Hi everyone. I've known about portable apps for a long time, but I'm just starting to use them. (They're great!) If my questions seem dumb or naive, please forgive them. I semi-retired from sofware engineering 15 yrs ago (after 30 years professional development), and I have some rust, but the bulb it still medium bright.
I'm here at the moment because I've been searching for several hours about this file called Start.exe which is mentions in dozens of posts, implying that it's a critical file needed by portable apps, especially if you want to transfer your pa setup to another computer or flash drive. The problem is that I'm running Windows 10, and I find no file Start.exe anywhere on my system -- not in the root of where pa is, nor in any other place.
Is it always necessary? Is there some alternate file if you are using the pa platform?
(I find it hard to believe that Start.exe is always necessary, since I'm running the pa platform on my system without problems and Start.exe doesn't exist on my system.)
Am I missing something about this? If anyone can shed some light on this, I would greatly appreciate it.
Tom
P.S. Is there a forum for suggestions? (I'm not criticizing the site, but websites evolve in stages, and sometimes become unintentionally confusing for new users, and I'd like to give some feedback on a few things that could be easily remedied [I know, in software development, nothing is easily remedied], but in at least one or two cases, I'm talking about thinks as simple as text changes in menu items.)
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Hi! How do you start the PAc Platform, a shortcut? Until recently, usually run from flashdrive, I always expected a Start.exe too.
I'm quessing that you did a Local Install. Either for current user or for all users. And had the Platform create a shortcut when you installed. I was surprised when I couldn't find Start.exe after installing for all users. It appears that the Platform instead points the shortcut to PortableAppsPlatform.exe which is in C:\PortableApps\PortableApps.com.
In Windows 8.1 the shorcut, PortableApps.com Platform, itself is located in C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs, where username is your login name.
In that case the only things you would move would be Documents and PortableApps folders. You might want to change or remove the shortcut.
The locations for the folders and shortcut are more complicated if you installed for current user.
Start.exe is primarily for portable use. It will test for a working TEMP directory and supports configuring a custom TEMP directory called TempForPortableApps when it exists in the same directory as Start.exe. It is generally unnecessary when running the platform on your own PC as TEMP will be under your own control. Start.exe is not created in the root C:\ directory when you select a local install as Windows 8 and later to not permit EXE files to be created here. When used portably, Start.exe also serves as an easier to use way of starting up the platform rather than having to open up the PortableApps folder and then PortableApps.com folder and then running PortableAppsPlatform.exe.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!