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I have portable apps on my usb and I want to add another portable program not in the .paf format. I searching online and found instructions to create a folder in X:\Portable Apps\name of app to store the program files.

However, the platform finds portable apps install by going to X:\Portable Apps\name of app\app.exe. So if the .exe is hidden among sub folders it wont be recognized. If I create a shortcut in the root directory of the apps folder it still isn't picked up.

As an example, say I want to install the latest version of OBS Studio. How would I get this to display in the PortableApps Platform?

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2 Answers 2

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I modified instructions from How-To Geek and solved the issue by creating an .exe shortcut in the program's root folder.

  • Download and save your application to X\PortableApps\ProgramName
  • Open a text editor (such as Notepad) and enter the command cd <relative app path> & start <app.exe> ('start' ensures the script exits properly)
    • Example: The command for OBS Studio 64bit would be cd bin/64bit & start obs64.exe, while the command for git-gui would be cd cmd & start git-gui.exe
  • Save your script as a .bat file
  • (Optional): Extract the icon .ico file from your program to use as an icon for your shortcut
  • Convert your .bat into a .exe using Bat To Exe Converter
    • In the program, browse for your .bat batch file with the ... button
    • Select your program's root folder for the "Save as" location
    • Select the "Invisible" option in the Visibility box to run without opening a console window
    • (Optional): Choose a .ico icon in the Versioninformations tab under "Icon file"
  • Click compile to generate your .exe shortcut

On the note of OBS, make sure to run it in portable mode by creating a file called portable_mode.txt in your main OBS-Studio folder. This prevents OBS from leaving settings files behind on any of the computers you use.

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This could be useful in the case your app uses some system variables (e.g. PATH) and you might want to reassign them locally before starting the application. The provide .exe will pass control to a .bat where you can do this and much more. At the end of this .bat run the App .exe

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