[Fixed] VirtualDub Portable 1.9.11 Leaves Registry Keys Etc.

[Note: This report covers 2 bugs:

1. VirtualDub Portable 1.9.11 uses/leaves registry keys
2. addon codec pack installs both 32-bit and 64-bit versions, causing multiple error screens on 32-bit systems.]

Thanks a lot to the Portable Apps team for all your great work.

I would love a truly portable version of VirtualDub. I'm finding that the current portable apps version 1.9.11 is not so portable. It seems to write a recent files list to the registry, as well as a large number of settings from the Capture AVI module (File: Capture AVI), including capture file path. Capture AVI is an integral part of the VirtualDub program, not an addon.

To understand why this is a problem, you need to know more about VirtualDub. Its Capture AVI module is *like* a program within a program which includes a screen capture driver, and a huge number of settings which can be tweaked for optimum results. However, it lacks the ability to create "capture presets." Rather, VirtualDub simply saves all capture settings from the last session in the Windows registry. This means that when you change projects and are capturing with a different driver, different video card, or using different codecs, you have to manually change a great many settings, which is a pain.

The potential advantage of a truly portable version of VirtualDub is that you could have more than one portable version, and each version could be set up differently, e.g. one for screen captures using the PICVideo codec and a custom framesize and framerate, and one for capturing from a video card using the XviD codec and a different framesize and framerate.

However, unlike Firefox Portable, where each installation is completely separate, VirtualDub Portable shares a lot of registry settings. This obviates the purpose, since you can't set up different portable installs for different types of projects. Each portable install looks to the same Windows registry, so change a capture setting in one portable install, and that change will be reflected in the other portable installs.

The developer notes on his site that since v1.9.1, "VirtualDub's Registry key has moved from HKCUSoftwareFreewareVirtualDub to HKCUSoftwareVirtualDub.orgVirtualDub." Because of this change, there's a workaround to the issues I raised above: Install both the current portable version 1.9.11 and an older portable version such as v1.8.8. Because they use different registry key locations, they won't overwrite each other's settings, so they can be set up for different types of projects. This worked for me in light testing.

A second problem is with the plug-ins pack. This indiscriminately installs both 32-bit and 64-bit plugins, 6 of each. Then, starting up VirtualDub on a 32-bit system, you get a series of 6 error screens - one for each 64-bit plugin erroneously installed. Maybe the installer should ask the user whether he/she has a 32-bit or 64-bit system, or maybe there should be separate installers for the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the plugins. If not, maybe warn users of 32-bit systems that they have to manually remove the 64-bit plugins to get rid of the error messages on startup.

Thanks again for all your hard work!