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autorun.inf suggestion (Action= line)

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NathanJ79
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autorun.inf suggestion (Action= line)

Quick question... Do you really want the autorun option to say "Start PortableApps.com" to launch the PortableApps Platform? I realize the dot-com is part of the brand, but most people see .com and think "website", and that may not be what they want. In fact, on some computers, in some situations, they may back out, very rapidly, e.g. if they're not supposed to be going on the Internet.

After a quick edit of the Action= line, since it's just a text string, mine now says "Launch PortableApps Platform". It sounds cool, and it's much more accurately describing what happens if I choose that option.

Also, Label=... I understand, branding, sure, but overriding the label with "PortableApps.com" is kinda tacky. When my new portable hard drive (one of those clever USB-powered, single-cable drives) is connected to my home PC, I have five drives that show up in My Computer. The PortableApps Platform is installed on two of them, so obviously, they can't both be PortableApps.com (one is 300GB, the other is 250GB, so there's that).

(Oddly enough, the new portable drive's volume name is "Expansion Drive", and the Platform (2.0.4) just shows the label as "Drive". I thought the space was the culprit, so I changed the volume name to "ExpansionDrive"... and the Platform still calls it "Drive". Well, "Drive (F:)". Tried changing it in autorun.inf and that didn't help either. I just remembered you can change it via the Platform itself. I changed it to "Nathan" and that worked, and it updated, not the volume name, but Label= in autorun.inf. Weird. But far from deal-breaking. Guess that's why it's beta?)

All that said, how about, for 2.0 final...

  • Move the drive label over, and feature the 16x16 drive icon. Clicking it will allow the user to specify a new icon on the drive, and if they specify an icon on another drive, the icon is copied to the drive. This would update the autorun.inf Icon= line.
  • Drive label works like usual but defaults to "PortableApps" instead.
Simeon
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I like it

I think its a good idea to name the action "Launch PortableApps Platform".

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

Soulmech
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I wouldn't mind leaving the

I wouldn't mind leaving the ".com" as long as "Platform" or some other identifier were added to it.

SWAG

NathanJ79
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My autorun splash (XP Sp3)

My Autorun splash looks cooler than yours.

Proof: http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t159/JCDentonDX/Forumstuff/Autorun.jpg

For the firewalled and click impaired, I changed the icon path to point to a new icon, of the TARDIS from Doctor Who, and the launch text reads: "Launch PortableApps Platform" instead of "Start PortableApps.com".

So tell me, aside from me changing the default icon (which I really had to do, as I am using a portable hard drive, not a pocket flash drive as depicted in the default icon), whose looks better, in just the text? Mine says exactly what it's going to do. Default is confusing.

This is all trivial as Windows 7 doesn't even do this, and Windows XP won't after a patch. I took the screenshot at work, where XP was just updated to SP3, they still use IE 6 (LOL!), and the patch in question hasn't been applied yet.

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