Hi
I am new to this app's stuff, about 24 hours, everything works great except the auto run. I have searched some of the forums and have noticed that you have to copy certain items into the USB main directory, well those items are in but still does not auto run. Can anyone tell me what's wrong.
cheers
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There are lots of helpful articles about this in the forums. You might want to search with autorun or autoplay or that sort of thing.
https://portableapps.com/node/4365#comment-23182
The short part of the story: the portable apps menu automatically sets up autorun.inf properly. If it doesn't autorun, it's probably because that has been disabled. The reason it is getting harder and harder to find a machine with it enabled is because it has been used by bad people to execute bad programs when you weren't expecting it.
The link above has a Microsoft Autoplay Repair Wizard utility that can help somewhat.
If your computer is part of a domain, the domain admins may have turned off autorun.
At any rate, you should learn how to quickly start PA with the keyboard and mouse. Find the key on your keyboard that has the windows wavy icon and (on some English keyboards) the word Start. Hold that down and poke the E key. Mouse to the drive letter where your USB drive is, right click, and choose Autoplay. Or open that drive and click on the StartPortableApps program. It'll make things start faster on the many machines where autoplay doesn't work.
MC
Thanks for that, I ran the wizard but it could not sort or repair, also tried your other suggestion but no joy, it's possible by flash drive is faulty some how.
Thanks for your help.
Cheers
is the autorun pointing to the right place?
like does your drive have an icon?
Please search before posting. ~Thanks
Don't no what you mean by is auto run pointing to the right place but the drive does have an icon on it. This might help... when I bought my sandisk flash drive it had U3 apps pre installed on it but I did not like the fact that you had to buy most of them after a while,so I deleted them and formated the drive to default FAT, I then came across portable apps by accident so I put them on the drive instead. I have now noticed when I look at the drive in properties it still refers to the drive being sandisk U3 cruzer, is this something to do with it?
on the root of the drive do you see a file called autorun.inf?
if you do open it and check the file path.
it should look something is ?:\PortableApps\PortableAppsMenu\PortableAppsMenu.exe
make sure that the file path in the ini is the actual path to that exe.
Please search before posting. ~Thanks
When I open the file, this is what it said....
[Autorun]
Open=PortableApps\PortableAppsMenu\PortableAppsMenu.exe
Action=Start PortableApps
Icon=PortableApps\PortableAppsMenu\PortableAppsMenu.exe
Label=PortableApps
do a couple of things
First:
Make sure that is the path to the exe (so make sure if you go to where that file points to make sure the exe exists)
Second:
Try ejecting the flash drive and sticking it back in and then testing the autorun
tell me how it goes
Please search before posting. ~Thanks
Path does go to the file, ejected drive and installed again still did not work, but when I right click on the drive it does now say under the auto play box to start using portableapps using the program on the disc which it did not say before.
you may just have the auto play installed for start up of drive
Please search before posting. ~Thanks
The drive is still a Sandisk U3 Cruzer, even if you have removed the U3 partition (where the U3 autoplay magic happens) and given the drive a fresh formatting. There are certain things about the drive that do not change when you format.
The autorun.inf looks normal, if you installed PortableApps with the default options. There are some other fields that you can add if you like to experiment (search the forums, this has been discussed many times) but they rarely help.
Your best bet is the Autoplay Repair utility from Microsoft. Have you tried that? [edit: sorry, missed your reply above.] It most likely has already done all that can be done.
Are you using Vista? The Repair Utility isn't designed for Vista, which puts additional limitations on autoplay.
The U3 drives have some magic that increases the probability of the drive autoplaying. It is possible to use the U3 autoplay magic to start PortableApps, but that might be harder now that you have formatted the drive, which removes the magic too. SmithTech (he of http://usb.smithtech.us/ and a member of this forum) has more information on how that works.
MC
Thanks for your help in this, I will have a look at that link you gave, thanks again for your help.
Cheers
Gary
Sorry if you have already answered these, I did scan through the posts but didn't see answers.
What OS/Service Pack are you running?
Is this a home PC or a work PC?
When you say you deleted the U3 apps and formatted the drive, EXACTLY how did you do this?
Have you tried the Microsoft AutoPlay Repair Wizard?
When you plug the drive in how many new drive letters appear?
"Because they stand on a wall and say, 'Nothing is going to hurt you tonight. Not on my watch.'" (A Few Good Men)
Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.(Albert Einstein)
(I'm assuming you're running WinXP) Go to any folder, then click on Tools > Folder Options. Go to the view tab. Under 'Advanced Settings', uncheck 'Hide extensions for known file types'. Now go to your portable drive...The file will probably be autorun.inf.txt. Rename it to autorun.inf. Hope this helps!!
that is not the problem...because he says if he right clicks and goes to autoplay it will ask if he wants to start portableapps
the problem is that it wont ask him if he plugs the drive in
Please search before posting. ~Thanks
If PortableApps installed correctly, the autorun.inf is installed correctly. If it doesn't autoplay, fussing with the files is not going to help much.
Microsoft AutoPlay Repair Wizard will help on win2k and winxp. Vista offers no hope.
MC
Forget my post then.
If you are trying to get the PAM to launch when you insert the drive, what you're looking for is here:
https://portableapps.com/node/9241
Hope it helps.
A great big thanks......I changed the code as suggested and low and behold it works, thank you Mark for pointing me to that link and everyone else you took the time to help me sort this out. I have never been so excited....
Thanks again