Hi:
After a glitch, my portable apps launcher no longer works.
1. I have a portable apps launcher that opens fine but contains no portable apps icons listed in the space where they normally would go. In other words it gives me the grey box with the icons for "Documents .....to help" on the right side, and, on the left half of the box, a search box at the top and "all apps" at the bottom, but no app icons in the white box in between.
2. I have a portable apps folder with around 70 portable apps that work fine standalone,
3... I also have two previous versions of Portable apps that are probably corrupted. I installed one inside the portable apps folder by mistake. Those two don't launch the menu and just hang up. I haven't removed them since I didn't want to make things worse since maybe I can pull a data file from them and have it work.
My Question:
How do I repopulate the portable apps launcher?
any and all help appreciated.
Jojo
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When you manually upgraded or reinstalled, you installed it to the wrong place. You installed it to the PortableApps directory that has all your app folders like FirefoxPortable, etc in it. You need to install to the parent directory of that that contains Start.exe and the PortableApps and Documents directories.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Hi John:
My reply was a plea to both of you but I put it under the vf2nsr post since it came last. I feel pretty lame about this but appreciate your willingness to suffer fools, if not gladly.
all the best
Jojo
as well as many others suggested here stated https://portableapps.com/node/53885
“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
Thanks for the reference. I posted here in order to get an update to that post since I followed directions but still didn't get it to work.
Here is what I did.
I have a folder PortableApps in the root of my C drive C\PortableApps. I also have one in my desktop folder PortableApps. I get the PortableApps launcher to launch but it doesn't see the installed programs.
I'm almost certainly being dense here, but I hope you can continue being patient. My questions are:
1. Did I install the program to the correct directory?
2. Do I need to remove the other portable apps program directories?
3. Is there something I can do to have PortableApps recognize the installed applications, perhaps by changing or moving some file?
4. Is there a way to remove what I installed and just install the portableapps program (PortableApps.com_Platform_Setup_13.0.paf)
Is that the correct program to install or should I be installing something else?
Thanks again. I think it is something I'm just not seeing so any help is appreciated. .
Jojo
In the c drive you have a folder called portable apps
Inside that folder do you some files and other folders?
For instances another folder that is called portableapps?
Or are your apps in the folder on the desktop?
If so if you look in that do you see many folders with the apps actually in there?
“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
Thank you for your reply. It is much appreciated.
In the c drive I have a folder called Portableapps.
It contains a PortableAppsPlatform.exe (2.67 Mb), also a PortableAppsupdater.exe (334Kb) and a few other files (backup and backuprestore.. It also contains four folders: App, Assets, Data and other;
App contains 7Zip, Appinfo, bin, default data, ,graphics and locale
Assets contains two logos
Data contains 3kb of configuration data
Other contains a folder called source that contains three text folders.
All my individual portable apps are in the desktop folder PortableApps what I call a superfolder (4Gb). I can open all the individual subfolders, click on the .exe icon and the program launches and works well.
All except for AquaSnap portable, which I tried to delete but couldn't get rid of a couple of .dll's and a couple of daemons. I could probably delete them by going into safe mode. They don't seem to be the cause of the problem because the PortableApps platform worked even after I deleted the main part of the AquaSnap program.
The portableapps desktop folder also has a subfolder called PortableApps , which has a subfolder PortableApps.com and a PortableApps platform, portableappssupport, PAlauncher, and PAinstaller subfolders. The PAplatform icon (2.7 Mb) launches the platform, with no icons and also launches a link to download more apps, which is a full list including the ones I already have installed.
The PortableApps desktop folder (superfolder) also contains a subfolder PortableApps.com (with the .com, which the folder I describe in the previous paragraph doesn't have) which, when I click on the contained PortableAppsPlatform icon launches a corrupted and useless portable apps platform with a lot of gibberish inside. I haven't deleted it yet, though I suspect it may need to go. I'm awaiting your suggestions on this.
There also is a Start application link (517kb) in the desktop PortableApps superfolder. This launches the healthy but empty portable apps platform that I launched from the portableapps subfolder described above .
There are three other portable apps folders in the PortableApps desktop superfolderfolder , PortableAppsPlatformSupport, PortableAppsLauncher and PortableAppsInstaller. The all seem to be working and uncorrupted.
I hope this is sufficient information to hopefully provide you with a clue as to what to do. If you have any other questions I will gladly answer them as best you can.
I could capture screen shots but I'm not sure they will take here. If there is a way to do that and you want to see them I will do so.
Thank you very much for your help.
all the best
Jojo
Hi J, I think others, like myself, may not have been helping because sometimes it is better if one person deals with another's problem. It gives you a consistent interface and so on. Plus I am infamous for running out of patience at the wrong moment but here goes.
The PA directory structure is
Something (could be a drive or directory or folder)
- A folder / dir usually called PortableApps containing a few folders / dirs including, for example
|- FirefoxPortable
|- LoadsOfOthersPortable
It appears that you have copied and pasted some or all of this directory structure lower down inside the structure, possibly more than once.
So you have
Something (could be a drive or directory or folder)
- A folder / dir usually called PortableApps containing a few folders / dirs including, for example
|- FirefoxPortable
|- LoadsOfOthersPortable
and under that
--- - A folder / dir usually called PortableApps containing a few folders / dirs including, for example
--- |- FirefoxPortable
--- |- LoadsOfOthersPortable
and so on.
A useful tool to view directory structures that you may already have that is known to be a PA of long standing is WinDirStat, it is mainly designed for showing where disk space has disappeared to but allows you to walk up and down a directory tree so you get a visual feel for how your directories have ended up, the idea being that you can see what people are saying you should be doing.
HTH a bit.
What you need to do is work out which bit of the directory tree is a result of crap pasting and delete it, I am not the best person to guide you through that.
HTH
Wm
Wm:
Thanks for the advice. I definitely created a dish of pasta here. The suggestion of using WinDirStat, which I have, is really good. Now I on to separating the strands of spaghetti. I'll post the outcome when I get back to normal.
all the best
Jojo
As noted below, I got everything working again. Thanks for the help.
A great way to start the weekend.
all the best
Jojo
The Portbaleapps platform goes in the super folder on desk top. That is your root directory
“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
Hi vf2nsr. Thanks for clarifying the correct root directory. I have a couple of versions of portable apps in different "root directories". As I wrote to Wm, I off on a spaghetti untangling mission and will post when I get it completed.
all the best
jojo
Thanks to all for the help and patience. I installed portableapps to the superfolder on my desktop and deleted the one on my hard drive C\ and a corrupted one in my desktop superfolder, and VOILA, the app icons were back! The platform updated a couple of applications and I created a shortcut on my desktop which works too.
In retrospect, if the PortableApps platform gets corrupted for any reason, reinstall the platform to the folder that contains all your portable apps and delete the corrupted one. Thanks again. I use portable apps every day and find it invaluable. I have a copy on my desktop and another on a USB flash drive for transporting work product. Never leave home without it.
all the best
Jojo
Glad you figured it out and got it all back
“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
Thanks again for all your help.
jojo