Is it truly portable? When I change settings, I can't find them reflected in any of the ini files anywhere within its portable folder/subfolders. Seems to me it must be saving settings elsewhere (registry, C drive, etc.) Please advise. TIA
New: Kanri (Oct 9, '24), Platform 29.5.3 (Jun 27, '24)
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Many apps don't give us a way to redirect their settings, so we work around that.
When the portable launcher starts it checks to see if settings already exist in the place the app expects them (in the case of HWiNFO that is the registry). If they exist, the launcher backs them up, then copies in the portable version's settings.
The launcher then launches the real app within the portable package.
Then when the app is closed, the launcher copies the settings back to the portable version's folder, copies the previous settings back to where they were (if they existed), and then exits.
So if you are looking for changes while the app is running you won't find them in the app's Data folder, you will find them in the registry. After the app is closed you will find those changes in the app's Data folder.
I checked both HWiNFO32.ini and HWiNFO64.ini in the app's Data folder and neither include the settings I changed. However, since those changes do persist after an exit/restart, they have obviously been saved somewhere. Therefore, I did some extra digging and found them in a reg file within the Data\settings subfolder. However, what I'm ultimately trying to discover is if there's a way to avoid the following scenario: I image my boot drive every few months as a backup. If after that image is made, I change any settings, and then need to restore that image at a latter date, when HWiNFO next starts up, it seems to already find settings in the registry and use them. But, they are the outdated settings from when the image was made rather than the more recent settings. Is there any way to resolve this problem? For example, in App\AppInfo\Launcher is the file HWiNFOPortable.ini and within it is:
[Activate]
Registry=true
If that is changed to false would that perhaps stop the app from loading settings from the registry and do so from a local file within the app folder? Any solution would be appreciated. Thanks!
How are you running the apps? Did you by any chance pin them to the taskbar or set them to start with Windows?
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Neither pinned to taskbar nor set to start with Windows. Just launch using HWiNFOPortable.exe on an ad hoc basis.
It's working fine here on Windows 10 64-bit latest stable update. Can you please supply more details including your operating system, 32 or 64-bit, full install path, etc.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thinking back, the last time I launched it, I got the dialog about it not shutting down properly. Based on the prior explanation of operations from Ken Herbert, I'm guessing that would explain the problem? If so, is there no way to make HWiNFO immediately save settings to an ini file within its portable folder while running, rather than risk a crash resulting in a loss of settings?