You are here

Home » Forums » Development Forums » Portable App Development

"Portable" apps should NOT write to the registry

6 posts / 0 new
Log in or register to post comments
Last post
February 14, 2013 - 10:33am
#1
AEN007
AEN007's picture
Offline
Last seen: 9 years 4 months ago
Joined: 2010-06-05 10:57
"Portable" apps should NOT write to the registry

14February2013

I would like to submit/say - for what it is worth -
that "portable" apps should NOT write to registry!

Writing to the registry defeats the whole purpose/design of "portable" apps!

How many PA.com "portable" apps (now) write to the registry?
Does anyone have any idea?
Far too many PA.com apps (now) write to the registry - in my opinion.
PA.com should flag/point-out/specify apps that write to the registry!

I have been using PA.com µTorrent for years.
I download/"install" the µT PAF to a temp directory on my f drive,
then copy the files to the actual portable/"install" directory on my c drive,
and also then copy the files to my other laptops.
µTorrent (3.3.0.29082) now writes to the registry that it has been "installed"
and µTorrent shows up in my Windows list of installed software!
I guess µTorrent is (now) configured to write to the regsitry
when executed/launched? THAT IS RIDICULOUS!

Top
February 14, 2013 - 10:37am
John T. Haller
John T. Haller's picture
Online
Last seen: 34 min 7 sec ago
AdminDeveloperModeratorTranslator
Joined: 2005-11-28 22:21
Bug

If it writes to the registry and leaves an entry there, that should be filed as a bug. None of our apps do that that I have seen. A simple bug report would suffice instead of a sky-is-falling post complete with screaming-in-caps-closing.

Lots of portable apps write to the registry temporarily which is then removed on exit. Likely including the browser you used to write this very post.

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

Top
February 15, 2013 - 4:11am
(Reply to #2)
AEN007
AEN007's picture
Offline
Last seen: 9 years 4 months ago
Joined: 2010-06-05 10:57
WOW! Maybe oversensitivity to

WOW!
Maybe oversensitivity to fault finding produced
such a distorted, blow-it-all out of proportion reply?

"If it writes to the registry and leaves an entry there,
that should be filed as a bug.
None of our apps do that that I have seen."
µTorrent (now) does (like I "said").

"Lots of portable apps write to the registry temporarily
which is then removed on exit.
Likely including the browser you used to write this very post."
This pronouncement/deduction is not correct either ...
LIGHTEN UP!

Top
February 15, 2013 - 5:05am
(Reply to #3)
Aluísio A. S. G.
Offline
Last seen: 7 years 2 months ago
DeveloperTranslator
Joined: 2010-11-09 17:43
Enlight us

Which browser are you using?

Previously known as kAlug.

Top
February 15, 2013 - 9:36am
(Reply to #4)
John T. Haller
John T. Haller's picture
Online
Last seen: 34 min 7 sec ago
AdminDeveloperModeratorTranslator
Joined: 2005-11-28 22:21
Proportion, Fixes

Please re-read your original post and reconsider if it is in proportion to a simple bug in a single app. Essentially, instead of a simple bug report, aka ("I noticed that uTorrent Portable 3.3 left an entry in the Uninstall registry key whereas uTorrent Portable 3.2 did not") you decided to go off on a rant complete with incorrect assumptions, screaming in caps, exclamations points, etc.

"that "portable" apps should NOT write to registry!"
"Far too many PA.com apps (now) write to the registry - in my opinion."
"PA.com should flag/point-out/specify apps that write to the registry!"
"THAT IS RIDICULOUS!", etc, etc)

When called on it, you got upset complete with more screaming in caps and exclamation points. Please consider taking it down a few notches and just stick with the facts. No exclamation points OR SCREAMING IN CAPS!!! are necessary Smile

I've confirmed that uTorrent Portable 3.2 does have a bug with leaving behind 3 registry keys. The change occurred in uTorrent itself and was missed in testing, likely because uTorrent has been getting more buggy in portable form due to internal changes. To stop those keys being left behind, the uTorrentPortable.ini file within uTorrentPortable\App\AppInfo\Launcher must be updated to:

[Launch]
ProgramExecutable=uTorrent\uTorrent.exe
WorkingDirectory=%PAL:AppDir%\uTorrent
SingleAppInstance=true
DirectoryMoveOK=yes
SupportsUNC=yes

[Activate]
Registry=true

[RegistryKeys]
; There is a TrayIcon key here; TODO: check if it's important
-=HKCU\Software\BitTorrent
-=HKCU\Software\Classes\btdna
-=HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ESENT\Process\uTorrent
-=HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\uTorrent
Falcon=HKCU\Software\Classes\FalconBetaAccount

[FilesMove]
settings\*.dat=%PAL:AppDir%\uTorrent
settings\*.old=%PAL:AppDir%\uTorrent
settings\apps.btapp=%PAL:AppDir%\uTorrent

[DirectoriesMove]
settings\apps=%PAL:AppDir%\uTorrent\apps
settings\dlimagecache=%PAL:AppDir%\uTorrent\dlimagecache
-=%LocalAppData%\uTorrent

[FileWrite1]
Type=Replace
File=%PAL:DataDir%\settings\settings.dat
Find=%PAL:LastDrive%\
Replace=%PAL:Drive%\

[FileWrite2]
Type=Replace
File=%PAL:DataDir%\settings\resume.dat
Find=%PAL:LastDrive%\
Replace=%PAL:Drive%\

That will fix the issue with the 3 new registry keys including the Uninstall key.

Unfortunately, uTorrent now has other issues as it unceremoniously dropped all support for relative paths. See here for a workaround:
https://portableapps.com/news/2013-02-08--utorrent-portable-3.3.0.29082-...

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

Top
October 30, 2013 - 3:28am
(Reply to #5)
AEN007
AEN007's picture
Offline
Last seen: 9 years 4 months ago
Joined: 2010-06-05 10:57
My workaround/solution

I found a simpler solution to be to modify 1 of my "Persistent" AHK scripts
to check for µTorrent registry entries & to delete them if/when they exist ...

ErrorLevel := 0
Process, Exist, uTorrent.exe
If (ErrorLevel  0) and (µTpid = 0)
 {
  µTpid := ErrorLevel
  DetectHiddenWindows ON
  IfWinExist, µTorrent ahk_pid %µTpid%
   {
    WinGetClass, µTcl, µTorrent ahk_pid %µTpid%
    µToWTcl = µTorrent ahk_class %µTcl%
    iniRead, FLWx, %UP%\ahk%CN%.ini, Wires, FLWx
    iniRead, FLWy, %UP%\ahk%CN%.ini, Wires, FLWy
    iniRead, FLWw, %UP%\ahk%CN%.ini, Wires, FLWw
    iniRead, FLWh, %UP%\ahk%CN%.ini, Wires, FLWh
    ControlGetPos, CGPx, , , , SysListView321, %µToWTcl%
    If (CGPx > 5)
     iniRead, FLWyTµ, %UP%\ahk%CN%.ini, Wires, FLWyTµ
    else FLWyTµ := 0
   }
  DetectHiddenWindows OFF
 }
else If (µTpid  0)
 {
  ErrorLevel := 0
  RegRead, RegR, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run, uTorrent
  If (ErrorLevel  1)
   RegDelete, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run, uTorrent
  µTpid := 0
 }

I also use similar scripting in other non-PERSISTENT AHK scripts ...

PS: To post the/my script/code I had to use the "PRE" tag instead of the "CODE" tag
because the "CODE" tag did not keep the indentations ...

Top
Log in or register to post comments