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VLC portable saves a drive letter in an .ini file, which makes it not portable

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November 11, 2011 - 9:53am
#1
bhagerty
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VLC portable saves a drive letter in an .ini file, which makes it not portable

I installed VLC Portable 1.1.11 in a directory on my F: Drive. It worked fine.

I copied the installation folder to mo D: drive. From that location, I could not run VLC Portable. When I clicked on the .exe file, it failed silently.

I discovered the problem: the file VLCPortableSettings.ini, in the location

F:\[install directory]\VLCPortable\Data

has a setting for LastDrive=

That setting was LastDrive=D, which was the letter I first installed it to, but not the letter of the new drive. When I changed LastDrive=D to LastDrive=F, VLC Portable started up fine.

This should be fixed. An installation is not truly "portable" if it bakes a drive letter into a configuration file.

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November 11, 2011 - 10:06am
John T. Haller
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By Design

That drive letter is by design. It's so that the VLCPortable.exe launcher can update the paths within VLC itself as you move PCs. ALL portable apps do this. The launcher updates the music database, skin settings, last used files and other things as the path changes. So, yes, it is perfectly portable as long as you run VLCPortable.exe. If you run vlc.exe, it'll break, of course. Unless there is something else you've discovered that isn't yet portablized.

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

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November 30, 2011 - 1:12pm
(Reply to #2)
beckett71
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VLC does not start if drive letter changes.

I can confirm VLC does not start if the drive letter assigned to portable disk changes.

If I change the lastdrive in the config.ini to the correct one manually, VLC starts.

This problem does not occur with other portableapps applications that I use.
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Wishing you all a very good evening.

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November 30, 2011 - 1:29pm
(Reply to #3)
John T. Haller
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Works Fine

VLC works just fine as you move from PC to PC with the drive letter changing and has been used this way by millions of folks. If you are having an issue, something else is afoot. How are you launching VLC? If you run VLC.exe directly or associate VLC.exe with files directly, it'll fail when the drive letter changes. You need to use VLCPortable.exe always.

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

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December 1, 2011 - 7:04am
(Reply to #4)
beckett71
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Issue of changing disk letter.

I start VLC either from portable exe or from portableapps platform. If I go with the disk to another computer and a different drive letter is assigned, VLC refuses to start. If I change the letter in lastdrive in an ini file manually VLC starts without any problems. Also, if I start VLC.exe directly it starts without any problems.

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February 25, 2016 - 11:38am
codycbradio
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When I switch to another

When I switch to another computer and the drive letter changes, it doesn't update the media library list. So I have to re-add all my movies and videos to the media library.

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February 25, 2016 - 8:29pm
(Reply to #6)
John T. Haller
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Fixed in 2.2.2 Rev 2

This is fixed in VLC Portable 2.2.2 Rev 2. The storage of paths was updated in VLC and our launcher had to be updated to handle it.

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

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