Hello
I have an issue with making Google Chrome Portable (64 Test) default internet browser in Windows 7 x64.
1. Launch Google Chrome Portable, click 'Make it default browser'.
2. Google Chrome Portable is registered as Windows default internet browser. However, every time I launch any file that is associated with it (like .html or .pdf file), Google Chrome Portable launches with resetted settings like after a clean-up.
3. I found out that it is because the program gets registered to a path of "GoogleChromePortable64\App\Chrome-bin\chrome.exe" instead of "GoogleChromePortable64\GoogleChromePortable.exe". The second EXE is the correct one, however, the program, for some reason, gets registered with the first path what causes the issue.
4. The problem has already been discussed - https://portableapps.com/node/56664 - there is a registry-side solution for it, however, I would like to avoid messing with registry myself if it could be solved via PortableApps platform itself.
Is there any plan to fix the issue?
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It is not something we can fix.
We don't modify the software we package (in Chrome's case we couldn't modify it even if we wanted since it is closed source) - we simply put a wrapper around it to perform the necessary portability functions.
Since the functionality to make it the default browser is built into Chrome itself it can't understand that it should reference a different executable to chrome.exe.
The only way to make any of our apps the default is to either make the registry changes yourself, or find a tool that does it for you.
> Since the functionality to make it the default browser is built into Chrome itself it can't understand that it should reference a different executable to chrome.exe.
The thing is it does reference to a different chrome.exe due to the fact that the different exe ("GoogleChromePortable64\App\Chrome-bin\chrome.exe") is referenced in GoogleChromePortable.ini and GoogleChromePortable.nsi which add the necessary registry entries at each launch of the program. I don't understand why these files point at a different exe file than they should in the first place. As a result it makes it impossible to properly make Google Chrome Portable the default browser.
Having the Launcher set the registry keys for default browser would do that for every user, including users who don't want it.
Also chrome.exe is the file that creates the registry association for default browser. Since our wrapper (GoogleChromePortable.exe) is only active during the opening and closing of Chrome Portable (the rest of the time it is idling until chrome.exe closes) when you first make the default browser association it would still reference chrome.exe in the registry until you manually closed Chrome Portable and restarted it.
And if Chrome Portable is running from removable media, crashes, and the media is removed without running the Launcher again to clean up then the default browser configuration on the computer would be left broken.
None of these effects are what we would consider acceptable behaviour for a portable app.
Ah, I see now. Thank you for clearing it up.
However, wouldn't it be doable to make it (Chrome as default browser) an optional feature that would be enabled/disabled in GoogleChromePortable.ini? There already are listed Chrome-specific features such as: PortablePasswords and EncryptPortablePasswords. That would allow to avoid unnecessary issues as optional features are usually meant to be dealt with caution (by advanced users in mind).
I have a problem opening external links (ex: from mail program) with Chrome Portable!
It opens a NEW instance of the browser, instead of the Portable one!
This sucks big time...
Is there anyway i can configure the system to open the "Portable instance"?
Thanks!