Blog: WhizFolders, Articles and tips

In case you don’t know, you can copy the paid version of WhizFolders to a portable drive by using the Tools menu on the main window of WhizFolders. This feature has been available since version 6.1 and has been further improved in the new version 6.3 under beta testing.

Better keep your documents in another folder on the portable drive: I recommend that you always keep your WhizFolder documents on a separate folder on the portable drive. For example, if you made a target folder X:\whizfolders to keep the portable copy of WhizFolders, put your documents in X:\mydocs. This way, your documents will not be affected even if you reinstall the portable copy in another folder to solve the occasional file permission problems as described below.

Occasional file permission problems: During this portable copy operation (or when running WhizFolders from the portable drive) an occasional problem comes due to file and folder permissions of the target folder, especially on Windows Vista or later. Here are some clues on fixing this problem.

Make sure that you are using a portable key: When you go to make a portable copy for the first time, it asks for a special license key. This should be the portable key obtained from the self-service web site support.whizfolders.com from the special portable key section. You shouldn’t use your regular purchase key for this as it will give a permission error in versions earlier than 6.3.4.

Try to fix the permissions: In Windows Explorer, right-click on the folder that keeps the portable copy and try to fix the permissions so that anyone can write to it. Do the same for the files within that portable copy folder.

Make a fresh portable copy: If the above is too difficult for you, make a fresh portable copy of WhizFolders. You can even make the portable copy on your hard disk in some temporary folder and then copy the whole folder to the portable drive.

CAUTION: Do not delete your old portable folder as it may have your WhizFolder documents in it. Better move your documents to a separate folder on your portable drive before you delete your old portable copy. You may need to open your moved documents on the portable drive again by using the File–Open menu.

Better update to the latest version 6.3 (in beta testing) before making the above fresh copy: This version improves the portable operation and the improvements are listed on the new features page of version 6.3.

Finally, what is the best way to update the WhizFolders program on your portable copy? If you know that it is a minor update, you can simply copy the whizfolders exe to the portable location and replace the old copy. But if it is a major version change, for example, from version 6.1 to 6.3 where the portable feature has changed, it is better to make a fresh folder and then copy over your own documents from the old location, unless you have put them in a separate folder as recommended above.

If there is any confusion, please send your questions so that this documentation can be improved.

Version 6.1 of WhizFolders was released in September but very few existing customers have taken advantage of our 1-year free upgrade policy. Since many years, I have been facing problems in sending update notices to the customers by email. Most of the messages end up in some sort of spam filter and never reach the customers. This is sad.

To tackle this problem, I had even built a check version feature in the software that reminds the user every 15-days to check if any updates are available. I had thought that this would at least work. But it doesn’t, judging by the number of email messages that we get showing that many customers are still using old versions. Perhaps, the customers say No to the prompt that comes up every 15 days to check for updates.

The Blog notices work better but the Blog has been in existence for a short time so it doesn’t solve the problem of reaching old customers.

Recently, I also tried third party mailing list web sites that claim to have good delivery rate. But I am not happy with the results. Hence, I have decided that my first priority this holiday season is to reach thousands of old customers just to make them aware of the new version and of our automated support web site. We have already started developing our own web-based message system that will try to deliver the update notices. We are borrowing some ideas from our earlier developed support system that is working very well to deliver the messages but is not really set up to automatically send messages.

We hope to get this system ready in a few days so that we can inform all the existing customers of the 6.1 update before the holiday season ends. Any further development on WhizFolders is currently on the back burner just for this reason.

These things do happen, and that’s why we have an all automated web site just for this purpose at support.whizfolders.com. Please login there with your contact email address that is on our file, and you should be able to get the latest installer download along with the license codes. This facility is free of charge for a year after your original purchase. After that the facility is renewed once you buy an upgrade. (For purchases earlier than Jan 22, 2010, the free upgrade period is 2 years)

This takes care of installing WhizFolders. What about your documents? You should have kept a backup copy of all your .wzfolder files by using simple copy from Windows Explorer. WhizFolders also includes a simple backup feature that allows you to copy a document to a safe location from time to time. Whatever method you choose, you are alone responsible for keeping a safe copy of your documents.

When you reinstall WhizFolders on a new machine, put your documents in a documents folder of your choice using Windows Explorer so that you remember where you have them. Then, just double-click on a document name to open it in WhizFolders and it appears in the main window list. Do that for all your documents. Or, add them all at once by the right-click menu operation “Add an existing document to List…” You are all set to go. Don’t forget to continue keeping a backup copy of the documents in case it happens again. We can help if you lost WhizFolders but we can’t help you get back your documents.

Update: This article is old. A newer article on this feature is available:
http://whizfolders.com/blog/index.php/2010/01/04/portable-software/

Old article:
WhizFolders 6.1 has a new menu operation on the Tools menu that allows you to copy WhizFolders to a portable (USB) drive. However, it needs a portable key which you can get from the special support web site support.whizfolders.com. Once copied this way, WhizFolders runs from the USB drive and overcomes most of the limitations mentioned in an earlier article: Running WhizFolders from a USB drive

A few features do not work when running this way, for example, the spelling-checker.

Does WhizFolders use the registry of the computer the USB drive? It only uses the current user area of the registry temporarily. Actually, it loads your settings from the usb drive into registry and when exiting, stores the settings back to the usb drive and then deletes that part of the registry. This works fine except on Windows Vista where it can’t use the features to restore and store from the usb drive. In that case, it leaves your settings on the computer. If you want it to be able to restore, store and delete the registry on Windows Vista then you must run it as administrator. In a future version, we will even remove this requirement to use the registry temporarily.

Update, Feb 11, 2008: The folllowing information is for version 6.0.8 or earlier. The newer WhizFolders 6.1 does support this in a better way. See the article WhizFolders on a portable drive.

Lately, many users have asked this question about running WhizFolders from a portable usb drive.

Yes, you can certainly use the paid version from a USB drive. But there are limitations as mentioned below.

Instructions: Simply copy the files from WhizFolders “Program files” location to a folder on your USB drive. Avoid copying the file UNINS*.EXE as there is nothing to uninstall when on move. You can also put the WhizFolder documents that you want to carry, in the same or a different folder on that drive.

When you plug in the usb drive to any computer, you can run the exe file for WhizFolders on that computer by double-clicking on it in the Windows Explorer window. You can also make desktop shortcuts as described below. However, there would be certain limitations on using WhizFolders from a portable drive as given in the following list.

Limitations:

1. First time when you run WhizFolders on a new computer, it will ask for the license codes. There is a way to avoid that too but we only tell that to the paid users, and only if they ask for it.
2. WhizFolders will use the registry area and document settings area on that computer as usual. So if it is your own computer, it is OK. But if it is a corporate computer, you might need to remove these settings at some point. If you ever require that, please do ask us for the procedure. We might even make a utility program if enough users ask for it.
3. You will have to redo all your settings on each computer you move to (but only once).
4. Even the main window’s document list will be kept separate on each computer and will work as long as the drive letter for the USB does not change on that computer. So, the first time you run WhizFolders on a computer, this main list will be empty. You will need to use File–Open to open your WhizFolder documents which are not in the list.
5. If the USB drive letter changes on that computer from a pervious run, you won’t be able to open files from the main window list. But you can always open them by File-Open.
6. If the drive letter does not change each time you plug in the usb to that computer, you can even make a desktop shortcut to run WhizFolders on that computer by right-dragging the EXE file to the desktop and “create shortcut” on that menu. You can also make desktop shortcuts to open specific documents by Tools menu on the document window. But remember, these shortcuts won’t work if the drive letter assigned to the USB changes when you plug it in later.
7. The spelling-checker will not work.
8. Take a regular backup: Please take a regular backup of your documents, especially if you kept them on the usb drive because files can become corrupted on usb drives. The backup feature in WhizFolders is quite useful. You can have a backup folder in each computer that it will remember by itself. Then, just clicking on a backup button in the document window can copy that document to the backup folder. There are features in backup to store N copies each day! You can even set up a document to do a back up when it closes. This option is available in File Options of that document.You can even use Windows Explorer to do a backup copy of the documents if that is more convenient.

Here is a summary of the main points in short:

• If a document does not appear in the main window list or does not open from the main window list, use File–Open to open it and it will add itself to the list.
• Make desktop shortcuts to the documents as described. They will work as long as the drive letter remains same for the usb drive on that computer.
• Do a regular back up copy of your documents using WhizFolders backup features. You can even use Windows Explorer to do a backup copy of the documents if that is more convenient.

Question: How do I get the latest news on WhizFolders?

Version specific news is usually given on the “Product News” operation on the Updates menu.

You can always subscribe to the RSS feeds on this Weblog to get informed when a new post is made. Please use the links under Syndicate on the right. If you don’t know what RSS feeds mean, please click on “Help with Feeds” there. You will also find an RSS feed at the bottom of this page.

Question: How do I know if a new update is available?

Just use the “Check for updates” operation on the Updates menu.

If you are a paid version user and want to reinstall WhizFolders for any reason, please go to a special web site support.whizfolders.com.

There, you need to login with your email address. After login, you can get an email giving you the download location of the latest installer. The login email address is the one on which you purchased WhizFolders. You can also write to us to change this email address if necessary.