Truly portable installation? [#12739]

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Expand view Topic review: Truly portable installation? [#12739]

Re: Truly portable installation?

by Peke » Sun May 24, 2015 5:25 am

OK I added it in http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=12739 so that we can see how to implement it.

Re: Truly portable installation?

by KyleHx » Sat May 23, 2015 9:06 pm

Gotcha .. I follow up, separately.

Here's something that isn't from a script or add-on: The portable installation works, just fine.
I changed MediaMonkey.ini to point to my old MM.DB with DBName= under [System], and I didn't have to specify the drive letter.

BUT, I tried copying the new MediaMonkey.INI into that same location, and using the /INIFILE command-line option.
That worked, in so far as the db and settings were found and used, but using /INIFILE caused the Windows registry to be used.
I changed nothing there, just moved the .INI and then pointed to it, and the reg-key [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey] got fully populated.
I've been through it about a dozen times now, deleting the reg-key in between.

The only time that having /INIFILE on the command line didn't cause this was when I ran a test pointing to a non-existant .INI.
MM found the standard .ini (in the standard location) and used it, and didn't populate the registry.

In all other cases, using the/INIFILE parameter causes the portable-MM to write to the registry.

Re: Truly portable installation?

by nohitter151 » Sat May 23, 2015 8:20 pm

KyleHx wrote:add'l non-portable entries, after running

[TweakMonkey]
DBName_previous=C:\!apps\MediaMonkey\Portable\MM.DB
Everything you are posting that is not portable is from a script or addon.

Re: Truly portable installation?

by KyleHx » Sat May 23, 2015 7:06 pm

add'l non-portable entries, after running

[TweakMonkey]
DBName_previous=C:\!apps\MediaMonkey\Portable\MM.DB

Re: Truly portable installation?

by KyleHx » Sat May 23, 2015 6:49 pm

Well, I did a full wipe.
Unfortunately, I didn't check back here soon enough to pick up what looks like some very useful info from a lot of regulars. So thanks to Lowlander, MMFrLife, and terrypin. I have already saved your pointers for the next go around.

I gathered a bit of info that I think might be useful, or at least interesting, since I've seen more than a few posts about portability issues - esp. registry entries & drive-letter references. So, here it is.

This is after a major clean-up. I used Windows add/remove, and regedit, and manually deleted all MM files from the hard drive. The primary key name was completely deleted and constantly monitored. That's HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey

And I'm using MediaMonkey_4.1.7.1741 (2015-04-28).exe, and installing as portable.
The last installation was an attempt to overwrite a non-portable installation with a portable one, without doing a real clean-up first, and mostly that was just a bad mistake -- essentially, the "portable" copy of MM ignored its own MediaMonkey.Registry and used the Windows registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey for tons of stuff.

======================================================
..install creates null registry entry:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Interface\V4]

..run creates null registry entries:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Interface\V4\Splitters]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Interface\V4\Toolbars]

..and these non-null entries:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Interface\V4\Forms\FMainWindow]
"State"=dword:00000000
"Left"=dword:00000019
"Top"=dword:00000019
"Width"=dword:000003cc
"Height"=dword:00000258

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\StatusBars]
"Bar10Minimized"=dword:00000001
"Bar0Minimized"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Device\iRiver H]
"UpdateAfterAutoSync"=dword:00000001
"UpdateAfterAnyOp"=dword:00000000
"UpdateOnlyNew"=dword:00000000
"TruncateFilenames"=dword:00000000
"DBUnicode"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Hotkeys]
..with 72 sub-entries of format:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Hotkeys\###]
..where "###" is actually: 1048577 thru 65621

----------------------------------------------------
HotKeys details:
----------------------------------------------------
..Hotkeys sub-entries all have 4 lines
"ActionId"=dword:########
"ActionTypeId"=dword:########
"Global"=dword:########
"MenuShortcut"=dword:########
----------------------------------------------------
..values found:
"ActionTypeId"=dword:00000001
"ActionTypeId"=dword:00000002
"ActionTypeId"=dword:00000003
"ActionTypeId"=dword:00000006
"ActionTypeId"=dword:00000007
"ActionTypeId"=dword:0000000b
----------------------------------------------------
"Global"=dword:00000000
"Global"=dword:00000001
----------------------------------------------------
"MenuShortcut"=dword:00000000
"MenuShortcut"=dword:00000001
----------------------------------------------------

For "ActionId" there were 65 different values.
I don't know if it's significant, but I thought it interesting that there were so many,
yet not an exact match between the counts: 72-entries but 65-values.

"ActionId"=dword:########
..in the 72 lines, there are 65 different entries, from:
"ActionId"=dword:00000001
..thru
"ActionId"=dword:00000081

The "ActionID" values that are duplicated are:

"ActionId"=dword:00000004
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Hotkeys\179]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Hotkeys\32]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Hotkeys\65616]

"ActionId"=dword:00000007
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Hotkeys\178]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Hotkeys\65615]

"ActionId"=dword:00000008
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Hotkeys\177]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Hotkeys\65602]

"ActionId"=dword:00000009
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Hotkeys\176]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Hotkeys\65614]

"ActionId"=dword:0000000a
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Hotkeys\1048625]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Hotkeys\39]

"ActionId"=dword:0000000b
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Hotkeys\1048626]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey\Hotkeys\37]
======================================================

looking for non-portable type entries in MM's files:

MediaMonkey.ini
[System]
WinampPath=C:\Program Files\Winamp\WinAmp.exe
[MonkeyRok]
TempDir=C:\!apps\MediaMonkey\Portable\Temp\\

MediaMonkey.Registry = NONE

Scripts.ini = NONE

Extensions.ini
[MagicNodes]
ConfigurationScript=C:\!apps\MediaMonkey\Scripts\Auto\MagicNodes.vbs
[RegExpReplace]
ConfigurationScript=C:\!apps\MediaMonkey\Scripts\Auto\RegExpReplace.vbs
[300091 Lyricator]
#ConfigurationScript=C:\!apps\MediaMonkey\Scripts\Auto\lyricator.vbs
[Trucking Monkeyrc3s]
Description=Button id's in C:\1 Trucking Monkey
======================================================

also looked for C: in Tools | options

MonkeyRok Settings
Temp Directory
C:\!apps\MediaMonkey\Portable\Temp\
Downloads/Podcasts
Default download location:
C:\!apps\MediaMonkey\Portable\Downloads\<Artist>\<Album>\<Title>
Download podcasts to:
C:\!apps\MediaMonkey\Portable\Podcasts\<Album>\<Title>
Media Sharing (UPnP/DLNA)
Cache auto-converted content to:
C:\!apps\MediaMonkey\Portable\Temp\Transcoded_Media_Files
======================================================

I have exported [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey] from RegEdit many times, now,
and it has NOT changed since all of the initial installation/configuration work.
So, it's looking clean.

So, that's it for now.
Next step is to copy in the old mm.db and try to incorporate some of the old
manual edits to .INIs that I've gathered (mostly from MM's forums) over the years.

Wish me luck!

Re: Truly portable installation?

by terrypin » Thu May 21, 2015 3:52 pm

For really thorough uninstalling (if you go down that route) I've had excellent results from Revo Uninstaller (the free version).
http://www.revouninstaller.com/

It frequently surprises me just how many additional files and registry entries it flags for deletion, after the regular uninstall has 'finished'.

Re: Truly portable installation?

by MMFrLife » Thu May 21, 2015 3:36 pm

You may also be interested in this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=69203&p=400333&hilit=+littered#p400333

After you re-install let me know if you still see it using the registry where you think it should be using the .registry.

Re: Truly portable installation?

by Lowlander » Thu May 21, 2015 1:42 pm

I'd follow: http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/inde ... ediamonkey and run a registry cleaner (like CCleaner) after everything has been uninstalled/removed.

Re: Truly portable installation?

by KyleHx » Thu May 21, 2015 12:43 pm

Yeah, I'd been getting to that point of view myself. I copied out my critical files, and in the middle of a complete wipe for a re-install. Maybe you know: I've looked for anything in the registry I consider a major key, and don't bother with file-association type-things (I'd be days deleting those). Is there anything else critical I should look at before I re-install? (I did a whole system search for mm.db & mediamonkey*.* and came up with some wild locations from really old installations.)

Re: Truly portable installation?

by Lowlander » Thu May 21, 2015 12:10 pm

Then you may not be running a Portable Install anymore. I believe that somethings do get written to the Windows registry, but everything else is written to the .registry file if you're running a Portable Install.

Re: Truly portable installation?

by KyleHx » Thu May 21, 2015 11:46 am

I was saying that I found the DBName= option in the forums, and was wondering if there might be a comparable option for the MediaMonkey.Registry file. I was hoping that might force my portable-installation to actually use that file, since what's happening now is that the Windows registry key [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey] is getting the writes.

Re: Truly portable installation?

by Lowlander » Thu May 21, 2015 10:16 am

DBName is something you can add for a custom DB location: http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/inde ... e-location

Re: Truly portable installation?

by KyleHx » Thu May 21, 2015 4:22 am

Also, the registry key
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey]
is NOT being created as an empty/null entry.
It's fully populated, plus, as I said, edits to MediaMonkey.Registry aren't getting picked up (plus the file date-stamp doesn't change) when I make edits (like column order/size in detail view).

Re: Truly portable installation?

by KyleHx » Thu May 21, 2015 3:20 am

Sorry, getting discombobulated.
Should have said ...
My MediaMonkey.ini DOES have:
[Portable]
IsPortable=1

Re: Truly portable installation?

by KyleHx » Thu May 21, 2015 3:18 am

and a follow-up:

I went back to check my registry, and found that MM is still writing there.
The file MediaMonkey.Registry was installed, seemingly properly. I tried playing with it, but couldn't figure out why the edits I was making weren't having any effect, good or bad. It turns out that this "Portable" installation is still writing to (and reading from) the registry, at least for some things that should be in MediaMonkey.Registry.

The bulk of it seems to be under:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MediaMonkey]
I tried shutting down MM, deleting the entire registry key, and re-starting MM.
Sure enough, the key was recreated .. and MediaMonkey.Registry (or parts thereof) were being ignored.

So, where is MediaMonkey telling itself to use MediaMonkey.Registry instead of the Windows registry?
If I could find that pointer, maybe I could stabilize things somewhat.
Any info would be appreciated.

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