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Portable firefox and profile manager?

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kissdznuts
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Portable firefox and profile manager?

Is there a profile manager with Portable Firefox? I have used the -P and -profilemanager switches, but neither starts the profile manager.

After installing the latest update, Firefox started up in a new profile instead of the existing one. If the profile manager cannot be started, what is the easiest way to get my profile back?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

J

Artillerie
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Profile location

Your FF profile is at

x:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable\Data

Where x is the letter asigned to your USB drive. Check to see if your old profile is there or if you have backed it up replace the one that is there with your backup.

kissdznuts
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My profile files are located

My profile files are located in X:\Program Files\FirefoxPortable\Data\profile (bookmarks, extensions, etc).

I redownloaded portable Firefox and manually applied my bookmarks, extensions, and passwords over to the 2nd copy and everything is fine now. Thanks for the help though.

I was just surprised that the Profile Manager switches don't appear to work with the portable versions and just wanted to verify that.

John T. Haller
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Profile Manager non-portable

That's because profile manager is non-portable. It only works with profiles listed within the local PC's profile list, not portable ones.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

kissdznuts
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Roger that John.

Roger that John. Thanks for the response.

NathanJ79
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Firefox is also non-portable

Firefox is also non-portable, but it was able to be made portable. The profile manager really can't, though? That's very strange. I mean, being open source, couldn't the profile manager be altered to look in ..\..\data\profiles (which would contain one or more profile_name folders)? Then again, I'm not a programmer... but it seems like, other than being able to create, rename, and delete profiles, it just looks in a set location (%APPDATA\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles ?) and lists the profiles, so it'd be my guess it could be told to look elsewhere...?

Still, it isn't particularly hard to manage multiple profiles in Portable Firefox. It can be a PITA if you swap back and forth a lot. Since your entire profile is contained in that Profile folder, I just drop other profiles in the Data folder alongside it and rename them to profile_Name. When I want to use one, I rename "profile" to "profile_something" and the one I want to use to "profile". Start Firefox, and it's using the other profile. That easy.

The other way is to simply have 2 copies of Portable Firefox, like we do at home. We have JFirefoxPortable and NFirefoxPortable folders under PortableApps. This works fine, except when a new version comes out, I must run the installer twice. Not a big deal. And much easier than swapping. Furthermore, each of us having our own Firefox shortcut on the desktop means one or two fewer clicks than when we installed Firefox and used the profile manager. Even on the quick launch toolbar, I just made a folder called Firefox and copied the shortcuts to it. It doesn't open like a menu, so the folder must be manually closed after we open our Firefox, but that's a minor setback. We could use the PA Platform, but we don't. (That would make sense though. I use it at work and all.)

Perhaps somebody, if it ever became an issue (e.g. PortableApps gets really big and people request it a lot), could make an extension for Firefox Portable only that would work as a portable profile manager. I'm sure PA's agreement with Mozilla wouldn't let PA bundle the extension, but nothing should stop them from putting it on the Applications page.

AndreasSeitz
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Portable Profiles 0.1d - profile manager for firefox portable

Portable Profiles is a bat-file, that manages firefox-profiles and allows to easily create new ones.
Just download it at http://ifile.it/yhmw9r7 (3.561 Bytes) and copy it into your Firefox Portable folder.

Version 0.1d is completely bilingual (German/English) - there are no Comments to the Code yet.

Feedback is very welcome at portprof[at]andiseitz.de

vnathalye
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Thanks Andreas

Thanks Andreas. Its a good tool.

But I faced 1 problem. I've around 60 extensions installed, having around 2500 files. These files get copied from allprofiles folder to actual profile folder and it takes quite some time. I was almost asleep by the time it copied these files. (Its 00:10 Hrs right now.)
Is there a better way to handle this? I had thought of changing the "ProfileDirectory" setting in "FirefoxPortable.ini" file using batch file, but never got a chance to implement it. What do you think, will that help?

Thanks & Regards,
- Vivek Athalye

bomberman
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I also found this to be a

I also found this to be a difficult solution. Changing the setting to reference my actual directory did not work, it just reverted to the portable default. So, I erased the profile directory and put a link to my profile (which happens to run from a truecrypt (http://www.truecrypt.org) file mapped to a drive letter using the Windows linkd facility (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/205524). This will only work if you are using NTFS.

i.e.

D:\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable\Data>"c:\Program Files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools\linkd.exe" profile q:\firefox

Fondary
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Hi ! Thank you Andreas for

Hi !
Thank you Andreas for your batch file !

Here're a few changes I made to make it work more like the original profile manager. It let the changes done to a profile to be memorized.

Actually, instead of loading the complete profile folder into the default one, It's simply rewriting the firefoxportable.ini to change the path to point directly to the selected or new profile.

I deleted all rows between these 2 lines (not included):
@if %auswahl% == ende GOTO ende
...
@goto ende

And replaced them with this :

@echo off
@if EXIST FirefoxPortable.ini del FirefoxPortable.ini
@for /f "delims=" %%a in ('type Other\Source\FirefoxPortable.ini') do call :commande "%%a"
@goto :end
@:commande
@set ligne=%1
@set ligne=%ligne:~1,-1%
@set ligne=%ligne:ProfileDirectory=# ProfileDirectory%
@echo %ligne% >>FirefoxPortable.ini
@goto :eof
:end
@echo ProfileDirectory=Data\allprofiles\%auswahl% >>FirefoxPortable.ini

:weiter
@start firefoxportable.exe

Then, I added "exit" at the end (to close the dos window)

Be carefull ! If you want to customize the FirefoxPortable.ini parameters, IT MUST be done in the one located in : FirefoxPortable\Other\Source\

You can also convert the .bat to an .exe with Bat_To_Exe_Converter for example (even add the \FirefoxPortable\App\AppInfo\appicon.ico icon to the .exe)

(This is the first time I write/modify a batch file, tell me if it can be improved !)

shermsinc
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Andreas file with the Fondary's MOD

I wasn't able to download andreas files.... Could seomeone create a tutorial on how to do this? I want to do this locally, and have the file structure set with 3 profiles, and eventually move it to my portable drive... I appreciate any help

Fondary
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Andrea's original script

Hi shermsinc
That's true, Andrea's link seems not to be valid any more.

Here's his original script :

@REM ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@REM
@REM ==COPY THIS FILE INTO THE FIREFOXPORTABLE-FOLDER==
@REM
@REM Portable Profiles 0.1d
@REM (c) 2009 Andreas Seitz
@REM Released under Creative Commons Licence 3.0 (by-sa)
@REM
@REM http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/
@REM Es ist Ihnen gestattet:
@REM * das Werk vervielfältigen, verbreiten und öffentlich zugänglich machen
@REM * Abwandlungen bzw. Bearbeitungen des Inhaltes anfertigen
@REM
@REM Zu den folgenden Bedingungen:
@REM * Namensnennung. Sie müssen den Namen des Autors/Rechteinhabers in der von ihm festgelegten Weise nennen.
@REM * Weitergabe unter gleichen Bedingungen. Wenn Sie den lizenzierten Inhalt bearbeiten oder in anderer Weise umgestalten, verändern oder als Grundlage für ein andere Inhalte verwenden, dürfen Sie die neu entstandenen Inhalte nur unter Verwendung von Lizenzbedingungen weitergeben, die mit denen dieses Lizenzvertrages identisch, vergleichbar oder kompatibel sind.
@REM
@REM Dies ist lediglich eine nicht-rechtskräftige Zusammenfassung
@REM
@REM
@REM http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
@REM You are free:
@REM * to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
@REM * to Remix — to adapt the work
@REM
@REM Under the following conditions:
@REM * Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
@REM * Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same, similar or a compatible license.
@REM
@REM This is a human-readable summary of the Legal Code (the full license)
@REM
@REM ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@REM
@if NOT EXIST "Data/allprofiles" mkdir "Data/allprofiles"
@if NOT EXIST "FirefoxPortable.exe" goto FALSCHERORDNER
@cls
@echo.
@echo P O R T A B L E P R O F I L E S v.0.1d
@echo ===========================================
@echo ende = Abbrechen/Cancel
@echo nix = zuletzt gewaehltes Profil/most recently used profile
@echo fuer ein neues Profil einfach nicht-vorhandenen Namen waehlen
@echo in order to create a new profile just type a not-yet-existing name
@echo.
@echo Bereits vorhandene Profile/Existing Profiles:
@echo ---------------------------------------------
@dir "Data/allprofiles" /b/a:d
@echo ---------------------------------------------
@echo.
@set/p auswahl=Auswahl/Choice:
@if %errorlevel% == 1 set auswahl=nix
@if %auswahl% == nix GOTO weiter
@if %auswahl% == ende GOTO ende
@del/F/S/Q "Data/profile"
@if %auswahl% == neu GOTO weiter
@xcopy "Data/allprofiles/%auswahl%" "Data/profile" /E/V

:weiter
@firefoxportable.exe
@if %auswahl% == nix GOTO ende
@if NOT EXIST "Data/allprofiles/%auswahl%" mkdir "Data/allprofiles/%auswahl%"
@del/F/S/Q "Data/allprofiles/%auswahl%"
@xcopy "Data/profile" "Data/allprofiles/%auswahl%" /E/V
@goto ende

:FALSCHERORDNER
@echo Portable Profiles (portprof.bat) is not located in the firefoxportable-folder. Please move it there.
@echo.
@echo Portable Profiles (portprof.bat) befindet sich nicht im Verzeichnis von Firefox Portable. Bitte verschieben Sie ihn dorthin.
@echo.
@echo.
@echo.
@echo Problem: Couldn't find FirefoxPortable.exe
@echo.
@echo Problem: Konnte FirefoxPortable.exe nicht finden
@echo.
@echo.
@echo.
@pause

:ende

Change it as I suggested if you want.
Copy it into a portprof.txt text file, then rename it as .bat

Fondary
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restoring/moving profiles

Then, to restore your 3 profiles, I think you just need to create 3 new profiles using the .bat
Once it's done, just copy your original profiles files into the newly created folders (under "Data/allprofiles/), replacing existing files.
Don't forget to update the plugins directory as well.

You may have to update your addons.

arizona480
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How many profiles do you want to have?

The Portable Firefox program without the Data Folder is only about 25 MB, which just having separate Complete Portable Firefoxes should not be an issue unless you are using a small drive. Just have a central folder you keep the Portable VLC Player and the PDF reader and reference them through your file associations on the first copy, then copy that as many times as you want. Make sure that you add your extensions that you want all the profiles to have before you make copies of the folder as well.

lwc
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You can run multiple profiles without a manager
alex3518
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Lucky,Yes there is several ways you can use few ways !!!

If you cannot access your profile manager from Run command or command line, there is broken Firefox manager !!
So, you can:
1. Open Firefox, and keep it open !!! , run install Firefox (must be same version , if you do not wont update) ! It will treat that as update, but this is just fix broken things !!!
And then you have profile manager back !!!
2. Install Profile Switcher from: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/profileswitcher/
(you can do a lot with this from Firefox !!! )
3. Or there was ProfileManager 1.0_beta1 on: https://jagriffin.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/profilemanager-1-0_beta1/
But now it seems that is that link broken or not exist anymore, However if you want that nice external profile manager you can contact me via provided ways in end of this (hope) help comment !!!

Respectfully yours

Prof.Dr. Aleksandar Blagojević Ph.EMD.,Dip.ING, IT PRO

microshitco@gmail.com
or:
24/7 direct access phone:
+381216619460
+381649366586 (Mobile)
(Skype: blagoje12354)

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