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Running Firefox and Firefox Portable at the same time

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November 10, 2020 - 5:50pm
#1
pokeefe0001
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Running Firefox and Firefox Portable at the same time

I'm brand new to Firefox Portable and need to be able to run it (or another portable browser) and "regular" Firefox at the same time. I know this has been discussed, but I can't find anything recent and/or anything that matches what I see.

I can run FirefoxPortable at the same time as regular Firefox as long as I start Portable first. That's sort of inconvenient, but it at least demonstrates that the two flavors of Firefox can coexist. Is there any way to let Firefox Portable successfully initialize if the other Firefox is already running?

Regular Firefox has no problem running one copy of Firefox per profile as long as the parm "no remote" is specified, but I couldn't get that to work for Firefox Portable. I saw something mentioning the FirefoxPortable .ini parm "DisableIntelligentStart=true" but that didn't help.

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November 12, 2020 - 3:27pm
Abraxian
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Set AllowMultipleInstances=true

Do the following;

(1) Drill to the folder you have Firefox Portable 'installed' to.

(2) Now look in the sub-folder titled Other\Source

(3) Inside the Source folder you will find two files: a FirefoxPortable.ini file and a Readme.txt file.

(4) The instructions on how to setup Firefox Portable to be able to run at the same time as a fully installed Firefox are contained in the Readme.txt file. (Basically, you need to make a copy of the FirefoxPortable.ini file into the same directory in which you have the FirefoxPortable.exe file (this FirefoxPortable.exe file is also known as the Firefox Portable Launcher). Once you have the copy of the ini file in place beside the launcher, open the copy with Notepad and change the parameter AllowMultipleInstances=false to AllowMultipleInstances=true -- then save the file. That's it done, you can now run a fully installed Firefox and Firefox Portable at the same time. (Note: you do not need to do anything to your fully installed Firefox to enable this, so forget about modding or using launch parameters for that.)

P.S. The "true/false" variable must be entered as lower-case text.

Use Portable Apps on both Flash Drive and HDD/SSD.

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November 12, 2020 - 1:15pm
(Reply to #2)
pokeefe0001
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I had (obviously) picked the

I had (obviously) picked the wrong parameter to change initially, but I still can't get it to work.

In order to describe what I've done I need to refer to my installation path. The executable is in
M:\FirefoxPortable\
That directory contains directories
App
Data
and files
FirefoxPortable.exe
help.html

I expected to find file "FirefoxPortableSettings.ini" but it was in the Data\Settings subdirectory. So just to be safe I created
M:\FirefoxPortable\FirefoxPortableSettings.ini and modified M:\FirefoxPortable\Data\setting\FirefoxPortableSettings.ini.

Just to be safe, I included both "AllowMultipleInstances=true" and "DisableSplashScreen=true" (without the quotes).
FirefoxPortable still would not start when Firefox was running, and it displayed the splash screen when I started it without Firefox running. I'm obviously not getting the .ini file to be processed.

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November 12, 2020 - 3:27pm
(Reply to #3)
Abraxian
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Follow the Instructions

You are making several mistakes and tying yourself in knots because you don't follow my instructions. Do the following, I will use the directory paths you give for your system.

You forgot to mention that your parent folder M:\FirefoxPortable\ also contains a sub-folder titled Other and that sub-folder contains yet another sub-folder titled Source

The ini file you need to use is in the following path (including the name of the file itself):
M:\FirefoxPortable\Other\Source\FirefoxPortable.ini

Make a copy of that file into the parent directory of your Firefox Portable installation so that you have a file in the path (including the name of file itself):
M:\FirefoxPortable\FirefoxPortable.ini

Now open the file M:\FirefoxPortable\FirefoxPortable.ini in Notepad and set the following parameters as you wish them to be:
AllowMultipleInstances=true
DisableSplashScreen=true

Once you have made those edits save the file.

And that should be it all done this time. Launch FirefoxPortable.exe and you should find things working as you wish.

Having done all of the above open the following file:
M:\FirefoxPortable\Other\Source\Readme.txt and read it. As you read it you will be able to work out what you did wrong and will also see an alternative way of explaining what I explained to you in the first instance.

=================================================

To get around the mess you made when you first tried this yourself and ignored my instructions do the following:

(1) If you have Firefox Portable running, shut it down.

(2) If you have a file M:\FirefoxPortable\FirefoxPortableSettings.ini then delete that file.

(3) In the directory M:\FirefoxPortable\Data delete the sub-folder titled settings Do not worry about this Firefox Portable will recreate that directory and the file it contains when Firefox Portable is next launched.

And that is all.

Use Portable Apps on both Flash Drive and HDD/SSD.

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November 13, 2020 - 1:00am
(Reply to #4)
pokeefe0001
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I still could not get it to

I still could not get it to work following your instructions, but I think you were right in saying I had messed things up previously. So I saved the profile, deleted everything related to FiefoxPortablle, reinstalled it, copied and edited the .ini file before starting the product, copied the profile back, and tried starting it again. Now everything works as it should.

Thank you.

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November 13, 2020 - 6:25am
(Reply to #5)
Abraxian
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Well Done

I'm glad you persevered with it and got it working. Of course once you've done it once it strikes you just how easy it is to do -- at least it did me when I first managed it.

Use Portable Apps on both Flash Drive and HDD/SSD.

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January 31, 2021 - 11:58am
(Reply to #6)
gaveitatry
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Hi. For the last several

(snip) I deleted this post and moved it to a new thread.

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November 11, 2020 - 4:36pm
pokeefe0001
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Thank you.

Thank you.
I had seen that and thought I'd followed the directions, but I obviously didn't do a good job. I'll try again.

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June 3, 2023 - 4:01pm
jr2
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For anyone running into this:

For anyone running into this:
Right-click Firefox in the PortableApps launcher and click "Explore Here" or browse to where your FirefoxPortable.exe is located.
Make a text file name FirefoxPortable.ini (If you don't have file extensions shown by default, change the file type when saving to "All Files" or you'll get FirefoxPortable.ini.txt and it will look like a .ini but actually be a .txt).

Paste the following:

[FirefoxPortable]
AllowMultipleInstances=true

# The above options are explained in the included readme.txt
# This INI file is an example only and is not used unless it is placed as described in the included readme.txt

Save the file.

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June 4, 2023 - 1:36pm
(Reply to #9)
John T. Haller
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Described within included help.html and readme.txt

This is described in the included readme.txt within the app. If you open the help.html file within FirefoxPortable, it's linked right there. Nearly all apps have advanced options detailed there.

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

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