How to update my portable software?

[Simon.T]

TPFC - Firefox Portable

Category: Web Browsers (10)

Synopsis: Mozilla Firefox is an web browser that includes popup blocking, tabbed browsing, smart...

Writes settings to: Application folder

How to extract: Download the self-extracting...

Stealth: No

Unicode support: Partial. Firefox has...

License: Freeware/Open Source

System Requirements: Win95 / Win98 / WinME / WinNT / Win2K / WinXP / Vista

Updating: Profile stored at... (or maybe) Move the ? to ?...

In Firefox, for instance, I meant to the launcher (not the auto update)
I think that displaying this kind of field will give the users more control on their profiles instead of back up tools (if you got any for a specific app) DIY!

[edit] Upgrading Firefox Portable

To upgrade to a newer version of Firefox Portable, just install a new copy of Firefox Portable right over your old one. All your data will be preserved.

If you're upgrading from Portable Firefox (older name and directories), make a copy of your existing profile folder within the PortableFirefox\Data\profile directory on your portable drive. Then download the new version of Firefox Portable and copy your profile from the old version into the new version within FirefoxPortable\Data\profile. If you added any plugins or searchplugins, you should copy those directories as well (PortableFirefox\plugins to FirefoxPortable\Data\plugins and PortableFirefox\firefox\searchplugins to FirefoxPortable\App\firefox\searchplugins).

[Simon.T]

So far there are 4 votes (I'm the only one who said "Yes")



2 of the voters said "No", if so ,then post your opinion of "Why Not"
I think that this will be helpful for new TPFC users (they are exposed for the first time to this HUGE bunch of portable apps)

[Simon.T]

Thank you, whoever you are

[Ennovy]

Hi Simon.T

I think it's a great idea, so you have my support

[teobromina]

Thank you, whoever you are

I was the one of that 'Yes' vote.

I think it is good idea to help to preserve the personal settings.

My approach is always to separate data from the programs which generate the data, but it is not easy.

Regards.

*JT.

[Simon.T]

Ennovy (tough guy)... teobromina (Mr. Wine)... hhhhhmmmmzzzzz... I got a very seriously support from some seriously TPFC users (wow!) who's next? Firewrath??

(It'll be pretty amusing if Firewrath voted for "No")

[teobromina]

Simon:

Some days ago I was interested in the same subject, but for different purpose. Since I am preparing a sort of 'distribution' with my portable software, from time to time I need to 'clean' the settings that the program writes when used for trials, in order to keep the distribution as if it were composed by unused programs after a 'new installation'.

I was analyzing which programs of my basic collection (my very best four or five dozens) were using to save settings in an 'INI' file; then I collected the INI files of each one, changing them to their initial values (deleting, inside the INI files, the registered data or information about what are the program folders, the last files opened and so on). Then I put all the INI files, ready in a folder tree, reproducing the folder tree of my 'distribution'. In this way I can clean at once all my collection before preparing a new ISO, no matter if I have run the programs of the distribution for my daily use, simply copying the INI-files-tree to the collection-folder-tree (the INI files in the collection-folder-tree are overwritten by the clean INI files, thus becoming also 'clean', without personal settings).

Surprisingly only few programs among all my collection need to use INI files. And the size of the INI files together is negligible compared to the whole collection. There are some other programs that do not work that way, and use not an INI file alone, but several database-like files. In that later cases, to have a 'clean' new program, the best method is to delete the folder of the program and to copy a new copy of the program preserved unused for the 'cleaning' operation (substituting INI files alone is not enough).

I will try to recover my results and will post a summary on that. While my purpose was different, may be helpfull anyway

I propose to open a thread in the Forum specifically to address this subject.

Thanks Simon for your wise suggestion.

*JT.

[teobromina]

Dear friends.

The list below is a list of portable programs. I am indicating by the ..................... <<<INI>>> label that the program listed, at run time, is writting an INI file. If you want to use the program in different conditions (in another computer, for instance), this INI file could lead to wrong settings, but can be edited easily. In the case of Fast Stone Image Viewer, the program is using (by deffect) some databases of thumbnails, etc. It is possible to change this behaviour in the options menu of the program. If you need to use the program in different conditions, or the database are growing too much, then it could be useful to use a complete clean copy, preserved unused for this purpose, deleting first the old folder and replacing by a copy of the unused one.

This list is a basic list, but covers very well the major part of a standard user needs. It is divided into programs that run well in Linux with Wine ___My-Wine___ section, and those that do not ___No-Wine___ section. Inside each group they are divided again in main functions identified as _Edit, _Image, _PIM, _Play, _System:

___My-Wine___

_Edit

BlockNote-Free\BlockNote.exe
notepad2\Notepad2.exe ..................... <<<INI>>>
ntnot20\NTNOT.EXE
pdfrd\Foxit Reader.exe
Tomahawk\Tomahawk.exe

_Image

DiagramDesigner\DiagramDesigner.exe
FastStone Image Viewer\FSViewer.exe ..................... <<<BETTER TO REPLACE ALL THE FOLDER>>>
irfanview\i_view32.exe ..................... <<<INI>>>
Photofiltre\PhotoFiltre.exe ..................... <<<INI>>>
Room Arranger\RooArr.exe

_PIM

AMenu\AutoRun.exe
CSVed\CSVed.exe
dirhtml\dirhtml.exe ..................... <<<INI>>>
HFS\hfs_unpacked.exe
ICE Mirror\ICEMirror.exe
PStart\PStart.exe
ripcoder15e\RIPCODER.EXE
spre32sp\Spread32.exe
SyncBack_NI_ES\SyncBack.exe
TableProNoSetupSPA\TablePro.exe
TREESIZE\TreeSize.exe
WS_FTP\WS_FTP95.exe ..................... <<<INI>>>

_Play

DVD Shrink\DVD Shrink 3.2.exe
GNUCHESS\GNUCHESS.EXE
mp3DC205\mp3DirectCut.exe ..................... <<<INI>>>
MP4Cam2AVI_v2.38\Mp4Cam2AVI.exe ..................... <<<INI>>>

_System

Ad-aware 6\Ad-aware.exe ..................... <<<INI>>>
cdcheck\CDCheck.exe
cports\cports.exe
cprocess\CProcess.exe
Folder2ISO\Folder2Iso.exe
RegSeeker\RegSeeker.exe
WinImp\winimp32.exe


___No-Wine___

_Edit

Foxit_PDF Editor\PDFEdit.exe
PortableNVU\Apps\PortableNVU\nvu\nvu.exe

_Image

GimpPortable2_2_17\GIMPPortable.exe
gs\GifSplitter.exe
unfreez\UnFREEz.exe
WinSnap_1.1.10-portable\WinSnap.exe

_PIM

Abyss Web Server\abyssws.exe
Calendar\Calendar.exe
CCleanerPortable\ccleaner.exe
essentialpimport1\EssentialPIM.exe ..................... <<<INI>>>
truecrypt-4.3\TrueCrypt.exe
WinNav\WinNav.exe

_Play

1by1\1by1.exe ..................... <<<INI>>>
ASTRSG36\SKYGLOBE.EXE

_System

BassamDriverCollector\Driver Collector.exe
DTemp (temperatura HD)\DTemp.exe
regshot1_7_2\regshot.exe ..................... <<<INI>>>
strun\strun.exe
VirtualDrives\VirtualDrives.exe
winxpvirtualcdcontrolpanel_21\VCdControlTool.exe

Regards.

*JT.

[Andrew Lee]

I don't think I will be adding a "Upgrading" field to TPFC, since I prefer the user to direct his attention to the app website, rather than trying to resolve upgrading issues and app bugs on TPFC. I think it makes more sense this way, rather than trying to pull every information into TPFC. I think the app website will also become less useful because of that.