The place I work has had firefox installed for the longest time, and I've always preferred chrome to firefox. I downloaded chrome portable and started using that, got it connected to my profile, all my bookmarks synced, got bookmarks I use frequently for work on the toolbar going and now my place of work had decided to install chrome on the computers. Not only install chrome but a highly locked-down user version of chrome. I cannot get my chrome portable to load its own profile, it loads up the same chrome as I get when I click on the shortcuts in the start menu. highly locked down, no sync, no bookmarks, everything gone. I've tried copying the .ini file over to the root folder of google chrome, without editing it, and have been unsuccessful in several command-line attempts to get it going. Does anyone who knows google chrome a bit better (knows the back end stuff) help me out here? I'd really like to get my chrome portable working again!
Unlike complete browsers like Firefox, Chrome on Windows is very OS-tied (it uses the OS for encryption of passwords, proxy settings, etc). If I recall correctly, it can be configured to completely ignore the portable command lines at the OS-level (via the registry) and, short of being an administrator, you can't change it. I'm not entirely sure on that, but it is what I recall.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
There is no way around it, such as through the .ini file or through any other means?
Chrome is likely configured so it can be locked down by a machine's admin (or group policy via a corporate setup) so it will ignore the command line.
The only possibility is if chrome.exe is already running. Before running Chrome Portable, check Task Manager and ensure no chrome processes are running in the background. If they are, kill them. Then start Chrome Portable. If that fails, there's nothing more to be done on our end as this would be by design within Chrome and purposely setup by your IT department.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Okay! Thank you for the informative replies!