Dear John T. Haller,
(I tried to PM this but i couldn't find your e-mailaddress..) I have been using Portable Firefox for a long time now (about 6 months) and LOVE that it works on USB-sticks and CD-ROM's. Actually the way i found it was that i was searching for a Firefox-browser for my Pocket PC, and it isn't THAT portable but still portable enough.
I use Firefox 1.5.0.6 with it and copy the \Data-directory every time i want to use a new profile for my PortableFirex-browser. Until recently this was adequate since all extensions and user data get copied with it, but then i discovered the Firefox Extension Backup Extension(FEBE) and thought that was a great way to manage my profiles. What i discovered was that FEBE looks at the profiles of the app\Firefox-browser and so doesn't allow you to do a re-install to the \PortableFirefox-browser. This was allright though, since i could still copy and zip the \Data-directory and get the same result.
But then i tried to install the following 3 extensions:
-googlebar-0.9.15.07-fx+ns.xpi
-amazing_webpage_emailer-1.15-fx+mz.xpi
-firefoxmenubuttons-1.5.3-fx.xpi
With all i got the same error:
Error Warning: unrecognized command line flag -profile
SourceFile
file:///C:/Program%20Files/PortableFirefox/App/firefox/components/nsBrowserContentHandler.js
Line 520
Error [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80520015 (NS_ERROR_FILE_ACCESS_DENIED) [nsIFile.copyTo]" nsresult: "0x80520015 (NS_ERROR_FILE_ACCESS_DENIED)" location: "JS frame :: file:///C:/Program%20Files/PortableFirefox/App/firefox/components/nsExtensionManager.js :: anonymous :: line 1149" data: no]
SourceFile
file:///C:/Program%20Files/PortableFirefox/App/firefox/components/nsExtensionManager.js
Line 1149
Actually the firefoxmenubuttons-extension should contain something similar to the profilemanager called "user profile", but since i am not able to install it, i have not been able to test it out.
From this i hope you get the urgency with which i need the -profile switch to work with PF.
Sincerely,
Afrim Besten(unemployed computer engineer)
It would appear that whatever you're trying to do is incompatible when Firefox is run with the -profile switch. Firefox Portable uses the -profile switch to point Firefox at your profile. The profile manager can't be used as that only works with profiles installed on the local machine within the C:\Documents and Settings hierarchy.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Okay, i figured it out: All Firefox Portable does is set the disk cache to minimum and some other system tweaks and passes the profile, which always is the \Data\profile-directory, via the -profile "C:\Program Files\PortableFirefox\Data\profile"-switch.
I figured this out when i restarted my PC and the plugins installed perfectly, all but the google toolbar since it isn't compatible with this version of FF.
Thanks!