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Portable App Development

Discuss portable app development and modification of existing apps.

Licensing stuff...

Submitted by shookmon on February 20, 2013 - 11:15pm

OK, so I'm just starting out looking into making apps and maybe portablizing(?) some others and now I'm confused about licensing again.

Looking at the Autoruns PA page, I see it's listed as freeware. However, according to it's help file:

"You may not distribute Autoruns without permission from Sysinternals. To request permission contact licensing@sysinternals.com."

Also the EULA states:

You may not:

* work around any technical limitations in the binary versions of the software;

Preserved file is being overwritten

Submitted by orschiro on February 20, 2013 - 10:52am

Hello,

I need to modify a file of a program called 'profile' which is located in '\AppPortable\App\AppName\folder'.

In order to avoid that my modified 'profile' is being overwritten by the original one I added the following to my installer.ini:

[FilesToPreserve]
PreserveFile1=App\AppName\folder\profile

I want to create an online installer which downloads the source code and extracts it to \App\AppName:

AdvancedExtract1To=App\AppName
AdvancedExtract1Filter=*

Usage of the sections [RegistryCleanupIfEmpty] and [RegistryCleanupForce]

Submitted by tapsklaps on February 18, 2013 - 9:06am
  1. Usage of the section [RegistryCleanupIfEmpty]

    Suppose a program named AppName writes its settings in the following two registry keys:

    • HKCU\Software\AppName_1\settings_1
    • HKCU\Software\AppName_2\settings_2

    Furthermore after saving of these both registry keys by the launcher the registry keys HKCU\Software\AppName_1 and HKCU\Software\AppName_2 will be left empty.

    Is it in this case correct, that I use the following code, where the key names are consecutive integers?

    [RegistryCleanupIfEmpty]
    

PortableApps.com Installer only recognizes .exe?

Submitted by shookmon on February 17, 2013 - 3:27pm

I am working on creating the installer for my new app Out2Lunch which is just a batch file. Doesn't need to be compiled as it's opensource, and cmd.exe runs it just fine. However, I think the Installer only recognizes .exe files as program files as it gave me an error about 'No .exe files found'. So I created a fake .exe file. Now Installer runs OK, but leaves out the batch file when I try to actually install it. the appinfo.inin file correctly identifies the batch file as the program to launch.

Launcher for .vbs scripts

Submitted by orschiro on February 14, 2013 - 11:18am

Hello,

How can I create a working launcher for a .vbs script?

My launcher.ini contains the following line:

[Launch]
ProgramExecutable=Git\Git Bash.vbs

The launcher .exe is built without any errors but when running, the .vbs script does not show up. The path to the .vbs script is definitely correct.

Any ideas?

"Portable" apps should NOT write to the registry

AEN007's picture
Submitted by AEN007 on February 14, 2013 - 10:33am

14February2013

I would like to submit/say - for what it is worth -
that "portable" apps should NOT write to registry!

Writing to the registry defeats the whole purpose/design of "portable" apps!

How many PA.com "portable" apps (now) write to the registry?
Does anyone have any idea?
Far too many PA.com apps (now) write to the registry - in my opinion.
PA.com should flag/point-out/specify apps that write to the registry!

I have been using PA.com µTorrent for years.
I download/"install" the µT PAF to a temp directory on my f drive,

FileWrite not working in launcher

Submitted by Gamemaster77 on February 13, 2013 - 11:38pm

For the Portable App I'm making, I need to write a registry key that has the directory of the app. So, I tried using FileWrite to change the .reg file before its added; however, nothing seems to be happening. To test it, I made a file in \Data\Settings called test.txt with D:\CivilizationIIIPortable as what's in it. I then set the last drive to D. In my launcher, I have:

[FileWrite3]
type=Replace
File=%PAL:DataDrive%\Settings\test.txt
find=%PAL:LastDrive%
replace:%PAL:Drive%

Remote Desktop Connection Manager

Submitted by Larbac on February 13, 2013 - 12:20pm

Hi guys,

I was looking for a portable RDP connection manager, but this seems difficult to get...

I use RDCman (Microsoft free tool) but would like to go portable with this.
Wonder if anyone knows if this tool can be made portable (I am not sure how it works license wise).

Or if you are aware of any other apps that does the job...

I read about remote desktop connection manager from Devolution. If you download the .zip binary files, you are able to run portable with a file path change... but the binary pack is only the enterprise version.. So you need license..

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