect me to contribute to it in a timely manner.

well, i dont know if itll help much, and im kinda reluctant to post it after what was said, but thats just cuz i dont want to bother you with an ...odd use of your program, ^-^;


Anyways,...
if i try to build Pstart as a portable program, it gives the error:
"Unable to "portablize" this file. Detours cannot see the IAT (1)."

But, itll work if you just run it as a portable app.

now, if you want to know why im stupid enough to try an build a portable app, As a portable app, ill quote out of my other thread:


(which is here: http://portablefreeware.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=582 ...shameless plug, yes, )
its a idea thread i started for PP, hopefully you'll give it a look when your not so busy, ^-^

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"It's not that I'm Evil, just that I'm unwillingly Good."
-Stolen, but oh so fitting. ^-^

Note: It might take me a while to reply to any post or comments due to offline reasons.
So if I don't reply or miss a question, this is why.

Here's a new, bloated version of the dll to try out when you have the chance. I've done away with the UPX packing and a couple of other "small footprint" optimizations to make sure they weren't part of the flakiness problem I experienced here lately. I haven't had the time to do an extensive test, but I don't think it can be any worse than the previous version.

On the up side, I was able to track down and squash the partially-in-memory registry ini bug that was causing Future Pinball to crash on start up. So you should see things like open dialog box file browsing sped up. There's still a cpu hit whenever the app reads/saves its own settings, as that's still going directly to the registry ini file, but system dll registry use should be quicker.