WeBuilder: Starting from USB

[thorsten]

Hi,

I'm evaluating WeBuilder (actually I want HTMLPad but I need the USB support).

I start WeBuilder, choose Options > "Install to an USB stick", choose a directory and then copy the files to the USB stick. The directory contents differ from the original installation in so far as there is an additional settings and an additional layout folder created.

But after starting WeBuilder again from USB WeBuilder still creates the settings under HKCU and the folders under %appdata%. So the folders in the program directory on the stick are not used.

Am I doing something wrong or what do I have to do save and use the settings on the stick?

Thorsten

[Karlis]

Are you sure that the folders on your stick are not used? WeBuilder works like this.

1) Settings are copied from files to registry
2) WeBuilder reads them from *registry*
3) When you close WeBuilder, it saves settings to *registry*
4) From registry the settings are copied to files

So even if you use USB stick, registry is used, however settings are loaded/saved to/from registry from files.

This does not apply to application data folder. Please note that you should not manually copy or export any settings from your computer to USB installation or else you may damage it.

[thorsten]

Thanks for the response. I can't verify this anymore because I switched to HTMLPad and wrote a batch script that does the copy/reg export/reg import stuff before and after starting HTMLPad.

I do this for a lot of applications that use the registry and %appdata and this works fine. It's just easier if the app supports that directly (or even better: does not use the registry or %appdata)

[Karlis]

Yes, direct support would be great. Unfortunately we have like zillion rows of code for loading/saving settings and we did not want to mess anything up, thus the easy solution was chosen.

I'd love to see the batch file you are using...

[thorsten]

It's a "4NT" script so it would need some minor modifications to run it with standard comspec cmd.exe. Of course you shouldn't remove the "Blumentals" registry key and appdata folder if you have more than one application from Blumentals

Code: Select all

set regkey="HKCU\Software\Karlis Blumentals"

rmdir /k /s /q  "%appdata\Blumentals"
mkdir           "%appdata\Blumentals"
REM "appdata" is the folder on the flash drive where I copied %appdata\Blumentals
copy /s appdata "%appdata\Blumentals"

reg delete %regkey /f
reg import htmlpad.reg

htmlpad.exe

rmdir /k /s /q                appdata
move /s "%appdata\Blumentals" appdata
reg export %regkey htmlpad.reg

[Karlis]

nice

[syrupcore]

yeah, very nice.

[drjee]

why not just save everything in ini-files? actually, I do not see the advantage of using the registry at all.