Folks:
I am new to this forum, so please excuse me if this feature has already been requested or is already present. I would like the ability in the Portable Apps platform to re-install an existing portable app. Currently the only abilities I can see is to add new apps, uninstall existing apps, or upgrade existing apps.
The reason I need this feature is that the Firefox upgrade fails. I have set Firefox as my default browser on Windows, and when the updater tries to delete the subfolder with firefox.exe in it, the delete fails, but the install is marked as successful by the Platform. After the upgrade, when I try to run FireFox Portable, the FirefoxPortable.exe is found, and runs, but it exits with an error message that firefox.exe is not found.
My current workaround is to reboot the computer for the folder to be deleted, and then download the latest PAF from PortableApps.com and run it. Not too much trouble, really, except that my browser (Firefox) doesn't work!!
Please don't suggest that I use another browser as my default, or that setting Firefox Portable as my default browser is a dumb idea! :-)) Perhaps it is, but that's what I want to do. On the other hand, if there's another way to set Firefox Portable as my default browser that avoids this problem, I'd be delighted to hear about it.
Also, I don't want to uninstall the existing Firefox app and then get the new version by installing Firefox as a new app because I will lose my current settings for Firefox.
My suggested approach to solve this problem is to add a "Re-Install" option to the right-click menu for the Platform - in other words, I'd right-click on Mozilla Firefox, select "Re-Install", and the platform would download the PAF file and run it, just like an update.
Any alternative suggestions are welcome!!
Thanks for a great and truly useful platform!!!
Thanks
Tim
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When the Firefox Portable installer runs, it will alert if FirefoxPortable.exe is already running, so you don't accidentally try to upgrade while it is. So, there's no worry about the situation you're running into. If you've set AllowMultipleInstances to true, you end up bypassing this check since FirefoxPortable.exe closes. That's why you're having this issue.
The ability to reinstall apps is coming in a later release of the platform.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
John:
Thanks for your prompt response, and all your work on the platform.
I don't think I've set AllowMultipleInstances to True?? I understand that to do that I'd have to copy FirefoxPortable.ini from FirefoxPortable\Other\Source to FirefoxPortable and change the AllowMultipleInstances parameter to true. There is no FirefoxPortable.ini in the FirefoxPortable directory, and the one in FirefoxPortable\Other\Source still has AllowMultipleInstances set to false.
I do get the message about Firefox cannot be upgraded while it's running, and the upgrade proceeds when I close Firefox (and wait for it to clean up).
I am assuming the problem has to do with the OS (Windows 10) keeping a handle to the location of default apps, which prevents the folder from being deleted until a reboot. I have the same problem with Foxit Portable (my default PDF reader).
It's good news to hear that the ability to reinstall apps is coming - I'll wait for that!
Once again - thanks for all the work you do on the platform - I find it really helpful!!
Thanks
Tim
If you call firefox.exe directly instead of via FirefoxPortable.exe, it can leave stray processes. So if you set Firefox as default within the app itself, that can cause the issue you are seeing.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thanks!! That's it!
It appears that firefox.exe is set as the default handler on my machine for URLs/Web browsing. I'll change that to FirefoxPortable.exe and hopefully that will fix the problem!! Of course, I won't know for sure till the next upgrade ...
Thanks for your help!!
Tim