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Using Portable Apps Exclusively

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February 17, 2009 - 6:09pm
#1
blah-01
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Joined: 2009-02-17 17:52
Using Portable Apps Exclusively

I have been using Portable Apps on a flash drive for some time. I had problems with my laptop, and dreaded going through the whole setup process for so many programs again. Then I thought, "Hey, I wonder if I can use Portable Apps on all of my PCs?"

My thinking is that all I would have to do to duplicate my programs and data on my different machines is to copy my flash drive contents to/from those drives. (I realize this probably sounds stupid to some of you, but that is why I am doing the asking rather than the answering!)

My biggest concern is Thunderbird, as I now have it set up with many accounts and tons of mail in it. I'd love to be able to just make a copy on my desktop and laptop.

Well, thanks for tolerating my ignorance,
Vern

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February 17, 2009 - 7:10pm
solanus
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Joined: 2006-01-21 19:12
Yes, but

You can copy your files to as many PCs as you want, and it will copy any saved e-mails to them along with everything else.
The issue you will run into is the syncing of new emails afterwards.

If you have T-Bird set up to DL your e-mails and delete them from the server, then you will get out of whack.

Say you copy T-Bird, with all your old e-mails, to 3 computers.

Login to #1, and it DL's your new e-mail, and deletes the copy from the server.

The next day, log into #2, it does the same thing, except yesterdays e-mails are not there, they are on #1.

#3 doesn't have either, but you log into that the next day, etc, and now all three are out of sync..

To avoid this, first (temporarily) change your account settings on your flash drive, so they don't delete the e-mails from the server. Then, you can copy it to as many as you'd like.

If you still want to delete downloaded e-mails from the server, just designate 1 of your PCs to be the holder of all new e-mails.

However, why not just keep everything on a flash drive?

OR -
If all your PCs are on one home network, put your Portable Apps on a shared folder. Then, you can open T-Bird from any of your systems, but the new e-mails will be saved into the shared folder. Don't know if it will work that way, but it's worth a shot!

I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.

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February 28, 2009 - 9:26pm
BenBl
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Joined: 2008-03-07 09:02
It works!

I just set my account settings in Tbird to leave all mail on server for 60 days, copied my flash drive contents to my PC and laptop and whalla! Perfectly duplicated , functional programs!
Thanks for the input! Hope this helps someone else!

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March 1, 2009 - 9:56pm
(Reply to #3)
Wences
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Joined: 2007-04-17 22:05
Try IMAP

If your e-mail accounts support it, you can try using the IMAP protocol (instead of POP3). The advantage is that if you use IMAP when you use a different copy of Thunderbird (say your pendrive instead of your network shared directory) the e-mails you marked as read using the other copy, are still marked as read, and similarly you can also have your sent e-mails handy, etc.
All this is, of course, because by using IMAP, basically you are keeping your e-mails in the server, and Thunderbird's inbox becomes only a reflecion of it.

Just food for thought for other people facing this kind of situation.

Regards:

Wences

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