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Tried the preferences within VLC, but testing shows the problem lies with the launcher.
Any ideas on the switch required to allow multiple instances in VLCportable.ini?
"Allow multiple instances=true" does not work.
Clicking vlc.exe for the second instance starts it up, so I tend to think that this points to a problem to the launcher.
Please post your ini file if you have this working as expected.
This is a bug in the code (both versions).
Add the line Goto CheckINI after line 105 (version 0.9.6) StrCpy $SECONDARYLAUNCH "true" and recompile the launcher.
Ultra hardcore necro thread, but "AllowMultipleInstances=true" still isn't working in VLC 2.1.1.
Is there any way around that, or is there a recompiled launcher available somewhere?
I can't believe this hasn't been fixed in over 5 years...
AllowMultipleInstances is a Mozilla specific thing (Firefox, THunderbird, Sunbird, SeaMonkey) that makes use of a specific mode within the Gecko engine. It was never designed or promised or documented for VLC so I have no idea why you would assume it would work or expect it would in the future.
You can start multiple instances of VLC itself to get a second window by re-running VLCPortable.exe. Just tried it in Windows 7 and it works as expected. Multiple or single window, we leave that up to VLC. We don't touch that.
What else are you looking for? There is no bug around this at all from what I can see.
Well, I wanted to use the portable version of VLC2 in addition to an already regularly installed VLC1 instance.
I generally like VLC1 better, but VLC2 has some features (mainly native Lagarith support) which just aren't available in VLC1. And installing both versions mess up their shared settings once VLC2 has been started.
With this version however, when I execute the portable launcher and VLC1 is already started, all I see is the window that "another instance of VLC is already running". I can open VLC1 just fine if portable VLC2 is running, so that's not a problem of the program itself, but of the launcher.
And while testing this, I just found out that even the portable version messes with the regular VLC settings, f.e. it sets the volume back to 100%, resets the volume control granularity and hides the playlist... so there seems to be no reason for me to use the portable version at all.
Such a pity, as I really like your portable browser solutions, I use them quite excessively for web development, and I hoped to find something of the same convenience for VLC.
If you run them at the same time by running local after portable, they use some of the same set of settings (as you now see). As a general rule, two different versions of the same app running at the same time means you're going to have a bad time. This applies to Mozilla apps as well. It's not meant for production use, affects portability and we don't recommend or support using that setting. We just make it available.
I would suggest ditching VLC1 ASAP as it has major unpatched security bugs that can allow malware to be installed onto your machine.
I can run multiple versions of Firefox (e.g. 23, 16 & 13 together with a regular installation) just fine, the same with Chrome. Not a single problem.
Hm, but it seems that they fixed the main issues with VLC2 I had in the meantime, so I may just switch over to it as you suggested.
I still feel it's kind of a pity though that it's not working as flawlessly as the browser versions.
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