Miranda IM Portable Support

Many of the most common issues that arise when using Miranda IM Portable are addressed here. Please read through the various topics to see if any of them address your question. You can also post a message on the Miranda IM Portable Support Forum.

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Miranda IM Portable-Specific Issues

• Installing Miranda IM Portable
• Using Miranda IM Portable
• Upgrading Miranda IM Portable
• Copying You Local Miranda Settings to Miranda IM Portable
• Changing Miranda IM Portable to Another Language
• Running From CD (Miranda IM Portable Live)
• Known Issues
• ANSI, Unicode and Plugins
• Modifications - A list of the modifications made to the Miranda in this package
• Version History

General Miranda IM Issues

• Miranda Addons
• Miranda Forums

Installing Miranda IM Portable

To install Miranda IM Portable, just download the portable package at the top of the Miranda IM Portable page and then double-click it. Select the location you wish to install to and click OK. That's all there is to it.

Using Miranda IM Portable

To start up Miranda IM Portable, just double-click MirandaPortable.exe file where you installed Portable Miranda on your portable drive. Then, use it just like you would a local copy of Miranda. There are a couple of things to keep in mind:

• Stay Safe - When using portable apps, it's always a good idea to practice Safe Portable App-ing.
• Removing Your Drive - When you're done, exit Miranda and then wait for the activity light on your removable drive to stop flashing. Then select the 'Safely remove [device]' option from the icon in the system tray. If you remove the drive while it is writing, you may lose data.

Upgrading Miranda IM Portable

To upgrade to a newer version of Miranda IM Portable, just download a new copy and install it right over your current copy.

Copying Your Local Miranda Settings to Miranda IM Portable

If you're using a local copy of Miranda, you may wish to just copy your local settings right into Miranda IM Portable. Your local Miranda settings are usually installed in C:\Program Files\Miranda\ Just copy the profiles (ending in .dat) to your MirandaPortable\data\profiles directory.

Changing Miranda IM Portable to Another Language

You'll need to download a language pack in the language you wish to use. Each language pack installs a bit differently, so you'll need to unzip it and follow along with the included readme.txt if there is one. When the instructions refer to the Miranda IM install directory, use the MirandaPortable\App\miranda directory.

Running From CD (Miranda IM Portable Live)

Miranda IM Portable supports running from a CD right out of the box, and it's a snap. Start off by downloading and installing Miranda IM Portable to your hard drive... it doesn't matter where. Run it at least once to generate the default settings. Then, customize it as needed, being sure not to move MirandaPortable.exe or any of the other critical files. Next, download MirandaPortable.ini and save it to the same directory as MirandaPortable.exe. Then, burn the whole MirandaPortable directory to a CD and you're ready to go.

ANSI, Unicode and Plugins

Miranda IM Portable includes both the ANSI and Unicode versions of Miranda IM in a single package. The launcher launches the Unicode version unless it finds itself on a Windows 95/98/Me PC, in which case it launches the ANSI version (the Unicode version will not run on Windows 9x). If you never plan to use the ANSI version, you can delete the MirandaPortable\App\miranda_ansi directory. If you want to always use the ANSI version (which will work on Windows 2000 and up but won't support Unicode languages), you can delete the MirandaPortable\App\miranda directory. Doing so will save you approximately 1.9MB of space.

When installing plugins for Miranda IM, be sure to install the correct type of plugin (ANSI vs Unicode) in the correct place (MirandaPortable\App\miranda_ansi\plugins for ANSI plugins and MirandaPortable\App\miranda\plugins for Unicode plugins). You can install one copy of each if you want it available to you no matter what operating system you come across. Just install it in Unicode if you just want a clean copy of Miranda as a backup when you run into older PCs. Or just install the ANSI version if you're only using the ANSI version of Miranda IM. The choice is up to you.

Known Issues

None currently

Modifications

I made some modifications to the default version of Miranda to make it more USB key friendly (decreasing total install size, etc). These changes are listed here so you'll know what they are, and so you can recreate the process, if so desired.

• Friendly Launcher - Miranda IM Portable Launcher is included by default.
• EXEs and DLLs Compressed - All EXEs and DLLs were recompressed using UPX. This gets our installed size down a bit. Additionally, it will speed up use when you're running over USB 1.1. The options used were: --best --compress-icons=0 --nrv2d --crp-ms=999999 -k

Version History

• 0.6.8 - March 14, 2007
  • Updated to 0.6.8
• 0.6.7 - February 9, 2007
  • Updated to 0.6.7
  • Vista compatible
  • Improved registry handling
  • PortableApps Format packaging
• 0.5 - August 14, 2006
  • Updated to 0.5
  • Live CD Support
  • In-Place Upgrade Support
  • WINE Support
• 0.4.0.3 Beta - April 17, 2006
  • Updated to 0.4.0.3
• 0.4.0.2 Beta - January 27, 2006
  • Initial public release based on 0.4.0.2