NVU Portable & KompoZer Portable Support

Many of the most common issues that arise when using NVU Portable are addressed here. Please read through the various topics to see if any of them address your question. You can also post a question to the NVU Portable Support Forum.

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NVU Portable-Specific Issues

General NVU Issues

Installing NVU Portable

To install NVU Portable, just download the portable package at the top of the NVU Portable page and then double-click it. Select the location you wish to install to and click OK. An NVUPortable directory will be created there and all the necessary files installed. That's all there is to it.

Using NVU Portable

To start up NVU Portable, just double-click NVUPortable.exe where you installed NVU Portable on your portable drive. Then, use it just like you would a local copy of NVU. There are a couple of things to keep in mind:

  • Stay Safe - When using portable apps, it's always a good idea to practice Safe Portable App-ing.
  • Removing Your Drive - When you're done, exit NVU and then wait for the activity light on your removable drive to stop flashing. This may take a minute or more on slow drives or computers. Then select the 'Safely remove [device]' option from the icon in the system tray. If you remove the drive while it is writing, you may lose data.

Upgrading NVU Portable

To upgrade to a newer version of NVU Portable, make a copy of your existing profile folder within the NVUPortable\Data (or PortableNVU\profile if upgrading from an older version) directory on your portable drive. Then download the new version of NVU Portable and copy your profile from the old version into the new version (NVUPortable\Data\Profile).

Copying Your Local NVU Settings

If you're using a local copy of NVU, you may wish to just copy your local NVU settings right into NVU Portable. Your local NVU profile is usually installed in C:\Documents and Settings\[user]\Application Data\NVU\Profiles\??????.default\ Just copy all of those files to the profile directory within NVU Portable (NVUPortable\Data\profile). Sometimes, certain profiles will cause the launcher to fail or hang.

Running From a CD (NVU Portable Live)

NVU Portable supports running from a CD right out of the box, and it's a snap. Start off by downloading and installing NVU Portable to your hard drive... it doesn't matter where. Run it at least once to generate the default settings. Then, customize it as needed, being sure not to move NVUPortable.exe or any of the other critical files. Next, download NVUPortable.ini ( KompoZerPortable.ini for KompoZer) and save it to the same directory as NVUPortable.exe. Then, burn the whole NVUPortable directory to a CD and you're ready to go. Note that Nvu doesn't actually support running directly from read-only media, so the portable app and the profile are copied to the local PC's temp directory and run from there.

Known Issues

The following are known issues with this package:

  • Trojan/Virus detected - AntiVir and Avast, on more than one occasion, have claimed there is a trojan or virus in the launcher. This is due to poor trojan detection in both products that will occasionally mis-identify many NSIS-based applications as trojans. It will usually occur after a definitions update. You should contact your antivirus provider and let them know of their mistake.

Modifications

I made some modifications to the official version of NVU to make it more USB key friendly (decreasing total install size and the number of writes to the drive, which will increase drive life). These changes are listed here so you'll know what they are, and so you can recreate the process, if so desired.

  • Extension-Friendly Launcher - NVUPortable Launcher is included by default. It will alter the paths to any extensions you install to work relatively. Just be sure to close/restart NVU before switching PCs.
  • EXEs and DLLs Compressed - All EXEs and DLLs were recompressed using UPX. This gets our installed size down to one that works on 16Mb drives. Additionally, it will speed up use when you're running over USB 1.1. The options used were: --best --compress-icons=0 --nrv2d --crp-ms=999999 -k
  • JARs re-compressed - The JAR files in the chrome have been recompressed at the maximum level. (For the curious, JAR files are just ZIP files with a different extension)
  • Default Profile - A default profile exists.
  • XUL Cache Disabled - XUL caching is disabled, speeding USB access and decreasing install size

Version History

  • NVU Portable 1.0 Revision 3 - August 2, 2006
    • Renamed to NVU Portable
    • Updated launcher to 1.1.2.1
      • Added in-place upgrade support
      • Added CD/Live support
      • Improved WaitForNVU
  • Portable NVU 1.0 Revision 2 - November 10, 2005
    • Updated launcher to 1.1.0
      • Added support for App/Data split directory structure
  • Portable NVU 1.0 - June 29, 2005
    • Updated to NVU 1.0
  • Portable NVU 1.0 PR - May 22, 2005
    • Updated to NVU 1.0 PR
    • Added new-style launcher
      • Extension/Theme support
      • More directory/placement options
      • Support for copying in a local profile
  • Portable NVU 0.9 - April 15, 2005
    • Updated to NVU 0.9
    • Disabled XUL Cache
  • Portable NVU 0.81 - February 9, 2005
    • Updated to the newly-released NVU 0.81
  • Portable NVU 0.8 - February 2, 2005
    • Updated to the newly-released NVU 0.8
    • Changed install directory to NVUPortable
  • NVU Portable 0.7 - January 12, 2005
    • Full packaged zip including the custom launcher
    • JARs recompressed to max using 7-zip
    • EXEs and DLLs compressed using UPX
  • Preview 2 - January 5, 2005
    • Updated with instructions for NVU 0.7 zip which functions correctly
  • Preview 1 - December 4, 2004
    • Released NVU Portable Launcher 0.0.3
    • Posted full instructions for creating NVU Portable install