Why has my C drive now been renamed portableapps.com and why does it have a flash drive for an icon? portableapps is malware and it will be reported as such!
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Where did you install portableapps? Did you install it to the root drive of your primary hard drive?
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” Dr. Seuss
Yes I did.
Just remove the file autorun.inf from the root directory of your C:\ drive. You'll need to restart to ensure it changed back. The current platform isn't meant to be installed to the root of C:\, but this will be handled in an upcoming release.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Done, but how intrusive is that? Quite underhanded and malicious if you ask me hence my 'malware' title. Google will have to look at it to get this cautioned on google searches before portableapps annoys anyone else.
Don't install it on the root of your hard drive. (sry if this is in anyway rude)
May the Shwartz be with you
The PortableApps.com community has no malicious intentions whatsoever. Everyone strives hard to keep everyone else happy, and when that occasional rotten apple drops by and disturbs the peace, you can be sure they will be handled properly. The sole goal of PortableApps.com is to make the lives of its users easier. Small misunderstandings occasionally appear but none of them have caused significant problems. If your dissatisfied with PortableApps.com, your free to leave, as is everyone else, but please don't jump to conclusions and assume that a simple change of icons can destroy your computer.
And welcome to PortableApps.com.
you installed PortableApps on the root of your primary hard drive? So you never read any thing that said
That was quoted from the main page at www.portableapps.com MInd you it states portable not necarilly physically mounted drives? And then you get angry and accusations fly about Malware and reporting? Perhaps reading what you download and install from the internet would be more appropriate?
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” Dr. Seuss
It would be intrusive if you downloaded the app, run it, and it started randomly installing crap all over your hard drive. It works as advertised, I can't see how that is malware. Nothing bad has happened to your computer than can't be undone and you still have your SSN, credit card and bank account numbers, and other personally identifiable information in tact.
No harm, no foul.
It would be great to get a slice of malware and anti-malware searches. Would you perhaps consider reporting us as Megan Fox galleries as well?
Heh. Nice one crux!
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Now that you know that a simple autorun.inf file can change your drive name and icon, you COULD edit that to customize these things however you want...
Me, I install my portable apps into a subfolder of C:, and have had no problems with that at all.
And welcome to PortableApps!
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
He's got a point... autorun.inf does kinda take over in a rude way, and newbies who don't know what it does aren't going to open it, let alone fix it.
Perhaps the official release of 2.0 could warn against installation on fixed disks (can it tell an external from an internal hard drive?) and offer a few configuration options? Like, choose an icon... the flash drive, the hard drive icon over on PTC, or "leave it alone", and then choose a volume name. Who really wants it to be "PortableApps.com" anyway? That's fine for custom flash drives, but I wouldn't choose it. No offense John. I have three devices with portable apps on them, and they all have different names so as to tell them apart without needing to know the drive letter. (None of them are "PortableApps.com".)
Better yet, clicking on the PortableApps.com X:, would pop up an Autorun.inf editor, well, one that's more user friendly than notepad
You know, it kinda does. Well, it'll let you change the name. And that's something.
Perhaps changing the personal picture (the icon in the upper right) could change the autorun icon as well. That would mean the personal picture would default to the USB icon (or the hard drive icon, as more appropriate for those of us using hard drives) but that's fine -- isn't it? Ideally they would be kept separate, but for simplicity's sake and all.
Or, under Options, an option called Drive Options. MAYBE, just maybe, if someone wrote a tiny little app that edited a drive's autorun.inf and was very user friendly, and matched the menu's UI well enough, MAYBE it could get worked into the menu... but you'd have to take that up with John. Like the eject thing, that's an actual app you can run from its location, and it's not bad looking at all. Its GUI is hidden when you run it via the menu, though. I'm talking about X:\PortableApps\PortableApps.com\App\Bin\eject.exe. Throw a ConfigAutoRunInf.exe in there and have it called from the options menu? Sounds completely doable, unless the OS has a problem with programs running at the user (not admin) level altering files at a drive's root.
McAfee would probably identify it as a virus.
Ok, ok rude maybe, but to call it malware? That's a bit harsh. Maybe we could call the original poster a spammer? I'm just saying.
"Spammer" is completely inaccurate and off-base, not harsh or extreme. "Troll" and possibly even "paid shill" (popular accusation of new members over on Ars Technica) are, but jumping to conclusions isn't what we do.
Portable application launchers will always be flagged by virus scanners' heuristic scanners for the trickery they employ. Before PortableApps.com goes public, they will have to have a warning system in place educating consumers about what they do and how they do it, what false positives are and how to identify them as such. Otherwise they will fail big time. The only way to get around that is to alter each of the open source apps and make them natively portable, but that would take quite a bit of effort -- so much, in fact, that I can say with reasonable confidence that it will not happen. (I may have even asked at one point and may have been told as much by John or Chris or someone.)
False positives in our apps are relatively rare. The launchers hardly ever get flagged as they use the same components as in popular app installers. And the apps themselves only occasionally get flagged due to UPX. And even then it's generally only one antivirus product and it's fixed within days.
As far as 'going public' we're pretty public as it is. We're the most popular portable software platform by a very wide margin with more users and downloads than even U3 (the 2nd largest platform) or anyone else has ever had.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Oh, by going public I meant the hardware deals that would put the PortableApps.com Suite on flash drives sold in stores/online. That's still planned, right? As for false positives, I figure globally they're rare, but being a frequent visitor I hear about them often. Haven't experienced any myself, though.
I just wish what you're doing here was more popular. The fact that I can still blow minds with a flash drive and Portable Firefox is kind of disappointing. Hard drives (which I've moved on to) don't quite have the same effect, I suppose, due to their size. But plugging something the size and shape of a lighter into the front of a computer and pulling up all kinds of software is pretty impressive. Or a phone with a microSD card. That's always fun, to say "look what my phone can do" (never mind the phone has nothing to do with it). I guess I'd just like to see more, wider recognition for PortableApps.com and application portability in general.
I want to second your second comment. I would gladly give up the "Wow" factor I get from showing people PortableApps for the satisfaction I would get from everybody using them. (To say nothing of the leverage that you guys would have. For good, of course.)
You brought up an interesting point I hadn't thought of. I'm thinking of getting a smart phone. I know nothing of Windows Mobile. Don't suppose it would run portable apps? (I totally expect a "no," I'm not that naive. But hope springs eternal...) I assume you meant you plugged your phone into the computer?
I am not my signature.
Yup, different platform. But you should be able to use it as a usb drive, if done right
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
Sorry for the confusion. My phone has a standard miniUSB port like a digital camera, and I have a little 6" cable I carry with me. I don't have PortableApps on my phone any longer, either, since I gave up my 2GB microSD card for a 512MB one. Long story there, but I'd rather have music on my phone than a copy of Portable Firefox I'll almost never use.
I wouldn't necessarily want *everyone* using PortableApps, but it should be common public knowledge that you can run software from a flash drive.
I think you're missing the point; Anybody can throw rocks without thinking, it takes some real thought to build a bridge with the rocks.
but you can always glue the rocks together.
Hey guys,
Go easy on him. He *obviously* knows what hes talking about so look out... maybe it was a *cough* mistake?
No-wait... I got one!!! General annoyance who wants to waste the time of people who are trying to genuinely help the good public? GET YOUR INFO RIGHT BEFORE TROLLING!!!
me
Shane Thompson
shanet[at]people[dot]net[dot]au
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OR... you could just do a google search on autorun files and learn in about 3 seconds how to use the 3 or 4 commands that you need to make a successful autorun.ini file...
Just sayin...
Nerdy Redneck