Portable applications question

[antoine]

Hi all,

as many of us, I am using portable applications that can run from a
flash usb or an external hard drive. Although those applications run
fine on their own, I would like to automate the way they are "linked" to
the operating system, for example :

1) declare that my portable thunderbird is the default mail & newsgroup
client

2) declare that all gif, jpg, bmp pictures should be opened with my
portable irfanview

3) add an entry to any_portable_application for given files in the
windows explorer

I have once read about the adequate command line but I definitely cannot
find it again.

Best regards,
Antoine

 

[antoine]

May be wrong here, but does not the fact that the apps don't write to
the registry have something to do with them being portable?

You aren't wrong. Portable applications indeed do not write to the
registry. The idea here consists in "tweaking" the operating system so
that it knows where to find some "default" applications : email client,
picture viewer, etc.

Regards,
Antoine

 

[canetoad]

Hi all,

as many of us, I am using portable applications that can run from a
flash usb or an external hard drive. Although those applications run
fine on their own, I would like to automate the way they are "linked" to
the operating system, for example :

1) declare that my portable thunderbird is the default mail & newsgroup
client

2) declare that all gif, jpg, bmp pictures should be opened with my
portable irfanview

3) add an entry to any_portable_application for given files in the
windows explorer

I have once read about the adequate command line but I definitely cannot
find it again.

May be wrong here, but does not the fact that the apps don't write to
the registry have something to do with them being portable?

 

[Ron May]

Hi all,

as many of us, I am using portable applications that can run from a
flash usb or an external hard drive. Although those applications run
fine on their own, I would like to automate the way they are "linked" to
the operating system, for example :

1) declare that my portable thunderbird is the default mail & newsgroup
client

2) declare that all gif, jpg, bmp pictures should be opened with my
portable irfanview

3) add an entry to any_portable_application for given files in the
windows explorer

I have once read about the adequate command line but I definitely cannot
find it again.

Best regards,
Antoine

I haven't tried this, but ISTM that (assuming your USB drive is
assigned the same drive letter each time, e.g., "F") what you would
need to do is change your file associations with the USB drive
connected. The obvious downside, of course, would be dealing with
error messages when your USB drive isn't plugged in.

 

[antoine]

I haven't tried this, but ISTM that (assuming your USB drive is
assigned the same drive letter each time, e.g., "F") what you would
need to do is change your file associations with the USB drive
connected. The obvious downside, of course, would be dealing with
error messages when your USB drive isn't plugged in.

That is it Ron but I would like to automate the process of this
association through a batch file for example for 2 purposes :

1) in case I need to reinstall the OS on my computer, this batch file
would redefine the associations as I want without the hass of choosing
MediaPlayerClassic for .avi, IrfanView for .gif, etc

2) in case I am in a mobile situation I could quickly adapt a pc to my
needs with my usb drive and this batch file

Regards,
Antoine

 

[antoine]

If it may help, I finally found the utilities I was looking for : FTYPE
and ASSOC enable to display/modifiy the file associations.

Still looking for default mail client...