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:
- 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.
- 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.
- You will have to redo all your settings on each computer you move to (but only once).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- The spelling-checker will not work.
- 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.
