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Installing Portable Suite

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November 24, 2009 - 5:49pm
#1
port_user
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Installing Portable Suite

Can somebody comment on why "It's best to install it [portable suite] right to the root directory of your portable drive (X:\ where X is the drive letter).

In particular, I installed the suite not on a stick but in a separate (so non-root) folder/directory of the D\ hard drive partition.

Questions:
First, can I expect the suite behave differently when installed on a HD rather than a USB stick?

Second, does it make a difference whether the suite is installed in the root of HD partition or in its sub-directory/folder? Any side-effects?

Thanks.

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November 25, 2009 - 4:18am
Jimbo
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Three reasons

1) Some apps behave poorly if there are spaces in the path, so provided that you don't have any spaces in the path that you install to, that shouldn't matter

2) Some apps behave poorly if the total pathname is too long. For example Openoffice Portable cannot cope with being too deep into a firectory structure. This is essentially a windows OS limitation, not a fault in the app. Provided you keep the directory you install to with a fairly short name, this shouldn't be a problem.

3) Some apps make assumptions about the location of other resources, e.g. (looking for) java portable, firefox portable. Most seem to look relative to their location, but a small number assume root-of-the-drive installs. Mostly they should be teachable by editing config files.

Personally, I've run two complete PA suites in c:\flash\public and c:\flash\private as mirrors of the public and encrypted areas of my flash drive for years with no problems at all.

Try it and see, but keep the path sensibly short, and avoid spaces. The mistake many people make is to put it on Desktop, which is something like c:\Documents and Settings\MyUsername\Desktop, which it both long and spacey.

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November 25, 2009 - 6:57am
(Reply to #2)
solanus
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I prefer to have it in its own folder on C:

Since the beginning (I've been here almost 4 years now) I've run apps with no problems in C:\PortableAppsSuite\

The recommendation you cited was for installing on portable drives.
On those, installing to the root also allows for the Windows autorun to prompt for starting PortableApps as soon as you plug it in.

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

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November 25, 2009 - 12:59pm
port_user
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Installing Portable Suite

I see... I have it on USB and on the hard drive on D\ with short subdirectory 'portable' :). The reason I want it on D\ is to have Windows installation on C\ 'clean' so that I can reinstall OS at will.

Another unrelated concern I have is that the current menu does not accommodate applications with multiple executables. For example, I dropped TrueCrypt into the application folder. As a result, the menu shows two executables (and for another application - three). It would be nice if the menu would create a separate folder to group multiple icons for the same application...

Smile

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November 25, 2009 - 2:02pm
(Reply to #4)
John T. Haller
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Hide

You can easily hide extra executables that don't need to be in the menu. In the 1.5 version, right click and rename it to a dash -. In 2.0 Beta, right-click and select hide.

Installing to C:\ root won't make Windows any less clean or affect OS installation at all. Installing to root is recommended so that installers can find the X:\PortableApps directory automatically and so apps like OpenOffice.org won't wind up with too long a path.

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

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November 26, 2009 - 12:00am
(Reply to #5)
port_user
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Installing Portable Suite

Thanks. I run 1.5. the dash worked for hiding...

Could you clarify: when you are talking about preferable root installation, do you mean that (bootable) C\ root is preferable or root directory of any partition is OK (same effect as C\)?

Smile

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November 26, 2009 - 5:22am
(Reply to #6)
Simeon
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its

the root of any partition.

"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate

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November 26, 2009 - 4:31pm
(Reply to #7)
solanus
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Installers never had a problem

As I said, I always put my PortableApps menu in a subfolder, and as long as I use the menu to initiate the installers, they ALWAYS install to the correct directory.

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

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