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Can't pin Firefox Portable to the Taskbar if Portable.apps Platformer is installed on my USB Drive.

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gaveitatry
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Joined: 2020-07-20 04:40
Can't pin Firefox Portable to the Taskbar if Portable.apps Platformer is installed on my USB Drive.

On my old laptop, I installed Portable.apps Platformer to "C:\Programs\Portable Apps". I then used it to install Firefox Portable and was able to successfully pin it to the Taskbar, no problem.

On my new laptop, I can install Portable.apps Platformer to the same location "C:\Programs\Portable Apps" and be able to pin Firefox Portable to the Taskbar, no problem. But the thing is, I want to install it to my USB Drive instead which is "G:\".

When I tried installing Portable.apps Platform to the following locations on my USB Drive, it would not let me pin Firefox Portable to the Taskbar:
"G:\010__Testing\Portable Apps" (that's two underscores, not one)
"G:\Testing\Portable Apps"
"G:\NewTest\"

I am thinking that it has something to do with the fact that it is a USB Drive. To confirm this, I unplugged the USB Drive and plugged it into my old laptop and tried installing Portable.apps Platformer at the following location but it still would not let me pin Firefox Portable to the Taskbar:
"G:\ThirdTest\"

The USB Flash Drive that I am using is a "SanDisk 64GB Ultra Fit USB 3.1 Flash Drive" (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077VYCV37). I purchased it on April 15, 2020. I never had a reason to change anything in Properties, and I don't see anything there about Security or Permissions. I really don't know what to do at this point.

gaveitatry
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Last seen: 6 months 6 hours ago
Joined: 2020-07-20 04:40
Update

I tried installing the Portable.apps Platform to some other drives.

I have a "D:\" drive that is a 2 TB HDD installed inside the second HDD slot inside my laptop. I installed Portable.apps Platform to "D:\001 Downloaded\Portable Apps" (two spaces) and I was able to pin Firefox Portable to the Taskbar.

I then tried installing Portable.apps Platform to my "J:\" drive, which is a 512 GB HDD that is attached to my laptop with a USB cable cord. I installed Portable.apps Platform to "J:\010__Testing\Portable Apps" and I was able to pin Firefox Portable to the Taskbar.

So, I've been able to get it to work when Portable.apps Platform is installed to my "C:" drive (where O/S is installed), my "D:" drive (a 2 TB HDD installed in the secondary slot inside laptop), and my "J:" drive (512 GB HDD connected with a USB cable cord). But not my "G:" drive which is a USB Flash Drive.

I can only guess that it's because a.) I had previously installed Portable.apps Platform a month or two ago and that version may have been bugged where it would not let people pin Firefox Portable to the Taskbar (because Firefox made a change) and maybe some trace of that installation is on my computer and if I figure out a way to remove that trace everything will work again or b.) Portable.apps Platform does not play nice with USB Flash Drives or c.) There is something wrong with my USB Flash Drive, but I don't see that being the case because it appears to be healthy and in good shape.

gaveitatry
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Last seen: 6 months 6 hours ago
Joined: 2020-07-20 04:40
Solution

So, I finally decided to try and create a symbolic link to the Portable Apps folder to make my computer think that the Portable Apps folder was located on my "C:" drive instead of my "G:" USB Flash Drive.

I just opened up Command Prompt. I used 'Run as Administrator' just in case, since it is only one small, tiny step. And I typed the following:
mklink /D "C:\Portable Apps" "G:\009__Other\Portable Apps"

Then I went to "C:\Portable Apps" and opened up "Start.exe" and then tried to pin Firefox Portable to the Taskbar and it worked!!!

I tried to delete the newly created symbolic link folder on my "C:" drive later to see if it would still work. It didn't. You have to keep it there. But all I needed to do was create the symbolic link again by typing that command in the Command Prompt window again. I didn't need to open up Portable.apps Platform again or pin Firefox Portable to the Taskbar again because it was already pinned.

Whew! Finally.

gaveitatry
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Last seen: 6 months 6 hours ago
Joined: 2020-07-20 04:40
Weird.

For some reason, the Portable.apps Firefox Portable install on my new laptop required me to set AllowMultipleInstances to "true" before .URL shortcuts could be double click opened. Even though that Firefox Portable is the ONLY Firefox browser I have on the computer. Maybe it has something to do with having to have used a symbolic link to get the Firefox Portable to pin to the taskbar.

And this Firefox Portable is showing Firefox (5) in Task Manager with five Firefox entries under it when expanded, but on m other laptop it shows Firefox (3) with only three Firefox entries under it when expanded.

Oh well. I'm tired of trying to figure this out. For now, I have Firefox Portable installed on both laptops using the Portable.apps Platform method, which I never used before. I have both laptop Firefox Portable browsers pinned to my Taskbar. And it seems to have kept all my information, settings, and extensions. So maybe I should be happy.

gaveitatry
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Last seen: 6 months 6 hours ago
Joined: 2020-07-20 04:40
This is still a bug.

If I use the Firefox Portable shortcut from my "G:" USB Flash Drive, it shows Firefox (3) in Task Manager. If I used the pinned taskbar shortcut, that was only able to be created using a symbolic link (since it would not let me pin Firefox Portable to the Taskbar from the USB Flash Drive) it shows Firefox (5) in Task Manager. Apparently using symbolic links makes the computer work slightly harder to use Firefox Portable. I wish that there was a way to pin Firefox Portable from my USB Drive without having to use symbolic links. I could do it from my 2 TB internal HDD and my 512 GB HDD (connected with USB cable cord), but not from my USB Flash Drive.

gaveitatry
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Last seen: 6 months 6 hours ago
Joined: 2020-07-20 04:40
Newest Update

I went to "C:\Users\Brian\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar" and changed the Firefox Portable taskbar pin's target from the symbolic link "C:\Portable Apps\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable\FirefoxPortable.exe" to the actual install link "G:\009__Other\Portable Apps\PortableApps\FirefoxPortable\FirefoxPortable.exe" and then I deleted the symbolic link folder. So after using the symbolic link to pin Firefox Portable, you can delete the symbolic link but only after you changed the target path of the pinned shortcut. My Task Manager is still showing Firefox (5) instead of Firefox (3), but I am no longer worried about it since I know that he symbolic link is gone now and that the browser is running directly from the installation source.

John T. Haller
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Windows Limitation

This is a limitation in Windows itself. It will not allow you to drag and drop a pin to the taskbar which is on a removable flash drive. You can try it directly by dragging FirefoxPortable.exe to the taskbar. It will show with a NO symbol if it's a removable drive but will work from a non-removable drive. Note that while both external hard drives and flash drives are both "removable" they are treated differently within Windows. Windows will let you pin something on a removable hard drive but not a flash drive.

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

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