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Portable Applications Conspiracy

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Portable Applications Conspiracy

Weirdness, I go to log off from Vista and it brings up error reporting saying PAP requires adobe flash.

WTF is going on dudes, ya gonna fix it or whatt?

John T. Haller
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Nope

Nothing in the PortableApps.com Platform is build against flash, requires flash or in any way uses flash. I run it on Vista every day without incident. So something is up with your PC.

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I only installed Vista twice,

I only installed Vista twice, so this time you are wrong.

John T. Haller
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Positve

I've looked at the code myself. Nothing in the platform is built against Flash at all. And I just ran it on an OS without flash and saw no prompts or alerts.

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

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Yeh well I can see you like

Yeh well I can see you like analog synthisers as do I which is very cool but about your little PAM or PAP as it is now called, as stated previously I have (and need to) install Windows Vista many times over and it's always the same thing, the error reporting dialog comes up with the icon for your application with a recommendation to download adobe flash, which of course is strange.

As much as I'd like to agree with you, I believe you need to investigate this issue more thoroughly.

Thanks & regards.

John T. Haller
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Drive

I'd check your drive to be sure something else isn't doing it. Windows will show the drive's icon when it's associated (as it is by default with PA.c Platform). If the platform required flash, one of the other millions of users definitely would have complained (since flash is closed source and our stuff is open).

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I've got PA.c on a secondary

I've got PA.c on a secondary hard drive, non-usb, would this be the issue, ie MMC?

Thanks again

TaffinFoxcroft
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Interesting.

That's interesting. I've been running PAP on Vista SP1 and SP2 for a while now with and without flash installed, and I haven't got any errors. If you've reinstalled vista multiple times as well without the problem disappearing, chances are that there's something wrong with your drive (possibly the autorun). Have you tried reinstalling PAP?

But there’s no sense crying over every mistake,
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.

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Hi,Well as my last post

Hi,

Well as my last post states I'm using it on a non-USB drive so it's recognised by the Microsoft Management Console as being a fixed eg non-removable disk.

I don't have adobe installed on this system, but if this helps, I install it (adobe flash) via portable applications such as FireFox so it works portably in the sense that it's "picked up" by the program which installed or had it installed for it, eg., the portable applcation.

In this case Internet Explorer is none the wiser but I think the OS is somehow via the registry or soemething but I can tell you it's bloody annoying every time I log off my machine being told to download something for another thing which supposedly cannot make use of it anyhow.

Anyway, I hope you guys can fix it in due course.

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since on secondary drive

you have to investigate yourself what else you have installed on it.
Pure operating system as freshly installed vista (but here I mean really fresh install) will not have any needs for flash.
The portable suite and the software like portable firefox do not need any kind of flash. So it is definitely one of other software you have on that particular drive causing the problem. Installation of any flash will probably not cure the problem, it may camouflage it in some way.
You have to investigate what processes are running, what other software and drivers are added etc.
Is the suite still open when you are closing the operating system or is it run down manually before? Think it should not make too much difference, but try both.
Put the suite on some usb stick and see what does happen then.
When you shut down the computer, is the firefox still running and does it have some flash'ed page in it open or so?

And finaly, delete the plattform and check again. See what processes are running then.
Reinstall the plattform then and see what difference comes up?

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

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maybe you're right but why

maybe you're right but why should another application cause this and more importantly, why does windows think that it's PA.c which is the offending application.

It also happens when I shut down the menu even if there are no Portable Applications currently open.

This really does need to be addressed, don't you think?

Chris Morgan
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Explain, screenshots

Could you please explain more what it's doing (including text of message boxes) and provide screenshots?

Also I'd recommend that you do an anti-malware scan. Malware seems to me about the only possibility.

I am a Christian and a developer and moderator here.

“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” – Proverbs 15:1

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Hi Chris

I could probably provide a screenshot but how, this Forum doesn't allow it or does it?

solanus
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There are a lot of free places on the web to share images

Flickr and Picasa are fine - you can upload your screenshots there, and post a link to them in this forum.

BTW, since PAP is open-source, you are free to look through the source code yourself to find anything that may be flash related.

I do think that using the word "conspiracy" is a tad hyperbolic, na?

I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.

ottosykora
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when installed on stick

portable apps place certain structure in the root of the drive. Alsi an autorun.inf is placed in the root, so at least under XP this can be used to launch the suite after usb stick is plugged in. But there is only one common name for autorun.inf, and there are many , many software using this mechanism to be started. Number of not so sophisticated malware will try to replace your autorun.inf or at least edit the contents so something slightly different will happen. The autorun itself points to the suite, but I have on one of my stick a util, which will allow me to start more then one thing from one single autorun. Such things can be done either by malware or also some quite decent programs for some reasons.
So when you look into the running proceses list, do any of the portable apps run there even you did not launch them?

What you describe here is like you want run windows Notepad editor and windows will ask you to install outlook first.

BTW: how did you reinstall the Vista? Formated the drive before or hw exactly?

Can you post the text of the autorun.inf on the root of your drive in question?

Otto Sykora
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Hi

There is no autorun.inf file, it has been removed for obvious reasons but this problem or issue is completely baffling me.

Honestly, before PA.c 1.5.2, I hated the offering there were so many problems with bugs etc, and I don't say this is a bug parse but it must be known and understood that PA.c is in fact or can be a defacto system launcher for any application(s) residing on any storage medium within a machine and the routines of those applications, ie the Portable Applications we are using are able to embed themselves directly in the code at run time.

ottosykora
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this is not the case

it is some application running on your system causing this. Therefore you should find it either by some suitable antivirus scanner or search prcesses running on your system. PA.c is not running anything by itself, if it is infected by some malware, it can do what ever, same as any other executable. What you are stating here is valid for *ANY* software on your computer if allowed to be modified on the fly. And as practicaly any sofware can be modified this way, this is very generic expression thus same expression as : Notepad on your computer can be used to launch any software on your computer.

If you just start your computer and do not start any poratble apps. What processes (appart from all the MS once) do run on your system?
Can you list them ?

Did you try some offline scanner for malware?

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

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Hello, I have PortableApps

Hello, I have PortableApps installed on a non removable drive and I have it's icon changed to the PortableApps icon by having installed the menu. Isn't the problem that there is some other problem and just showing the icon because it's linked to the drive? My D; drive shows a portable apps icon.

Also are you absolutely sure the message is referring to Adobe Flash and not to a Flash thumb drive?

A screenshot can shed some light on the issue.

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Admittedly, it has appeared

Admittedly, it has appeared with other applications that one would suspect don't use flash, but regardless it's only blokes that do open source who can generally work it out, so I guess it's get to work then no?

John T. Haller
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No

There is no flash code in any of our apps. At all. I've double-checked. The only app even remotely related to flash is our stub installer that downloads and installs the flash plugin into Firefox Portable for you. But it doesn't do anything with the platform or anything.

So the issue is to figure out where the problem is on your end. To do this, you need to provide a screenshot of the error and/or the exact wording of the error message.

We can't fix your issue by changing anything in our code since I've already verified that nothing we do uses flash. You can download the code and look at it yourself if you'd like to confirm it.

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

solanus
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A-hem

"so I guess it's get to work then no?"
is one of the most arrogant statements I've seen here.

I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.

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Don't take it

Don't take it personally...

...it was a complement actually.

Open Source Software in the end is what will either change or save the world or both.

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