Why Does Portable Calibre Lose ALL the Settings?

[TheArtfulDodger]

Hello:

Yesterday my Windows 10 totally crashed so I decided to install Windows 11; it also meant that I had to install (Portable) Calibre. I thought that a Portable program meant that settings were kept in files, similar to the way that Windows did it before the Registry came along.

Anyway, everything was gone (not the libraries, thankfully) - I had to manually add the Libraries - everything! Fortunately, that's all I've had a chance to look at so far so if anyone has any advice regarding my situation, it would be most appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Sparky

[theducks]

Where was Portable installed? There was a setting folder in the root folder of the install.
Portable (and Calibre Windows) do not use the registry for settings.

[PeterT]

Calibre (both regular and portable) does store all settings in files; not the registry.

Portable is really intended to be installed on a removable storage device (USB drive) which can then be moved computer to computer.

Regular calibre stores it's settings in the %AppData% directory, while portable uses a directory under the location it's been installed in.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by TheArtfulDodger

Hello:

Yesterday my Windows 10 totally crashed so I decided to install Windows 11; it also meant that I had to install (Portable) Calibre. I thought that a Portable program meant that settings were kept in files, similar to the way that Windows did it before the Registry came along.

Sparky

Are you implying that because you installed Windows 11 you were forced to install Calibre Portable? AFAIK the 32bit and 64 bit installed versions of Calibre 5.xx run fine under Windows 11.

With a couple of exceptions all calibre settings are kept in files in the calibre configuration folder or in the library database(s). Click Preferences->Miscellaneous->Open calibre configuration folder to open the configuration folder.

The only settings kept in the Registry are those relating to the calibre:// URL scheme (which is an install time option), and any calibre environment variables set by the user, e.g. CALIBRE_DEVELOP_FROM .

I'm not sure if current version of calibre continues to store default program settings for ebook files in the registry, Kovid did suggest he might take that out.

BR

[ownedbycats]

The "install portable Calibre" sounds like your new Calibre portable is a separate instance from the old one. Do you still have the old folder?

Also, note that is possible to accidentally extract a new Calibre portable in a subfolder under an existing Calibre portable installation, so check that hasn't happened. I've done it more than once

[TheArtfulDodger]

Hello to all of you:
Thanks for replying and I am sorry if I didn't explain things properly. First I'll answer your questions:
1. No, I wasn't forced to install the portable version - I have been using the portable version for a number of years now.
2. Yes, it is installed on a flash drive. I went to the portable version because I was tired of different versions installed on different machines and each one looked different. Once having said that, I almost never use Calibre on my desktop - only on my laptop!

Now I will attempt to describe what my Q: partition (on a flash drive) looks like.

Q: Calibre Portable and Libraries

-Calibre Portable

>All my libraries

>Calibre

-Calibre.exe {the one just installed}

-app {folder with 4 subfolders: bin,plugins, resources, & translations}

>Calibre-Portable.exe {the previous one which is correct}

When I execute "Calibre-Portable.exe" everything works as before, but when I execute 'Calibre.exe', everything is lost. So, I guess the last question: Is it safe to delete the contents of the Calibre folder (contains the 4 folders above), rename 'Calibre-Portable.exe' to 'Calibre.exe' and run that?

By the way, when I install a new version, I install to simply 'Q:'.

Again, thanks to all of you for coming to my rescue. I don't think it would have occurred to me to see if the program was installed twice!

Sparky

[ownedbycats]

I see your problem. You're not supposed to use Calibre.exe. Always launch from Calibre-Portable.exe.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by TheArtfulDodger

When I execute "Calibre-Portable.exe" everything works as before, but when I execute 'Calibre.exe', everything is lost. So, I guess the last question: Is it safe to delete the contents of the Calibre folder (contains the 4 folders above), rename 'Calibre-Portable.exe' to 'Calibre.exe' and run that?

By the way, when I install a new version, I install to simply 'Q:'.

Again, thanks to all of you for coming to my rescue. I don't think it would have occurred to me to see if the program was installed twice!

Sparky

Calibre-portable launches calibre with the environment preset for the portable install. Don't delete the calibre folder as you need it.

[theducks]

There is other stuff (a lot of stand alone/CLI) needed in the Calibre folder
Calibre might actually use that from the GUI: Viewer, editor...
Do not delete the folder. Just use the calibre-portable.exe (or shortcut)

[BetterRed]

Installing Version 5 Portable should result in something like this:



You should run the three *-portable.exes directly, or via equivalent shortcuts.

Previous versions did not have *-portable.exes for the viewer and editor.

BR

[yogapotato]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I see your problem. You're not supposed to use Calibre.exe. Always launch from Calibre-Portable.exe.

However when I launch calibre-portable.exe, all previous settings are lost, but calibre.exe keeps everything the same. Basically the opposite of OP's problem.