Make Portable With NSIS

Contents I
Table of Contents
Part I Home 3
Part II Chapter I - General Information 3

1 1. Foreword ................................................................................................................................... 3
2 2. About Portables
................................................................................................................................... 4
3 3. Required Level
...................................................................................................................................
Of Knowledge 5
4 4. Softwares Used
................................................................................................................................... 5
5 5. Overview Of...................................................................................................................................
The Launcher 6
6 6. Choosing The
...................................................................................................................................
Software 6
7 7. Safe Portable
................................................................................................................................... 7
Part III Chapter II - The Basics 8

1 1. Selecting Software
................................................................................................................................... 8
2 2. Capturing Changes
................................................................................................................................... 9
3 3. Interpreting
...................................................................................................................................
Results 15
4 4. File System
...................................................................................................................................
Changes 17
5 5. Windows Registry
................................................................................................................................... 19
6 6. Registry Changes
................................................................................................................................... 20
7 7. Validating ...................................................................................................................................
Results 25
8 8. Bringing NSIS
...................................................................................................................................
To The Game 27
9 9. Modifying ...................................................................................................................................
The Template 28
10 10. Compiling
...................................................................................................................................
The Launcher 32
11 11. Keeping Local
...................................................................................................................................
Installation 34
12 12. Testing, Testing,
...................................................................................................................................
Testing... 38
13 13. Conclusion
................................................................................................................................... 38
Part IV Chapter III - Advanced Topics 39

1 1. Relative Paths
................................................................................................................................... 39
2 2. Reg2Nsis ................................................................................................................................... 41
3 3. Universal Extractor
................................................................................................................................... 43
4 4. Settings In...................................................................................................................................
Registry 44
5 5. Hidden Registration
...................................................................................................................................
Data 46
6 6. File Management
................................................................................................................................... 47
7 7. More File Management
................................................................................................................................... 51
8 8. Registering
...................................................................................................................................
Libraries 53
9 9. Installing MSI
...................................................................................................................................
Files 54
10 10. Time and...................................................................................................................................
Date 55
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I
II How to make portables with NSIS
11 11. .NET and...................................................................................................................................

Java 56
12 12. Reducing...................................................................................................................................
Size 57
13 13. Failures ................................................................................................................................... 58
Part V Final Words 59
Index 0
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Home 3
1 Home
Chapter I - General Chapter III - Advanced
Chapter II - The Basics
Information Topics
1. Foreword 1. Selecting Software 1. Relative Paths
2. About Portables 2. Capturing Changes 2. Reg2Nsis
3. Required Level Of
3. Interpreting Results 3. Universal Extractor
Knowledge
4. Softwares Used 4. File System Changes 4. Settings In Registry
5. Overview Of The Launcher 5. Windows Registry 5. Hidden Registration Data
6. Choosing The Software 6. Registry Changes 6. File Management
7. Safe Portable 7. Validating Results 7. More File Management
8. Bringing NSIS To The
8. Registering Libraries
Game
9. Modifying The Template 9. Installing MSI Files
10. Compiling The Launcher 10. Time and Date
11. Keeping Local Installation 11. .NET and Java
12. Testing, Testing,
12. Reducing Size
Testing...
13. Conclusion 13. Failures
Final Words
2 Chapter I - General Information

1. About Portables
2. Required Level Of Knowledge
3. Softwares Used
4. Overview Of The Launcher
5. Choosing The Software
6. Safe Portable
2.1 1. Foreword
First of all, I have to tell you that making a portable program is software developers'
privilege. Only they can design a software not to use the Windows registry, to store its
configuration files in their own directory and not to depend on the host computer's system
files, etc.
In this guide I will show you how to make a launcher for a program. The launcher prepares
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4 How to make portables with NSIS
the host computer so when the program launches, all of its configuration files and registry
entries, etc. are already present on the host computer. Thus the result won't be a portable
software at all but a software which will make the original application seem to be portable.
When you close the non-portable application, the launcher removes traces from the host
computer and saves the configuration settings, so if you launch it on another computer, all
your settings will come back.
It also restores the settings of a local installation of the program, if any.
2.2 2. About Portables

There's a nice introduction about what does portable application mean at PortableApps.com:
What is a portable app?
portable - carried or moved with ease

app - a computer program like a web browser or word processor
A portable app is a computer program that you can carry around with you on a portable
device and use on any Windows computer. When your USB flash drive, portable hard drive,
iPod or other portable device is plugged in, you have access to your software and personal
data just as you would on your own PC. And when you unplug the device, none of your
personal data is left behind.
 No Special Hardware - Use any USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod/MP3 player, etc
 No Additional Software - Just download the portable app, extract it and go
 No Kidding - It's that easy
Consider the Possibilities...
 Carry your web browser with all your favorite bookmarks

 Carry your calendar with all your appointments
 Carry your email client with all your contacts and settings
 Carry your instant messenger and your buddy list
 Carry your whole office suite along with your documents and presentations
 Carry your antivirus program and other computer utilities
 Carry all your important passwords and account information securely
 Consider the Convenience...
 Have your favorite websites handy to recommend to a friend or colleague
 Have your presentation AND the required software ready to go for that big meeting
 Have your password with you if you want to bank online while traveling
 Have utilities handy when visiting family or friends that are having PC problems
But I'm sure if you are reading these guide you are familiar with all the things I cited above.
In this guide I'll show you how to create a portable launcher (or often called as wrapper) to a
software which is originally not portable, so you'll be able to run it without installing them.
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Chapter I - General Information 5
2.3 3. Required Level Of Knowledge

Basic computer knowledge will do (installing and uninstalling softwares, opening, browsing
and saving files, copy and paste operations, etc.). I think if you can cope with a text editor
you know enough to complete this guide.
However, basic English is a must (if you can read and understand this text, you're ready to
go). As you can see, my English is also basic and I'm sure you'll find some sentences which
you may not understand. Sorry for that in advance; I tried to do my best to be clear and
understandable. There are some nice screenshots which will helpfully help you to
understand what's going on.
You don't have to worry about the softwares we'll use in this guide. It will be distributed
within a package which contains all the tools that we'll need to create portable applications
(softwares, template scripts, finished portables, etc.).
All the code in this guide is written with yellow background so you can easily distinguish
them from the normal text. I usually use double quotes to make sure where's the beginning
and the end of the path or the code. However, single and double quotes in scripts are
important so you shouldn't delete them.
2.4 4. Softwares Used

You can find all the tools listed here in the "Tools" directory.
NSIS
I make my portables using NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System). It is basically an install
maker and very easy to use. I'm not a programmer and if you follow my instructions I can
assure you that you'll be able to make your portable launchers whether you are a
programmer or not. Installing NSIS is very simple - go to their homepage and download the
installer. You can also find a portable version over the internet.
You'll also need the registry plugin for NSIS. It comes with an installer so it is easy to install.
There is a tiny software called Reg2NSIS, which can convert .reg files to NSIS scripts. It
often makes writing scripts easier.
Total Uninstall
This software enables to monitor installations easily, including monitoring of registry and file
system changes. After the monitoring process registry changes can be exported.
Unfortunately version 3 and upwards Total Uninstall is shareware but I'm sure you can get a
"fix" for managing this if you are reading this guide.
Registry Workshop
For registry work I can recommend you to use Registry Workshop. I like this one because it
makes registry searching and tweaking easy. It has a nice Undo-Redo feature which is often
comes handy.
Icons From File

For extracting icons from the original application is very easy with the freeware tool called
Icons From File. It is straightforward to use and does what its name suggests.
SciTE
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You'll need a text editor for making the NSIS script. The built-in Windows Notepad will do
but I recommend you to use SciTE. It is tiny but powerful and what's more, it's also portable.
Universal Extractor
Universal Extractor software allows you to extract setup files. This may come handy
because you can eliminate the setup process, and thus no modification is made to the
system before the first launch. However, it's drawback is that you have to find out where
does it save its settings (registry or in other files).
RegMon
Regmon is a Registry monitoring utility that will show you which applications are accessing
your Registry, which keys they are accessing, and the Registry data that they are reading
and writing - all in real-time. It is useful when you want to find which registry keys the
program is using, where does it store the registration data, etc.
FileMon
FileMon monitors and displays file system activity on a system in real-time. You can use it if
you want to monitor your file system (what files were accessed, created, deleted, etc.).
You'll also need a file manager and you'll have to have admin rights on your computer but
these are obvious, I think.
Of course, you can use other softwares if you wish.
2.5 5. Overview Of The Launcher

In the following chapters we'll build a launcher which will do the following:
Step 1 Makes a backup of the program's settings found in the registry (if any)
Makes a backup of the program's settings found in other files outside the
Step 2
program's directory (if any)
Step 3 Imports program settings to the registry
Step 4 Imports username and serial to the registry
Step 5 Changes paths to the program in the registry
Step 6 Launches the software and waits until it's closed
Step 7 Saves (exports) program settings from the registry
Step 8 Cleans up program traces
Step 9 Restores original registry settings found in step 1
Step 10 Restores other settings files (see step 2)
Of course, this is only a general scheme. Sometimes you'll need only 3 or 5 steps; it all
depends on the candidate program's behaviour. And sometimes you have to tuck more
steps into this scheme to be able to create the portable version of the program.
2.6 6. Choosing The Software

First of all, you have to choose a software which you would like to put on your USB stick and
use it wherever you go. You should choose a software which could be used as portable. I
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Chapter I - General Information 7
mean there's no sense creating a portable version of a software which is heavily tied to the
machine (i.e. media catalogue software when the media files are stored on the local
computer, etc.).
The easy case is when the software is freeware, then you won't have to find a crack or a
serial to turn it to a full version. I won't discuss about this case because if you go through
this guide you'll be able to make them portable.
So, back to trial limitations... Basically two situations can occur:
1. Serial protection
2. Other protection (crack, patch or cracked files, licence files, etc).
The best situation is when you have a cracked exe (or other file). After replacing the original
file(s) you're almost ready in most cases, you shouldn't bother with registration or license
issues. But even if the program starts up and runs fine, you have to examine the software's
behaviour - where does it store its configuration files (registry or in some directory), how
deeply it integrates to the host computer's system and so on. Only this way can you make
sure that your portable is going to work as expected.
You should get familiar with the software and you should know everything about how it
works, if it's possible.
If the software is protected by a serial number and it is stored in the registry or in other
location beside the program's directory, you must create a launcher that restores the
registration info before the software is launched. In Chapter II we'll create a launcher for this
kind of software.
2.7 7. Safe Portable

The terminology of portable applications is not so large because it's a relatively new
phenomenon. I don't want to add new words or phrases to it but I think "Safe" and "Unsafe"
portables must be distinguished.
In my opinion "Safe Portables" are portable applications (or launchers) that keep the local
installation on the host computer intact. So if someone runs the portable version and then
closes it, the launcher should remove its traces and restore all settings in the registry and in
the file system that has been modified. If you'll follow this guide you'll create safe portables.
To tell you the truth, safe portables are very rare to find.
Unfortunately unsafe portables prevails the portable world at this time. They are working
good, one can use them exactly the same way as they were safe ones. But if there's any
local installation of the software, these portables would modify or destroy them so they won't
work after you've run them. I think creating unsafe portables instead of safe ones is the
biggest mistake the creator can make. If you share them with others, you'll come across
angry users who are complaining that your portables destroyed the locally installed
softwares on their computer. You really should avoid this. I came across portables that were
so unsafe that they turned my XP into a crap so I wasn't even able to boot it up.
If you use an unsafe portable you should be aware that some unwanted files and/or
directories (in Application Data, Documents and other directories) and/or some registry keys
will be left on your computer. If you use many unsafe portables, your computer may become
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slower and slower. But this is the smallest problem. Unsafe portables may overwrite (or even
delete) some important system files or registry keys, which may cause undesirable results,
such as some installed programs won't run, your system may become unstable, you'll get
strange error messages and so on, provided if your computer is able to boot up. I think it's
unnecessary to say that we should avoid all these things.
There are cases when you cannot create a safe portable but only unsafe version of the
software. If you are about to share them, notify the users that it may destroy the local install
of the same software.
I have to admit that my earlier portables weren't safe. Although they did a clean-up after
closing them, settings of the local installation (if any) weren't restored.
To sum it up: take care to create safe portables. After all, you have to create them only
once, so make it as perfect as you can.
3 Chapter II - The Basics

1. Selecting Software
2. Capturing Changes
3. Interpreting Results
4. File System Changes
5. Windows Registry
6. Registry Changes
7. Validating Results
8. Bringing NSIS To The Game
9. Modifying The Template
10. Compiling The Launcher
11. Keeping Local Installation
12. Testing, Testing, Testing...
13. Conclusion
3.1 1. Selecting Software

Let's warm-up with an easy one, My Notes Keeper 1.7.0.771.
It is a commercial software and it can be activated with a serial number.
Info about the software from its website:
My Notes Keeper is the premier note/outliner application for Windows 9x/2000/XP/NT. It

allows you to store all of your notes and information in an easy-to-use outline, where you
can quickly find what you need.
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Chapter II - The Basics 9
I selected this one because it uses the registry to store the registration info only, so we
shouldn't bother with saving and restoring settings.
Before you start, make sure you're logged in as an administrator (or as a user with admin
rights). For best results, use a clean operating system.
Note: this chapter will be somewhat lengthy because the next chapters will use the
information discussed here.
3.2 2. Capturing Changes

First, we have to examine what files are copied and what registry keys are created during
the normal installation process. To do this, we will need Total Uninstall (TU).
You will find TU in the "Tools" directory. Launch it with "Portable Total Uninstall 3.exe".
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However, it is not portable, you should enter the serial number after launching it (see
serial.txt in "Tools\Total Uninstall" directory). You can enter the registration info in Help -
Register submenu.
Start up Total Uninstall and click on the first icon in the top-left corner (Install). If TU
disappears, you'll find it minimized in the system tray (next to your system clock). In the
window that appears, click on the Browse... button and select the setup file of My Notes
Keeper, "mnk.exe" (you'll find it in "Install\My.Notes.Keeper.v1.7.0.771" directory). You can
also drag and drop this file to TU's Install window.
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When you're done, click on Next button in TU. Now TU examines your system status so
after the installation it will be able to find the changes that were made during the installation
process.
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When the system scan is ready, click on Next button. Be sure that "Launch setup application
now" is selected. Now TU launches the setup file, mnk.exe. Follow the instruction and install
MNK as you normally would do. Do not close TU during the installation process but you can
minimize it. Leave everything at its default settings during the install process.
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At the end of the install process click on the Finish button and let the setup file launch MNK.
If MNK won't start, launch it manually (i.e. with its desktop icon or from the Start menu). Do
not close TU now.
When MNK starts up, go to Help-Enter Serial Number. We'll now use the keygen from
"Install\My.Notes.Keeper.v1.7.0.771" to generate a serial. To simplify this process, I'll use
"Portable" as Name and the generated Registration key is "35AE664E73E18872". So paste
this info to MNK's registration box.
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Now MNK is registered, you can close it.
Go back to TU and click on the Next button. Now TU examines what changes were made to
your system. When the scan finishes, click on the Close button.
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3.3 3. Interpreting Results

Now we'll examine the results. If you can see nothing in TU's main window, then click on the
Details icon in the toolbar or from the menu (View-Details) and be sure that on the left-side
panel MNK is selected.
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If you fold in the branches under My Computer in TU, you can see that changes are grouped
in three categories:
1. File System
2. Registry
3. Installed Services and Devices
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The third one, Installed Services and Devices can't be unfolded because during the setup
process no services or drivers were installed.
That's good because it is very hard or impossible to create a launcher for a software which
installs a service or a driver.
3.4 4. File System Changes

Now let's examine the changes in File System, so unfold the branch "File System" in Total
Uninstall's results window.
The first branch is "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\My Notes

Keeper".
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These are only links (.lnk files), so nothing important for us. This branch can be deleted from
this list (select these links or the folder "My Notes Keeper" above them and hit the Delete
button).
There's another link on your Desktop if you choose this option during the install process.
Now you can delete this also.
You'll find at least two files under "C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR USER NAME" in the
list, named NTUSER.DAT and NTUSER.DAT.LOG.
These files aren't important for us, delete them from the list.
The next branch is "C:\Program Files\MyNotesKeeper". Here are the main program files,
we'll need them. So go to your file manager and copy this directory somewhere (i.e.
"C:\Portable My Notes Keeper").
Now you can delete this list item in TU's list if you wish. I usually delete it to keep the list
more simple.
Next one is "C:\WINDOWS\Debug\UserMode\userenv.log". Just a log file, delete this

branch.
Next item is system32 with sub-items like software.LOG, SOFTWARE in the "Config"
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directory and some other files "wbem\Repository\FS" directory.

These aren't important for MNK to run, so can be deleted.
Now the File System branch has no other items, we can continue to the Registry section.
3.5 5. Windows Registry

For those who don't know too much about the Windows registry, here is some very basic
info about it from Wiki.
Windows registry
The Windows registry is a database which stores settings and options for the operating
system for Microsoft Windows 32-bit versions, 64-bit versions and Windows Mobile. It
contains information and settings for all the hardware, operating system software, most
non-operating system software, users, preferences of the PC, etc. Whenever a user makes
changes to Control Panel settings, file associations, system policies, or installed software,
the changes are reflected and stored in the registry.
The Windows registry was introduced to tidy up the profusion of per-program INI files that
had previously been used to store configuration settings for Windows programs. These files
tended to be scattered all over the system, which made them difficult to track.
Registry structure
The Registry is split into a number of logical sections, or "keys". These are generally known
by the names of the definitions used to access them in the Windows API, which all begin
"HKEY" (an abbreviation for "Handle to Key"); often, they are abbreviated to a three- or
four-letter short name starting with "HK" (e.g. HKCU and HKLM).
Each of these keys is divided into subkeys, which may contain further subkeys, and so on.
Any key may contain entries with various types of values. The values of these entries can
be:
 String Value
 Binary Value (any arbitrary data)
 DWORD Value, a 32 bit unsigned integer (numbers between 0 and 4,294,967,295 [232 –
1])
 Multi-String Value
 Expandable String Value
Registry keys are specified with a syntax similar to Windows' path names, using
backslashes to indicate levels of hierarchy. E.g.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows refers to the subkey "Windows" of
the subkey "Microsoft" of the subkey "Software" of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key.
Values are not referenced via this syntax. Value names can contain backslashes which
would lead to ambiguities were they referred to this way. The win32 functions that query and
manipulate registry values take value names separately from the key path and/or handle
that identifies the parent key.
The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and HKEY_CURRENT_USER nodes have a similar structure

to each other; applications typically look up their settings by first checking for them in
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"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Vendor's name\Application's name\Version\Setting

name", and if the setting is not found looking instead in the same location under the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key. When writing settings back, the reverse approach is used —
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE is written first, but if that cannot be written to (which is usually the
case if the logged in user is not an administrator), the setting is stored in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER instead.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
Abbreviated HKCR, HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT stores information about registered
applications, including associations from file extensions and OLE object class ids to the
applications used to handle these items. On Windows 2000 and above, HKCR is a
compilation of HKCU\Software\Classes and HKLM\Software\Classes. If a given value exists
in both of the subkeys above, the one in HKCU\Software\Classes is used.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Abbreviated HKCU, HKEY_CURRENT_USER stores settings that are specific to the
currently logged in user. HKCU mirrors the current user's subkey of HKEY_USERS.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Abbreviated HKLM, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE stores settings that are general to all users
on the computer. This key is found within the file %SystemRoot%\System32\Config\system
on NT-based versions of Windows. Information about system hardware is located under the
SYSTEM key.
HKEY_USERS
Abbreviated HKU, HKEY_USERS contains subkeys corresponding to the
HKEY_CURRENT_USER keys for each user registered on the machine.
HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG
Abbreviated HKCC, HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG contains information gathered at runtime;
information stored in this key is not permanently stored on disk, but rather regenerated at
boot time.
Of course, you can find more info about on the Wiki site but you don't have to be a registry
expert to create portables. To tell you the truth, some info I cited above was new to me also.
What is more important, you should bother only with HKCR, HKCU and HKLM when
creating portables.
Now everybody should know what does Windows Registry mean and what sections it has,
so let's continue examining changes in the registry.
3.6 6. Registry Changes

First let's export all the registry changes that were made during the install process.
To do this, go to "File-Export-Registry to re-apply Changes" in TU.
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In the appearing dialog box select "All" instead of "Selected branch" and select Created
Keys, Created Values and Modified Values (new data), and set File Type to Win9x/NT4
Registration file. Click on OK. Save it to "C:\Portable My Notes Keeper\" and name it to
"FullReg.reg".
If you saved MNK's main program files to another place, then save this reg file also there.
Now unfold all sub-groups in the Registry branch. Now you can see 3 items:
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1. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT (HKCR)
2. HKEY_CURRENT_USER (HKCU)
3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (HKLM)
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
The first, HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT is a place where Windows stores file associations and
other things.
Some application also stores registration info here.
Now it has three items:
1. .mnk
2. CLSID
3. mnkfile.
The first and the third are file type associations, you can delete them (we'll use them later
when cleaning up registry but we can remove it from the list because we exported the full
registry changes to FullReg.reg).
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Expand the second one (CLSID) and its sub-branch

("{B0CC8D3F-EF1A-4400-A5C7-1A2230AA0B8C}").
It has three entries: Code, Days and Name.
Yes, this is the registration info, and we should save it to a safe place. So select its parent
key ("{B0CC8D3F-EF1A-4400-A5C7-1A2230AA0B8C}") and go to "File-Export-Registry to
re-apply changes". Save it to "C:\Portable My Notes Keeper\" and name it to "RegInfo.reg".
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Now you can delete it from the list if you wish but I recommend you to keep it because it is a
very important data.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Next branch is HKEY_CURRENT_USER. This branch, unlike the other two, is accessible
when the user has no admin rights on the PC. If a software stores its settings here, it can be
run when the user has no admin rights (provided there's no other restriction on the PC).
Here's only one branch:

"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\MUICache". As these
files aren't important, we can delete it from the list. And there's no other items here, we can
continue to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
In HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE the first branch is

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\RNG\Seed". Nothing
important, delete from the list.
The next is
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group
Policy\State\Machine\Extension-List\{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}", it can
also be deleted.
Next is
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\My
Notes Keeper_is1". Also can be deleted from the list.
Next one is "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows

NT\CurrentVersion\Prefetcher\TracesProcessed", delete it from the list.
If you have printers installed, you may have

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
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NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Printers\YOUR PRINTER'S NAME". Delete it from the list.
Now there are no items left in the list. If you have some items left that's because your
system is different as mine or some other application generated a system change which TU
recorded.
Now you can close TU. If it asks you whether you want to save or not, select No. Doing so,
you can examine this list later if something goes wrong.
3.7 7. Validating Results

Now let's do some test to make sure that the registration info we found is really the data we
want. To do this, we'll use Registry Workshop (see "Tools" directory).
Because we have exported registration info to a .reg file (RegInfo.reg, remember?), we

should open it with a text editor to see what registry key we want to find. Here's the content
of RegInfo.reg:
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{B0CC8D3F-EF1A-4400-A5C7-1A2230AA0B8C}]
"Days"="584592960BAF3BEA"
"Name"="Portable"
"Code"="35AE664E73E18872"
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So the key we need is
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{B0CC8D3F-EF1A-4400-A5C7-1A2230AA0B8C}
Or simply "HKCR\CLSID\{B0CC8D3F-EF1A-4400-A5C7-1A2230AA0B8C}"
Normally you should use the left-side browser in Registry Monitor but because the key is
somewhat difficult to find that way, we'll do it in another way.
Launch Registry Workshop and paste this line to its address bar (at the top of RW's main
window, under the toolbar):
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{B0CC8D3F-EF1A-4400-A5C7-1A2230AA0B8C}
Now press Enter and RW should jump to this key instantly.
To test if it is the key that stores registration info, we'll delete it. We can do this because we
can use the undo function of RW if we want. So select the key name in the left-side browser
window and hit Delete button (or select Delete from the context menu). On the confirmation
box, select Yes.
Now the registration info is not present in the registry, so let's test MNK if it works. Because
we deleted the registration data from the registry, MNK should revert back to Trial mode.
© tpr 2007
Go to its install folder ("C:\Program Files\My Notes Keeper") and launch it with
"MyNotesKeeper.exe".
Yes, the trial warning appears when launching it. Great, the registry key we have deleted
was the registration data of MNK.
If you want to play with it a bit more, enter the registration data again in MNK and see if the
registry key comes back in the registry (hit F5 in Registry Workshop).
As you could see you have to decide what changes are important and what are not.
Sometimes it is easy to distinguish important changes but sometimes it is not (especially
when examining registry changes). After the third or fifth portable you create you'll be able to
decide what are those changes that you should pay attention to.
Now we have all the program files and the registry changes in our pocket, we can uninstall
My Notes Keeper. Go to Control Panel\Add or Remove Programs and uninstall MNK or use
your favorite uninstall software. Make sure that all the program files and its directory is
removed from "C:\Program Files" directory (or wherever you installed it) during the uninstall
process. If something's left there, delete the directory manually.
Note: in some cases registration info is not so easy to find. See "Hidden Registration Data"
in Chapter III for more info about it.
3.8 8. Bringing NSIS To The Game

Now we have all the files we will need and the registration info, so we can start building up
our portable.
First, let me introduce the directory structure I use in my portables:
[Appdata]
© tpr 2007
[portable]
[Source]
Portable Application.exe
Appdata directory: the main program files go here
location of registry data (RegInfo.reg, Settings.reg, RegClean.reg,

portable directory:
DirSettings.reg, etc)
the NSIS source file of the launcher (Portable Application.nsi) and

Source directory:
the icon of the launcher (Portable Application.ico)
Portable Application.exe the launcher itself
We'll make Portable MNK using this directory structure, so do the following changes:
1. Move all files and directories from "C:\Portable My Notes Keeper" to "C:\Portable My
Notes Keeper\Appdata" except
RegInfo.reg and FullReg.reg
2. Move RegInfo.reg and FullReg.reg to directory "C:\Portable My Notes Keeper\portable"
3. Create a folder in "C:\Portable My Notes Keeper" and name it as "Source".
I won't tell you everything about NSIS because that would make this guide very long.
However, I'm not an NSIS guru, all I know I know from the NSIS Help and the NSIS forum.
I can assure you that NSIS is easy to learn and what we need from NSIS is especially easy,
so you don't have to worry about it.
Furthermore, I created some nice templates so basically you'll have to replace some items in
them and you're ready to go.
3.9 9. Modifying The Template

Open "Portable Application.nsi" from directory "Templates" using your text editor. Now save
it to "C:\Portable My Notes Keeper\Source" directory and rename it to "Portable My Notes
Keeper.nsi". Renaming is very important so do this now.
In the third line you'll find this:
!define SNAME "Portable Application"
Select the word "Application" and open up replace dialog (in Scite: hit Ctrl+H). In the
"Replace with:" field enter "My Notes Keeper", then click on "Replace All". Now all
occurrences of the word "Application" is replaced with "My Notes Keeper" and we don't have
to change each one manually, and the possibility to make a mistake is also smaller.
There's nothing to change until line 34 (Section "Main"). However, you can personalize your
launcher if you wish, changing these lines:
VIProductVersion "0.1.0.0"
VIAddVersionKey /LANG=${LANG_ENGLISH} "ProductName" "Portable My Notes Keeper Launcher"
VIAddVersionKey /LANG=${LANG_ENGLISH} "LegalCopyright" "© tpr 2007"
VIAddVersionKey /LANG=${LANG_ENGLISH} "FileDescription" "My Notes Keeper"
© tpr 2007
VIAddVersionKey /LANG=${LANG_ENGLISH} "FileVersion" "0.1"
I think it is straightforward; change the final parts of each rows if you wish (i.e. "© tpr 2007"
to "© I am not dumbass for NSIS! 2007"). But you can also remove these five lines if you
wish.
In Section "Main" you can see these lines:

;-----Importing Regkeys------
${registry::RestoreKey} "$EXEDIR\portable\Settings.reg" $R0

Sleep 300
${registry::RestoreKey} "$EXEDIR\portable\RegInfo.reg" $R0
Sleep 200
${registry::RestoreKey} "$EXEDIR\portable\DirSettings.reg" $R0
Sleep 200
These lines, as you may think when reading Restorekey, restores registry keys, or in other
words, imports .reg files. You can see the path of the .reg file and the name of it:
"$EXEDIR\portable\Settings.reg"
$EXEDIR: when launching the portable launcher, $EXEDIR is replaced with the full path of
the launcher. So, if we launch it from "D:\MyPortables", $EXEDIR will be replaced with
D:\MyPortables. So the whole path looks like this:
$EXEDIR\portable\Settings.reg ---> D:\MyPortables\portable\Settings.reg (if you launch it

from "D:\MyPortables" location).
This feature of NSIS makes it easy to handle the problem arising from the fact that the path
of the portable application may change on every PC, according to what drive letter is
assigned to the USB stick. It comes handy when we have to enter absolute paths to the
registry also.
There are several $EXEDIR-like things in NSIS (search the forum if you don't know what
they are meaning - neither do I know each one):
$INSTDIR, $OUTDIR, $CMDLINE, $LANGUAGE, $PROGRAMFILES, $COMMONFILES, $DESKTOP,

$EXEDIR, ${NSISDIR}, $WINDIR, $SYSDIR, $TEMP, $STARTMENU, $SMPROGRAMS, $SMSTARTUP,
$QUICKLAUNCH, $DOCUMENTS, $SENDTO, $RECENT, $FAVORITES, $MUSIC, $PICTURES, $VIDEOS,
$NETHOOD, $FONTS, $TEMPLATES, $APPDATA, $LOCALAPPDATA, $PRINTHOOD, $INTERNET_CACHE,
$COOKIES, $HISTORY, $PROFILE, $ADMINTOOLS, $RESOURCES, $RESOURCES_LOCALIZED,
$CDBURN_AREA, $HWNDPARENT, $PLUGINSDIR
As we have seen, MNK stores its settings in an .ini file in its program directory, so no need
to import any Settings.reg into the registry. So we can delete this line. The next line contains
"Sleep 300". It tells the launcher to take a deep breath and pause for 300 milliseconds. I
usually fill my NSIS scripts with sleeps to ensure that every operation has enough time to
complete. 1, 2 or more extra seconds when launching won't hurt anybody.
Because we have deleted the line with Settings.reg before, now this "Sleep 300" also can be
deleted.
The next line is "${registry::RestoreKey} "$EXEDIR\portable\RegInfo.reg" $R0". It import the

registration data to the Registry, so it is important. Do not delete it, and neither delete the
next line ("Sleep 200"). If you plan to use MNK on a slower computer, you can increase the
sleep time (but I think 200 ms is enough).
© tpr 2007
Next two lines can be deleted ("${registry::RestoreKey} "$EXEDIR\portable\DirSettings.reg"

$R0" and "Sleep 200"). We'll use it when we will put absolute paths to the registry but now
we don't have to do that.
The next part is straightforward:
;-----Launching My Notes Keeper------
ExecWait "$EXEDIR\Appdata\My Notes Keeper.exe"
ExecWait does what its name suggests: executes the given program and waits until it (the
executed program) finishes. It is handy because we want to clean up registry after the
program is closed.
Note that the path uses $EXEDIR again, but after it "Appdata" comes. Now we have to see
how is our main executable named. In the Appdata directory the name of the exe is
"MyNotesKeeper", so change this line to:
ExecWait "$EXEDIR\Appdata\MyNotesKeeper.exe"
The next part is
;-----Saving settings------
${registry::SaveKey} "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\My Notes Keeper\The My Notes

Keeper" "$EXEDIR\portable\Settings.reg" "/G=1" $R0
Sleep 500
It exports the given registry key to the given registry file, then waits 500 milliseconds.
Because here we don't want to export anything, it can be deleted.
(The registry key in the code above is non-existent, it was created when doing search and
replace).
Now comes the cleaning up:
;-----Cleaning up------
${registry::RestoreKey} "$EXEDIR\portable\RegClean.reg" $R0
DeleteRegKey /ifempty HKEY_CURRENT_USER "Software\My Notes Keeper"
First, the launcher imports RegClean.reg. But there's a problem: we don't have any
RegClean.reg yet! So let's fix it. Open RegInfo.reg (from "C:\Portable My Notes
Keeper\portable" directory) using your text editor and change from
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
"Days"="584592960BAF3BEA"
"Name"="Portable"
"Code"="35AE664E73E18872"
to
REGEDIT4
© tpr 2007
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{B0CC8D3F-EF1A-4400-A5C7-1A2230AA0B8C}]
Notice the minus (-) sign after the first square bracket. If we import this into the registry, it
will delete the whole branch
("HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{B0CC8D3F-EF1A-4400-A5C7-1A2230AA0B8C}").
Save it as RegClean.reg (do not overwrite RegInfo.reg!). One thing we have to do with these
reg files: the first row in both files says "Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00". Although it
is fine, but change it to "REGEDIT4" to ensure compatibility with older systems (such as
Win9x).
If you want to delete only a reg value you should use the minus sign this way:
REGEDIT4
"Name"=-
This code delete registry value

"HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{B0CC8D3F-EF1A-4400-A5C7-1A2230AA0B8C}\Name"
only, "Days" and "Code" will remain in the registry. But now we want to clean the whole key,
so put the minus sign in front of the key name.
Now we have our RegClean.reg file, but there are some other registry keys that are present
in the registry and we should remove them. Open FullReg.reg in your text editor. Although
this file contains the registry changes made by the install process, we have to examine it
because when launching MNK, it may write some of these settings back to the registry
(especially file association keys). These are the keys we should remove:
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mnk]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\mnkfile]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\My Notes
Keeper_is1]
These keys may be present in your registry if you launch MNK (even if you haven't install it).
You only have to remove the main branch with the minus sign because all sub-branches are
removed also. So, for example,
"HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mnk\123456\123456\whatstheheckisnext" is also removed when
importing [-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mnk].
So we have to paste these lines after existing ones in RegClean.reg. The entire
RegClean.reg should look like this:
REGEDIT4
Keeper_is1]
We have this line left in the script:
DeleteRegKey /ifempty HKEY_CURRENT_USER "Software\My Notes Keeper"
It is not required here, so delete it. Make sure you haven't deleted "SectionEnd" from the
© tpr 2007
end of the script.
Note: there's an NSIS script in directory "Templates" "Portable Template.nsi". It is a general

template that I'm using when I create my portables. It contains a lot of things so you should
keep only those lines which you need when you build up your script for a portable. It speeds
up the script-writing process and it's more easier to replace some words than beginning with
a blank .nsi file.
3.10 10. Compiling The Launcher

Now the script is ready, we should compile it and the portable version of MNK is ready.
However, we have to extract the icon from the main exe first. To do this, launch
"extraico.exe" from "Tools\Icons from File" directory. It is a very simple application, just drag
and drop "MyNotesKeeper.exe" from "C:\Portable My Notes Keeper\Appdata" directory to its
window. Two icons appears in extraico.exe's window.
The first looks very attractive, select it and click on the second icon on the toolbar, then
select "Save selected" (or Ctrl+S). Save it to "C:\Portable My Notes Keeper\Source" with
name "Portable My Notes Keeper.ico".
It is important that the name of the .ico and the name of the .nsi files should be the exactly
the same, or you won't be able to compile the script. So in "Source" directory you should
have these two files:
Portable My Notes Keeper.nsi
© tpr 2007
Portable My Notes Keeper.ico
Also, the third line in the .nsi file should be !define SNAME "Portable My Notes Keeper". If
you get error when compiling with NSIS, you should check if these names are the same first.
Okay, everything is in its desired location, let's build up the launcher exe. Open
"makeNSISw.exe" from directory "Tools\NSIS 2.17". Drag and drop "Portable My Notes
Keeper.nsi" file from directory "C:\Portable My Notes Keeper\Source\" into this window. If
everything goes fine, the last line in the NSIS window should be (values may differ, of
course):
Using zlib compression.
EXE header size: 36864 / 34816 bytes

Install code: 654 / 2890 bytes
Install data: 8302 / 30728 bytes
Total size: 45820 / 68434 bytes (67.0%)
If there was an error during compiling, check what NSIS says about the error. There is
always a line number when NSIS encounters an error. Go to your script and check that line.
Maybe it's just a mistyping or a missing or extra quotes. But if you've followed my
instructions properly and I didn't make any mistake, you should find a "Portable My Notes
Keeper.exe" in directory "C:\Portable My Notes Keeper".
© tpr 2007
Now do some testing to see if it works and how it works. If the program MNK won't start,
check if everything is okay in line containing ExecWait in the .nsi file. If it starts up, go to the
About box and see if it is registered. You have to re-compile the exe if you modified
something in the script, of course.
One common mistake is that one can think that if a program starts up and says it is
registered, it works well also. That's not true. You have to test if every function of the
software is working properly. So, in this case, create a new note in MNK (File-New), write
something in it, insert a picture, change settings in the options, save it, restart it, so make
everything you can to test it thoroughly. Test it on at least 2 or 3 clean PC's to ensure that it
works as expected. There's always a possibility that something is left on your PC after the
uninstallation of the software, that's why you have to test it on other PC's also.
Of course, you cannot test everything but you should try to test your portable as much as
you can to ensure that it is working good.
If everything is OK, then congratulations! You've just made your first portable! Below is your
well-deserved gift. Enjoy!
Now only one thing is left: examining what happens if a local installation is present on the
PC. It may seem not so important now that you've just compiled the launcher successfully
but if you want to create a really good portable, you should take care of the host computer's
health also.
3.11 11. Keeping Local Installation

In the previous topics you successfully created the launcher. However, what if a local
installation is present in the target machine?
If we launch our new portable on a machine where MNK is installed, it will destroy the local
installation's registration data and file associations. To fix it, we should modify our script.
If you examine our script, the first modification to the registry we do is when we import
RegInfo.reg. Doing so, if there's a locally installed MNK, its registration data will be
overwritten with our registration data found in RegInfo.reg.
To prevent this, we should first save the local installation's registry key into a .reg file, and
after the final clean-up we'll import it back. To save a registry key, use this formula:
${registry::SaveKey} "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{B0CC8D3F-EF1A-4400-A5C7-
1A2230AA0B8C}" "$EXEDIR\portable\LocalRegInfo.reg" "/G=1" $R0
Sleep 500
This will save the registry key "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{B0CC8D3F-EF1A-4400-

A5C7-1A2230AA0B8C}" to the file LocalRegInfo.reg in "C:\Portable My Notes Keeper
\portable" directory.
We should add some milliseconds to ensure that the saving of this registry key will be
successful (that's why "Sleep 500" is there).
© tpr 2007
Now examine RegClean.reg:
REGEDIT4
Keeper_is1]
The first line removes the registration data. Because we will restore local registration data at
the and of the script, it is not important here.
The two HKCR key is important because these are required for file associations. If we don't
save them, clicking on a .mnk file won't open MNK. But let's see if they are really present in
the registry!
Launch "Portable My Notes Keeper.exe" and while it's running, launch Registry Workshop.
Paste this line into its Address bar (below the toolbar) and hit Enter:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mnk
The "Confirm Create Key" pops up which means there's no such key in the registry. So I
was wrong in topic 9 ("Modifying The Template") when I wrote that MNK will create these
keys when launching it even if it's not installed.
Let's test the next key, "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\mnkfile". The same thing happens as
before, so there's no such key in the registry. If we test the last key in RegClean.reg, we'll
find that it is not in the registry.
This means that we shouldn't delete them from the registry when the program finishes
because these keys are not in the registry. However, if they are in the registry, this could
mean only one thing: these belongs to the local installation of MNK, and if we delete them
then we destroy the local installation.
The local MNK will run even if these keys are deleted. However, deleting these will destroy
file type associations and presumable you will not be able to uninstall the local MNK.
We have to change our RegClean.reg file to:
REGEDIT4
Now it is clear that we should bother with only this key to keep the local installation of MNK
intact.
The new NSIS script will look like this (I only quote the Section "Main" part here, changes
are written in red):
Section "Main"
;-----Saving Local Registration Data------
© tpr 2007

Sleep 500

Sleep 200

Sleep 500
;-----Restoring Local Registration Data------
${registry::RestoreKey} "$EXEDIR\portable\LocalRegInfo.reg" $R0
SectionEnd
Let's complicate the thing a little bit: what happens if there's no local installation in the target
PC but there's a LocalRegInfo.reg file on the USB drive (from previous runs)?
If you look at the script part above, you can imagine what would happen: the launcher tries
to save the registry key but it founds nothing, so exports nothing. LocalRegInfo.reg remains
intact. Then it imports RegInfo.reg, runs the software and then cleans up with RegClean.reg.
But after that, it restores LocalRegInfo.reg, so when you leave the computer, a registry key
is left on it which wasn't there before running Portable MNK. We do not want that, so we'll
modify the script again.
To my mind, the easiest way to prevent this is to delete LocalRegInfo.reg at the end of the
script. If we do this, on next run there'll be no LocalRegInfo.reg on the USB drive, so nothing
will be restored (presuming there's no local installation of MNK).
To delete a file with NSIS, use the following code:
Delete "$EXEDIR\portable\LocalRegInfo.reg"
We'll have to add some milliseconds before this line to ensure that there's enough time to
restore LocalRegInfo.reg (if it exists).
Here is the complete and final script:
;---Definitions----
!define SNAME "Portable My Notes Keeper"
;----Includes----
!include "Registry.nsh"
;-----Runtime switches----
CRCCheck off
AutoCloseWindow True
SilentInstall silent
WindowIcon off
XPSTYLE on
© tpr 2007
;-----Set basic information-----
Name "${SNAME}"
Icon "${SNAME}.ico"
Caption "${SNAME} Launcher"
OutFile "..\${SNAME}.exe"
;-----Version Information------
LoadLanguageFile "${NSISDIR}\Contrib\Language files\English.nlf"
VIAddVersionKey /LANG=${LANG_ENGLISH} "ProductName" "Portable My Notes Keeper
Launcher"
VIAddVersionKey /LANG=${LANG_ENGLISH} "FileDescription" "My Notes Keeper"
Section "Main"
;-----Saving Local Registration Data------
Sleep 500

Sleep 200

Sleep 500
;-----RestoringLocal Registration Data------
${registry::RestoreKey} "$EXEDIR\portable\LocalRegInfo.reg" $R0

Sleep 800
Delete "$EXEDIR\portable\LocalRegInfo.reg"
SectionEnd
Compile the launcher and the Portable MNK is ready.
Note: if you launch the new Portable MNK, you'll see that no LocalReginfo.reg file is
created. That is because NSIS will not save a non-existing registry key. To test if this part of
the script is working, select the key ("HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{B0CC8D3F-EF1A-
4400-A5C7-1A2230AA0B8C}") in Registry Workshop while Portable MNK is running and
simply delete it. Now close Portable MNK. Go back to Registry Workshop and click on the
Undo button on the toolbar (or hit Ctrl+Z). Now the registration info is again in the registry
but MNK is not running. If you run Portable MNK again, it should save the registration data
into the file LocalRegInfo.reg and when you close it, it will put this key back to the registry.
If you want, you may delete some files from the "Appdata" directory to make the size of your
© tpr 2007
portable smaller. For example, deleting "unins000.exe", "unins000.dat" and some other non-
important txt files (licence.txt, Readme.txt, Tips.txt, Whatsnew.txt) won't do any harm.
3.12 12. Testing, Testing, Testing...

You should always thoroughly test your portables.
I know that it is a very boring activity but if you create something that other people may also
use, then make it as perfect as possible or even fool-proof, to ensure that it will work exactly
the same way as expected.
It isn't pleasant when people complain that your portable won't run or even it did some harm
to their computers.
For testing Portable MNK, go to another PC's and see if it runs well. You should try it on
other operation systems also (Win9x, Win2000, Windows XP, Vista, etc). If it won't run on
either of them, notify would-be users that your portable cannot be run on that OS.
Use RegMon or FileMon to monitor every activity of the portable. You can also use Total
Uninstall to do this, using the Portable MNK exe instead of the setup file.
If you find that everything is OK, then you can say: I've made it!
Note: no gifts for you now. I was more than generous at the end of topic 10.
3.13 13. Conclusion

As you could seen in the previous topics, there's a lot of things you have to pay attention
when creating a portable launcher. You have to ask as many "What if?" questions to
yourself as you can and try to find the best possible solutions for them.
I'm sure that the script we made could be made more better and nicer but I think that will do
now. For example, you may use if clauses to test if there's a local install of the software on
the host PC or if there's a need to restore registry settings and so on.
In this chapter you've learned how to capture changes that were made during the install
process, to what changes you should pay attention and how to find registration data. You've
also learned how to build up the NSIS script, how to save and restore registry keys from and
to .reg files, how to launch an application and how to delete files.
That's the basics of creating a portable launcher. In the next chapter you'll find how to create
a launcher for a software which will do the following:
 saves and restores settings in the registry,

 creates directory, copies and deletes files,
 renames files to the logged in user's name,
 registers and unregisters .dll or .ocx files,
 silently installs .msi files,
 etc.
© tpr 2007
Despite the list above you won't learn so much new things in this chapter because you know
almost everything you have to know to create your own portable launchers.
4 Chapter III - Advanced Topics

1. Relative Paths
2. Reg2NSIS
3. Universal Extractor
4. Settings In Registry
5. Hidden Registration Data
6. File Management
7. More File Management
8. Registering Libraries
9. Installing MSI Files
10. Time and Date
11. .NET and Java
12. Reducing Size
13. Safe Portable
14. Failures
4.1 1. Relative Paths

When creating a portable application you will often find that using relative paths instead of
absolute ones spares a lot of time and hard work. The problem is that not every software
supports relative paths, so you have to check it first.
Definition of absolute and relative paths (from Wiki):
A full path or absolute path is a path that points to the same location on one file system
regardless of the working directory or combined paths.
A relative path is a path relative to the current working directory, so the full absolute path
may not need to be given.
For example, an absolute path looks like this: "C:\Windows\System32". It must contain a
drive letter.
A relative path does not contain the drive letter: "Windows\System32". It is relative to the
current working directory, so in this example you "must be" in drive C. If you "are" in "D:
\Music" and use the relative path above, it will be interpreted as "D:\Music\Windows
\System32". So, relative path is dependent from the current working directory.
In most cases, paths in the registry must be absolute paths otherwise the software will not
run correctly or won't run at all.
© tpr 2007
You can define relative paths in several ways. The two you will find useful when creating
portables are these:
.\ = refers to the current directory

..\ = refers to the parent directory
In some cases you shouldn't create a launcher to make a software portable. I'll demonstrate
it on a software called Wings 3D, which is a great subdivision modeler software (freeware).
I will not begin the install process with Total Uninstall now, because I want only show you
how to turn a software portable with changing absolute paths to relative ones in the
program's settings.
So install Wings 3D ("Install\Wings 3D\wings-0.98.32a.exe"), then go to the directory where

you've installed it (you'll find it probably in "C:\Program Files\wings3d_0.98.32a" directory.
The directory settings of the program is in the "bin" directory, in "erl.ini" file. Open it with a
text editor. Its contents should look like this:
[erlang]
Bindir=C:\\Program Files\\wings3d_0.98.32a\\bin
Progname=erl
Rootdir=C:\\Program Files\\wings3d_0.98.32a
The paths of Bindir and Rootdir is given with absolute paths. Note that these paths are not
ordinary paths because two backslashes are in it instead of only one. It is important to notice
because we should modify it taking this fact into account.
First, we have to find the .exe file, because the directory where it is located will be the root
directory, and relative paths need a root directory.
The .exe file now is Wings3D.exe. The Bindir is the directory "bin" and the Rootdir is the root
directory (where the .exe is located).
So normally the modified erl.ini should look like this:
[erlang]
Bindir=.\bin
Progname=erl
Rootdir=.\
But if we save it this way, Wings3D will not run. Now remember that there was two
backslashes in the original erl.ini instead of one, so change erl.ini this way:
[erlang]
Bindir=.\\bin
Progname=erl
Rootdir=.\\
Save it and see if it works (it should).
Note: you can refer to the current directory with a single point (.). So changing Rootdir to
"Rootdir=." will work also. In some cases, when referring to a child directory, you can simply
refer it with the directory's name, no need to use points and backslashes. It works here also;
change "Bindir=.\\bin" to "Bindir=bin" and it will work also.
© tpr 2007
Chapter III - Advanced Topics 41
In the previous chapter you saw that with NSIS it is really easy to create paths relative to the
launcher. For example, "$EXEDIR" refers to the current directory, "$EXEDIR\..\" refers to
the parent directory of the launcher. But you can use other ones also, for example:
"$WINDIR"=Windows directory, "$PROGRAMFILES"=Program files directory, and so on
(see "Templates\NSIS directories.txt").
The beauty of these is that you shouldn't bother with drive letters. For example, if you have
to copy a file into the Windows directory but on the target computer it is not on drive C but,
for example, on "Y:\wheretoinstallthis\Windows", it will be copied there using "$WINDIR".
You can imagine that it is really handy if you want to refer to the user's application data
folder, because the name of the user vary on every computer. But using "$APPDATA" in
NSIS eliminates this problem.
This example is only for showing you how to use relative paths. If you wish to make
Wings3D (or any other software) portable, you should check with Total Uninstall that what
changes were made during the install process, and create a launcher (wrapper) if it is
necessary.
In fact, Wings3D creates a directory in the Application Data "C:\Documents and Settings
\YOURNAME\Application Data\Wings3D" and a text file in it called "Preferences.txt". If you
wish to make it portable, you should handle this text file somehow (see topic "File
Management" in this chapter).
4.2 2. Reg2Nsis
I mentioned Reg2Nsis in Chapter I when I introduced NSIS. It can convert .reg files to NSIS
scripts, so it will convert the code
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MySoftware]
"ArchiveSupport"="C:\\Program Files\\Datadir"
"LanguageFile"="English.lng"
"RootDir"="J:\\"
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\NotMySoftware]
"Rev"="3"
"Visible"="0"
"DockedTo"="ListViewDock"
"LastDock"="ListViewDock"
to
WriteRegStr HKEY_CURRENT_USER "Software\MySoftware" "ArchiveSupport"

"$PROGRAMFILES\Datadir"
WriteRegStr HKEY_CURRENT_USER "Software\MySoftware" "LanguageFile" "English.lng"
WriteRegStr HKEY_CURRENT_USER "Software\MySoftware" "RootDir" "J:\"
WriteRegStr HKEY_CURRENT_USER "Software\NotMySoftware" "Rev" "3"

WriteRegStr HKEY_CURRENT_USER "Software\NotMySoftware" "Visible" "0"
WriteRegStr HKEY_CURRENT_USER "Software\NotMySoftware" "DockedTo" "ListViewDock"
WriteRegStr HKEY_CURRENT_USER "Software\NotMySoftware" "LastDock" "ListViewDock"
As you can see, the first is a normal .reg file, and the resulting code is an NSIS code. This
means that you can put this code in your script and it will be equal as if you imported a
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registry file. So if you want, you can get rid of RegInfo.reg if you build its contents into the
launcher.
How to use Reg2Nsis?
Go to "Tools\Reg2NSIS" and execute "InstallContextMenu.exe". This will put a line into the
context menu of .reg files. So if you right-click on a .reg file (i.e. on RegInfo.reg), you'll find
an entry saying "Convert to NSIS script". If you select this, it will create a RegInfo.nsh file in
the same directory. Open this .nsh file with a text editor. The first eight lines (which are
commented out) is about the auther of Reg2NSIS and such things. After them come the
lines we want, and the last line of the .nsh file (commented out) tells us that it is the end of
the file.
When does Reg2Nsis come handy?
If you wish, you may convert RegInfo.reg to RegInfo.nsh, and then copy its contents to your
.nsi script. Although this method is absolutely correct, I use it only occasionally. You're
asking why? Because you may want to update your software (in the "Appdata" directory")
and if it is serial-protected, the serial for the new version may not be the same as it was in
the earlier version. In these cases you should only update RegInfo.reg and your portable will
still working. Otherwise, if you have no RegInfo.reg, you have to modify the script, which is a
bit more difficult.
As for Settings.reg you shouldn't use Reg2NSIS to convert it to NSIS code, because
Settings.reg changes when you set an option in the main program, or if it contains paths. So
hard-coding it to the launcher makes no sense.
RegClean.reg can be converted to NSIS code because it is fairly constant. However, the
path or paths in RegClean.reg may change if you update the main program, so take care of
it when updating.
But when Reg2NSIS come really handy is when you have to put absolute paths to the
registry. As I mentioned that earlier, you can use "$EXEDIR" (which is the launcher's current
location) to put the current path of the launcher into the registry, no matter in what drive it is
located and in which directory/subdirectory. So, for example, modifying the
Reg2NSIS-generated code from
WriteRegStr HKEY_CURRENT_USER "Software\MySoftware" "ArchiveSupport"

"$PROGRAMFILES\Datadir"
WriteRegStr HKEY_CURRENT_USER "Software\MySoftware" "RootDir" "J:\"
to
WriteRegStr HKEY_CURRENT_USER "Software\MySoftware" "ArchiveSupport" "

$EXEDIR\Appdata\Datadir"
WriteRegStr HKEY_CURRENT_USER "Software\MySoftware" "RootDir" "$EXEDIR"
will change paths in "ArchiveSupport" and "Rootdir" entries dynamically, according to the
launcher's current location.
If a program requires its paths to be absolute ones in the registry then this is the only way to
do this. Of course, you can do this without Reg2NSIS but I think it is much more convenient
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then writing all the code by hand. You may face a problem when you have to convert
hundreds of paths, now imagine how much easier is to do it with Reg2NSIS...
However, if your .reg file contains hex values, then NSIS cannot import it to the registry (at
least the current version). So, as a general rule, if your .reg file contains hex values, use the
registry plugin's restorekey method to put it in the registry:
Otherwise you can use the code converted with Reg2Nsis.
You should always check if the generated code is right. In some cases you have to modify it
manually but Reg2Nsis works well in general.
4.3 3. Universal Extractor

Universal Extractor allows you to extract setup files. This may come handy when you would
like to see what files are in it and if you know that the software is portable, you shouldn't
install it to get it work.
However, UE cannot extract every kind of setup file.
We'll see how to use UE with a software called Hotkeyz. HotKeyz is a keyboard utility with
hotkey control for executing other files, folders or RUN commands. And it is portable, so if
we can extract it with UE, we can use it immediately.
To use Universal Extractor, launch "UniExtract.exe" from "Tools\Universal Extractor"

directory. Drag and drop the installer of Hotkeyz ("Install\Hotkeyz\htkz2600.exe") to
Universal Extractor's window and click on OK. Universal Extractor will extract files from the
installer (which was created with Inno Setup as you can see while unpacking).
A new directory is created by Universal Extractor, called "htkz2600". In this directory, there's
a directory called {app} and the install script, install_script.iss.
Because we want program files only, install_script.iss file can be deleted. However, you may
open this file with a text editor and see what changes would make the installer if we run it.
In the {app} directory you can find the main program files. Because Hotkeyz is portable, you
may launch it with the executable "Hotkeyz.exe".
In other cases you'll find more than one directories after extracting the setup file. You should
examine the files in them. If you're not sure whether the program is originally portable or not,
use Total Uninstall to capture changes when running it for the first time. Maybe it copies files
or creates directories, creates registry keys and entries, and so on.
If you find a directory named "sys" then it contents would be copied to "Windows" or
"Windows\System32" directory. Try to copy these files to the main directory, where the main
exe is located, because many software will use them from there.
If the program is serial-protected, you should also use Total Uninstall to monitor changes
when entering registration info.
So Universal Extractor may come handy in many cases. It can reduce the time you spend on
creating your portable, but use it with care. If UE can extract a setup file and if you can
launch the software right after the extraction it does not mean that it is also portable. You
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should always investigate what changes does it make to your system before you can say
that it's portable.
4.4 4. Settings In Registry

Actually, this topic will teach you nothing new. In the previous chapter we used the formula
${registry::SaveKey} "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\My Notes Keeper\The My Notes

Keeper" "$EXEDIR\portable\Settings.reg" "/G=1" $R0
which saves the registry key "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\My Notes Keeper\The My

Notes Keeper"
to file "$EXEDIR\portable\Settings.reg" file.
We'll use this formula to save the program's settings stored in the registry to a file, and on
next launch, we'll write it back to the registry (importing it).
If you examine one of my templates, you should see the following code:
${registry::RestoreKey} "$EXEDIR\portable\Settings.reg" $R0

Sleep 300
Sleep 200
${registry::RestoreKey} "$EXEDIR\portable\DirSettings.reg" $R0
Sleep 200
Here three registry file is imported: Settings.reg, RegInfo.reg and DirSettings.reg.
Settings.reg this file contains settings that is stored in the registry

RegInfo.reg this is only the registration info (user name and serial in most cases)
DirSettings.reg this file is used to clear paths in registry
The order of these .reg files are important, you shouldn't change it.
If you change some settings in the application, this change is stored in the registry (provided
that the application stores its settings in the registry, of course). Because we save settings to
Settings.reg from the registry, this file is always changing. So it shouldn't contain registration
data because it is constant.
That's why we store registration info in RegInfo.reg. It is imported after Settings.reg to

ensure that the data it writes to the reigstry is not overwritten by the data in Settings.reg.
Otherwise you may loose your registration data which we really don't want to.
The third one is DirSettings.reg. I use it to clear paths in the registry which must be
overwritten with absolute paths.
For example, we want to import these path to the registry: "H:\Data". "H" is the drive letter of
the usb drive, which changes every time you plug in your USB drive at another computer.
Because the previous time we used our portable, in Settings.reg there's "Y:\Data". "Y" was
the USB drive's letter on the previous computer.
Now, if we import Settings.reg, it writes "Y:\Data" into the registry. But we want "H:\Data" to
be present in the registry when the main program starts. So, we'll clear it DirSettings.reg
first:
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REGEDIT 4
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\My Software\Settings]
"Datadir"=-
Notice that red minus (-) sign after "Datadir" - that will clear the data of "Datadir" value. So
before importing DirSettings.reg, "Datadir" looked like this:
"Datadir"="H:\Data"
It contains "H:\Data" because our Settings.reg contains that from the previous run. After
importing DirSettings.reg, it should look like:
"Datadir"=
So totally empty. Now we can write the absolute path to it with NSIS:
WriteRegStr HKEY_CURRENT_USER "Software\My Software\Settings" "Datadir" "$EXEDIR

\Appdata\"
Theoretically if you the launcher executes the code above, it overwrites the previous value.
In some cases I found that although it should overwrite it, it didn't, so I'm using this
DirSettings.reg method instead.
Ok, now the settings, the registration info and the required absolute paths are in the registry,
we can execute the main program with ExecWait. ExecWait executes the main program and
waits until it finishes.
Then we should save settings and clean up.
To save settings, use this code:
${registry::SaveKey} "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\My Software\Settings"

"$EXEDIR\portable\Settings.reg" "/G=1" $R0
You can see that if something was changed in this registry key (for example, you changed
some settings of the software), the new Settings.reg will be different as it was before the
portable software run. The old Settings.reg is overwritten with the new Settings.reg.
For deleting a registry key we'll import RegClean.reg into the registry:
Because RegClean.reg contains minus (-) signs in front of the registry key's name, it will
delete it:
REGEDIT 4
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\My Software\Settings]
Notice that not the whole branch was deleted, only its "Settings" sub-branch.
Why don't we delete the entire "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\My Software" branch?
It is for security reasons. The branch "My Software" may store other programs' settings also,
and we don't want to delete them. For example, Corel's registry key looks like this:
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HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Corel
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Corel\CorelDRAW\11.0
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Corel\CorelDRAW\9
If we delete "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Corel" registry key, the settings of version

9 and version 11 will be gone. We'll need NSIS to check if the registry key we want to delete
is empty or not:
DeleteRegKey /ifempty HKEY_CURRENT_USER "Software\Corel"
Notice that "/ifempty" switch after DeleteRegKey (written in red). That tells the launcher that
the given registry key can be deleted only if it is empty.
And that's all about saving and restoring registry settings. Of course, these all are only
general things and you should modify your code that suits best to the application you're
trying to portablize.
Because each software is different, you have to examine them thoroughly. You must be
aware of how it works, should understand every settings of it and so on. If you're not
knowing the software very well, your portable might be unusable. I stated it earlier but I have
to emphasize again that if a software runs without installation on every PC it is not sure that
it is also portable. If you cannot use them or if it makes a dustbin from your PC, it is not
really something that you should call as portable.
4.5 5. Hidden Registration Data

Softwares always store registration data somewhere, whether in the registry or in a file.
The file that stores registration info may be found in one of these locations:
1. The program's directory (best situation)

2. Document folder of the logged in user or of All Users:
"C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\Documents\"
"C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\"
3. Application Data of the logged in user or of All Users:
"C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\Application Data\"
"C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\"
4. Application Data in Local Settings:
"C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\"
5. Windows directory
6. Windows\System32 directory
7. etc.
To find registration info which is stored in a file, you should examine the directories listed
above.
Here are some tips for searching:
 Make sure you've set you file manager to show hidden files during this process.
 Sort files by date because it is likely that this file is the newest in these directories.
 Examine all files that can store info (.ini, .txt, .key, .reg and such).
 Files with small size are more suspicious as the registration data is usually not so big.
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 In some cases, mainly in windows or system32 directory, you should view dll, ocx and
other files that are small and new - view them with your text editor, sometimes registration
data is hidden in these files.
This kind of searching can be very cumbersome, but also challenging in the same time.
If it is stored in the registry, it can be almost everywhere. Mostly they are in

HKEY_CURRENT_USER (HKCU) or in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (HKLM) but sometimes
you may find it in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT (HKCR) (as we did it when creating My Notes
Keeper in Chapter II).
The best is when it is located in HKCU, because users without admin rights can access it. If
it is in HKLM or HKCR, users without admin rights won't be able to import registration info
and thus the portable they try to launch won't be licensed.
In most cases the registration data cannot be found in the registry in the form it was entered
in the registration box, because it is encrypted. If we couldn't find anything with Registry
Workshop, then we should use Regmon (see "Tools" directory).
Before introducing RegMon, here's an easier way to find registration info. Monitor the
software with Total Uninstall, but instead of a setup fiile, use the software's main exe. If it
captures nothing, then you should turn to RegMon.
This process is a bit more complicated. You have to monitor the registry with Regmon when
entering the registration data into the registration fields in My Notes Keeper (especially when
you hit OK button, because that is the time when registration info is written into the registry).
Because RegMon captures all registry activity, the list it generates is very long. You should
be as quick as you can to avoid capturing registry activity that is not related with the
software's registration data you are searching for.
Although you can apply several filters to reduce the length of RM's log file, there will be a lot
of entries that you have to examine to find the registration info that you're searching for.
If it is in encrypted form, you won't find it in a form that you can recognize (i.e. if you're
searching for "Conan the portable creator" as a user name, you maybe find it in a registry
key "HKLM\Software\1431461fsd15613151313\duuislsdfjl" with a value "010111101011"
which is not so easy to notice). So you'll have to investigate suspicious ones by deleting
them from the registry (using Registry Workshop) and then see if the program reverts to trial
mode. If not, undo the deletion in RW and go to the next suspicious key. If it reverts to trial
mode, then undo deletion and save that key as RegInfo.reg.
Similarly, you can use FileMon to capture changes made to your file system in real time (see
Tools directory).
4.6 6. File Management

Sometimes you have to copy files before you launch the main program exe. Let's see an
easy example where we should copy an .ini file to the Windows directory.
The chosen software is Kleptomania, which allows you to capture and process images and
text from any (even clipboard-unaware) application. You can copy text onto the clipboard,
launch your internet browser or email program for further editing, sum numbers, count a
number of words/characters and more.
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Capturing Changes
So start up Total Uninstall and click on Install. Drag and drop "Install\Kleptomania 2.5
\kleptomania_setup.exe" file to TU's window. After the system scan, install Kleptomania
using Total Uninstall. I won't write down every little steps like I did in the previous chapter. If
you get stuck somewhere, go to Chapter II and look for help there.
Install with default settings, so basically the only thing you have to do is clicking on Next
every time. When the install finishes, let the install program launch Kleptomania.
Kleptomania will now build up a font database. When it's done, close Kleptomania and go
back to TU and examine what changes were made.
In the File System section there's only one entry important: k-mania.Ini in the Windows
directory (apart from the main program files in "C:\Program Files\Kleptomania").
We should copy these files (program files and k-mania.Ini to a directory, so copy them i.e. to
"C:\Portable Kleptomania\Appdata". First you have to create the directory structure we used
in Chapter II, "Bringing NSIS To The Game".
Registry changes
The registry changes captured by Total Uninstall show nothing important, except from
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
\Kleptomania 2.5"
This is required when you want to uninstall Kleptomania, but as you've seen in Chapter II it
is not written to the registry when you launch the portable version of a program.
Because there are no other changes we should pay attention to, so uninstall Kleptomania.
Make sure you have copied all program files and k-mania.Ini to "C:\Portable Kleptomania"
directory.
So we have the program files and the settings file (k-mania.Ini). Let's examine the latter one.
First, search for any path in this .ini file (the easiest way is to search for paths is searching
for ":\").
There are two of them:
Install Path=C:\PROGRA~1\KLEPTO~1\
Database Path=C:\PROGRA~1\KLEPTO~1\k-mania.Pat
Change it to relative paths, like so:
Install Path=.\Appdata\
Database Path=.\Appdata\k-mania.Pat
Unfortunately there's no entry which defines the location of k-mania.Ini (its location is hard-
coded).
That's why we should copy it prior to the main program's launch.
Some program, if they find their .ini files in their own directory, will use it instead of the .ini
file in its installed location. To test this, delete k-mania.ini from the Windows directory and
make sure in the program's directory there's the copy of it. Now launch Kleptomania with k-
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mania.exe.
An error message appears, telling that k-mania.Ini not found. So there's nothing left, we
have to copy this ini file to Windows directory. It is not so good because if you have no
admin rights on the target PC, you won't be able to run Kleptomania.
To copy a file with NSIS, use this code:
CopyFiles /SILENT "$EXEDIR\Appdata\k-mania.Ini" "$WINDIR"
/SILENT tells NSIS to copy files in the background.

"$WINDIR" is the destination directory ("C:\Windows" if Windows is located there).
Because we want our settings to be saved, we'll copy this file back to the "Appdata" directory
after k-mania.exe is terminated:
CopyFiles /SILENT "$WINDIR\k-mania.Ini" "$EXEDIR\Appdata\"
This is the same code but with inverted directions.
We also want to keep Windows directory clean, so at the end of the scrip we'll delete k-
mania.Ini file:
Delete "$WINDIR\k-mania.Ini"
Because there's no registry settings to bother with, the NSIS script is very simple (you have
to pay attention to the words written in red):
;---Definitions----
!define SNAME "Portable Kleptomania"
;----Includes----
CRCCheck off
AutoCloseWindow True
SilentInstall silent
WindowIcon off
XPSTYLE on
;-----Set basic information-----
Name "${SNAME}"
Icon "${SNAME}.ico"
Caption "${SNAME} Launcher"
OutFile "..\${SNAME}.exe"
;-----Version Information------
LoadLanguageFile "${NSISDIR}\Contrib\Language files\English.nlf"
VIAddVersionKey /LANG=${LANG_ENGLISH} "ProductName" "Portable Kleptomania Launcher"
VIAddVersionKey /LANG=${LANG_ENGLISH} "FileDescription" "Portable Kleptomania"
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Section "Main"
CopyFiles /SILENT "$EXEDIR\Appdata\k-mania.Ini" "$WINDIR"

Sleep 300
ExecWait "$EXEDIR\Appdata\k-mania.exe"
CopyFiles /SILENT "$WINDIR\k-mania.Ini" "$EXEDIR\Appdata\"

Sleep 500
Delete "$WINDIR\k-mania.Ini"
SectionEnd
Note that there's a "Sleep 500" before deleting k-mania.Ini.
Save this script with name "Portable Kleptomania.nsi" in directory "C:\Portable Kleptomania
\Source".
Now only the icon is missing, so extract it from k-mania.exe with Icons From File, and save it
with name "Portable Kleptomania.ico" in directory "C:\Portable Kleptomania\Source".
Remember that the name of the .nsi file and the .ico file must be the same.
Now open makeNSISw.exe, drag and drop the script file "Portable Kleptomania.nsi" and
theoretically the launcher exe is created in the parent directory ("C:\Portable Kleptomania
\Portable Kleptomania.exe").
Do some testing to see if everything works as expected. You can use some of the tools if
you wish:
 First of all, copy the whole "Portable Kleptomania" directory to a USB drive and try it on
another PC (or copy it over a lan if available). Try it on as many computers as you can.
 Total Uninstall: instead of a setup file, use the program's main exe file. Let TU do a system
scan and then let it launch the exe. Do some things in the program and close it. Now see
what changes were made to your system.
 RegMon, FileMon: monitor the portable's activity and see if everything works as expected.
 Launch the portable, then rename k-mania.Ini file in the Appdata folder. Now close
Kleptomania and see if the k-mania.Ini file is copied back or not to the Appdata folder. If
not, check your script (and, of course, rename the .ini file back).
 Launch Portable Kleptomania and change some settings in it (in the Properties page).
Now close it and see if it is reflected in the .ini file. Now launch it again and see if your
settings came back or not.
Note: you can use wildcards to copy files if you wish. For example,
CopyFiles /SILENT "$EXEDIR\Appdata\*.*" "$WINDIR"
will copy all files (and directories) from the Appdata directory to the Windows directory. Use
it with care, especially when deleting files in this way.
Another note: if you copy files this way, you may overwrite the local installation's settings
file (if any). To prevent this, you should rename the local installation's k-mania.Ini file before
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launching portable Kleptomania, and at the end you should restore its original name. For
example, if you rename the local "k-mania".Ini to "k-mania_.Ini" will keep it from overwriting.
In the next topic you'll see how to rename files with NSIS.
4.7 7. More File Management

In this topic I'll show you how to create and delete a directory and how to rename files.
Creating Directories
Knowing how to create a directory with NSIS is necessary because if you have to copy files,
NSIS will not copy anything if the destination directory doesn't exists. It is a bit annoying but
fortunately it is very easy to create a directory (the example is from the NSIS Help):
4.9.3.3 CreateDirectory
path_to_create
Creates (recursively if necessary) the specified directory. The error flag is set
if the directory couldn't be created.
You should always specify an absolute path.
CreateDirectory $INSTDIR\some\directory
What is important to note from it:
- creates directories recursively: so, if you would create a subdirectory structure, you should
only create the last directory in it, like so:
CreateDirectory "C:\RootDir\Subdir1\Subdir2\Subdir3"
In this case, if there was no "Rootdir" earlier, 4 directories will be created.
- absolute path: you shouldn't specifiy a directory with relative path, like 'CreateDirectory
"MyFolder" ' or 'CreateDirectory "..\" ' because it won't work.
In fact, specifying directories which are relative to the launcher's path is very easy with NSIS
as you've seen earlier (think of "$EXEDIR" or "$APPDATA").
You should also use the double quotes (") when specifying a path, to ensure that NSIS will
recognize them properly. For example, if you specify the path "C:\My very new directory\hey
this is newer\even newer directory\help how to get out of here" without quotes, NSIS will give
you an error because it thinks that the spaces in in are delimiters. However, this is
acceptable (with no quotes):
CreateDirectory C:\RootDir\Subdir1\Subdir2\Subdir3
because it has no spaces in names of the directories. You should also pay attention to this
when working with registry keys.
When will you need to create a directory? For example, when an application stores its
settings in the application data folder. Then you should copy all files to this directory from
you USB drive prior to launching the main exe. When you close the program, the launcher
should copy all files from application data folder back to the USB drive. Doing so, on next
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run your settings will be the same on every PC, no need to reconfigure the application.
To create a directory in the user's application data directory, use this code:
CreateDirectory "$APPDATA\MySoftware\Settings\"
Note that this "$APPDATA" is not the same as "Appdata". "$APPDATA" is substituted by
NSIS to
"C:\Documents and Settings\YOURUSERNAME\Application Data"
where YOURUSERNAME is the logged in user's name (which is probably different on

another computer).
Appdata is, on the other hand, the directory where we keep the main program files.
Deleting Directories
In some cases you may want to delete a directory. It is very simple with NSIS:
RMDir "$APPDATA\MySoftware\Settings"
This will remove the "Settings" directory from "Application Data\MySoftware" directory. If you
add an extra "/r" switch after RMDir, it will delete all files from the specified directory and
from its subdirectories. So, if you got "Settings" directory with a "Data" subdirectory, using
the "/r" switch will remove all files in the "Settings" directory and also removes its "Data"
subdirectory.
RMDir /r "$APPDATA\MySoftware\Settings"
Renaming Files
You may find yourself in a situation when you have to rename some files. You can do it for
example if you would like to keep local installation files intact or when a software stores its
settings in a file or folder that must contain the logged in user's name.
In the first situation, you should rename the local installation's file (or files) before launching
the main exe, and after closing it, you should restore its original name. It is somewhat better
than overwriting the original one (as we would do with k-mania.Ini in the previous topic, if a
local Kleptomania is present on the host computer) because if our portable accidentally
crashes, the original file would be in its original location, we only need to restore its original
name.
To rename a file, use this code:
Rename "$EXEDIR\Backup\settings.ini" "$EXEDIR\Backup\settings_new.ini"
It will rename "settings.ini" to "settings_new.ini". The first parameter is the file's path with the
old name and the second one is its path and its new name.
It works with directories also; so if you want to rename a directory, just give the source path
and the destination path.
© tpr 2007
The second situation needs a more complicated code:
System::Call "advapi32::GetUserName(t .r0, *i ${NSIS_MAX_STRLEN} r1) i.r2"
Rename "$EXEDIR\Backup\settings.ini" "$EXEDIR\Backup\settings-$0.ini"
The first line of the code gets the logged in user's name and stores it in $0.
The second line renames "settings.ini" file to "settings.ini-USERNAME.ini".
You'll probably not see applications that requires this kind of renaming too often but if you
come across one, you'll know how to handle it. If not, go to NSIS forum and search for a
solution.
4.8 8. Registering Libraries

You may want to create a portable launcher (wrapper) for a software that needs a .dll or
other (i.e. .ocx) library files to be registered. With NSIS it is not a big deal registering them.
You may see some .dll files copied to the Windows or Windows\System32 (or other)
directories during the installation (in Total Uninstall's changes log). First you should try to
copy this file or files to the program's directory, next to the main exe file (in the "Appdata"
directory if you use the same directory structure as I). If solves the problem in most cases
because softwares can use those dll files from their directories if they find it there (provided
if the software is programmed so).
If you test your portable and you get an error message that some dll or other files are
missing, you have to copy these files to their original installed location before the main
executive starts (see topic "File Management" in this chapter on how to copy files). You
shouldn't overwrite any files in the Windows or other directory because you may overwrite
newer files with older ones. To eliminate this problem, make a backup of original files by
renaming it before copying and restoring their names on closing the portable, or copying it to
the USB drive and at the and copying it back.
If you modify your portable in this way, the error message(s) should disappear and your
portable should work. But in some cases, you should see another error message:
"downloadthewholeinternet.dll is not registered"
That's because you have to register that dll file before launching the main exe. To do this,
use the following code:
RegDLL "$EXEDIR\Appdata\downloadthewholeinternet.dll"
As you can see it is very straightforward. And it is safe because it uses the dll file that is
located on your USB drive. When the the main exe is closed, the launcher should unregister
that dll to keep the host PC clean:
UnREGDLL "$EXEDIR\Appdata\downloadthewholeinternet.dll"
Alternatively, you can use this method:
ExecWait 'regsvr32.exe /s "$EXEDIR\Appdata\downloadthewholeinternet.dll"'
© tpr 2007
This method uses the "regsvr32.exe" file located in the "Windows\System32" directory. The
"/s" switch stands for silent mode, so you'll see nothing when regsvr32.exe register that dll.
To unregister, use
ExecWait 'regsvr32.exe /u /s "$EXEDIR\Appdata\downloadthewholeinternet.dll"'
code, where "/u" switch stands for "ungregister".
To see what switches are available, double-click on "Windows\System32\regsvr32.exe".
Note that I used ExecWait here but you can use Exec action also. But because ExecWait
waits until the executed process is closed, it is better to use it here. Also note the quotes
used here. The whole command is wrapped around with single quote (') to ensure the whole
expression is evaluated together.
4.9 9. Installing MSI Files

There are some special cases when you will have to silently install and .msi file to make your
portable work. This .msi file is not the main setup file of the software, it only installs an
additional feature that must be present on the local computer for the portable to run. You
should use it with care because it may install older files on the host computer, overwriting
newer version of them.
To install an .msi file silently, use this code:
ExecWait 'MSIEXEC.EXE /i "$EXEDIR\Appdata\msi\Microsoft_VC80_MFC_x86.msi" /qn /

norestart' $0
Because this it may take some to time to finish, it is better to use ExecWait instead of Exec.
Of course, you can add some extra waiting with the sleep command (i.e. Sleep 500) but it
should work without it also.
To see what switches are available, double-click on "Windows\System32\msiexec.exe".
ExecWait 'MSIEXEC.EXE /x "$EXEDIR\Appdata\msi\Microsoft_VC80_MFC_x86.msi" /qn /

norestart' $0
Because you don't know whether the msi package is installed on the host computer or not,
use it only in cases if you're 100% sure it can be removed without any harm. However, I had
to install an .msi file only one time so far (out of some hundred portables). If you're unsure, I
recommend you not to uninstall it. It's still better if an earlier version remains on the host PC
than no version at all.
Note: in this guide I used "Exec" or "ExecWait" every time I wanted to launch an application.
But in some cases you have to use "ExecShell" to launch a file. The NSIS Help says about
ExecShell:
4.9.1.3 ExecShell
action command [parameters] [SW_SHOWNORMAL | SW_SHOWMAXIMIZED | SW_SHOWMINIMIZED |

SW_HIDE]
Execute the specified program using ShellExecute. Note that action is usually "open", "print",
etc, but can be an empty string to use the default action. Parameters and the show type are
© tpr 2007
optional. $OUTDIR is used for the working directory. The error flag is set if the process
could not be launched.
Note: If you want to launch an exe file, Exec or ExecWait will do. But if you want to open (or
whatever the default action is associated with that file type) other files such as bitmaps, text
documents, etc, you should use ExecShell (Exec or ExecWait won't work in these cases).
4.10 10. Time and Date

In some cases you may want to set the system time or date back before starting your
portable and restoring the current time and date a few seconds later. In the example below
we'll set the date back 5 years and restore the actual date after 3 seconds. Thus it won't do
any harm to your system (hopefully).
This is not a common thing that you would use in your portables but I'll show you how to do
that, maybe it will come handy to you.
To be able to do this, you'll have to modify the NSIS script to include the Time plugin.
Although the plugin is in the right place ("Tools\NSIS 2.17\Plugins" and "Tools\NSIS 2.17
\Include" directories, you have to put this line in your script under the other Includes:
;----Includes----
!include "Time.nsh"
Now comes the fun part. First you have to understand the main steps:
1. Store the current local date to $0 variable

2. Set any number in $1 variable (in the example below it is 5, which means 5 years now)
3. Compute the new date and store it in $2
4. Set the new local date based on $2
5. Sleep 1 seconds
6. Start main exe, than Sleep 2 seconds
7. Set the number you've set in Step 2 in $3 (you can use $1 again if you wish instead of $3)
8. Compute new date ($2 date + 3 seconds which is the result of the two sleeps) and store it
in $4
9. Set the new local date (which is in fact the current date)
10.Unload the Time plugin
And here's the code (change the "Application.exe" to your application's name):
Section "Main"
${time::GetLocalTime} $0
StrCpy $1 5
${time::MathTime} "date($0) - date(0.0.$1 0:0:0) = date" $2
${time::SetLocalTime} "$2" $R0
Sleep 1000
Exec "$EXEDIR\Application.exe"
Sleep 2000
StrCpy $3 5
${time::MathTime} "date($2) + date(0.0.$3 0:0:03) = date" $4
${time::SetLocalTime} "$4" $R0
Sleep 200
© tpr 2007
${time::Unload}
SectionEnd
Of course, the new time may differ from the current time in some milliseconds but I think it is
not a big deal.
This script may come handy if the software checks the current time and it doesn't start if the
date exceeds a specific date (for example when the trial period is over). You can alter the
script the way you want, of course.
As I said, you will probably not use this script when creating your portables. But it shows that
NSIS can cope with some other things also beside what I showed you earlier. Actually this is
another script I get from the NSIS forum, but of course I had to modify it a bit. So if you have
a problem that needs to be solved with NSIS, just go to the forum and perform a search
there. If you've found nothing, you may ask the gurus there about it, I'm sure they'll come up
with an answer or recommend you another way to solve the problem.
4.11 11. .NET and Java

Some softwares require .NET Framework or Java to be installed on the host computer to
run. You cannot even install them if they are not present in the system. You'll see these
messages if you try to install them:
However, you can make these software portable but they won't work at all if the host
computer hasn't got .NET or Java installed. Of course, you have to make it on a computer
with .NET or Java is installed. Personally I prefer stand-alone applications which don't rely
on other softwares to run.
If you really want to bring a .NET or Java software with you wherever you go, you may be
interested in virtual applications. However, this guide is about portable softwares so I won't
discuss virtual ones here. See the last chapter "Final Words" for some info about them.
© tpr 2007
4.12 12. Reducing Size

When you create a portable you should pay attention to its size. If you want to put it on your
USB stick, it should be as small as possible but also should be fully functional.
The most obvious way to reduce size is to delete some irrelevant files. Usually there are
some files in a program's directory which are not needed to run the program. You may
delete them but make sure that you delete only those files which the program doesn't need.
These files may be:
 log files (.log, .txt) if you don't want any log files. You may also need to disable logging in
the program's settings to ensure the log file won't come back again on next run.
 .gid, .cnt files: these are help file's accessories as I know. Although it is re-generated when
you launch the help file but you can delete them to reduce size temporarily.
 help files (.hlp, .chm, .pdf, etc.). Delete these files only in cases when you are 100% sure
you don't want to use it later. If you plan to share your portable with other people you
shouldn't delete these files as others may need them.
 some smaller text files, info files, html files, files without extension, etc. These files may
contain licence details, ordering info, general info about the software, and so on.
 language files: these can be in various formats. If you don't want any other languages
beside you own language, you can delete other ones. But again, if you want to share it
with others you shouldn't get rid of them.
 some image files, but make sure the program runs well even if these images are missing
 skin files: some program come with an enormous number of skins and they may take up
very much disk space. If you want to reduce size you may delete them. If the program
needs at least one skin file to run, select one that suits best to your likings and delete the
others.
 source files: I almost always include the source file of my portable launcher and I
encourage you to do the same. Doing so, people may look at the code and can see what's
going on when they launch the launcher and they can also learn from it. But if you are not
so generous you may delete these files.
Another way to reduce size is using UPX.
UPX is a free, portable, extendable, high-performance executable packer for several

different executable formats. It achieves an excellent compression ratio and offers very fast
decompression. Your executables suffer no memory overhead or other drawbacks because
of in-place decompression.
The beauty of upx is that it compresses .exe, .ocx, .dll and .com files with an excellent ratio
and these files can be launched directly after compression. So, you may reduce a size of an
executable that was originally 2 MB to 1 MB and it remains usable.
Although upx is a very nice tool to reduce file size you must use it with care. Some programs
won't accept upx-ed files so always backup them before compressing them. If the programs
starts up as expected you should thoroughly test to make sure every function of the program
is working properly.
My experience is that compressing .exe files is safe, if they run after compressing they'll
probably run without any problems. But compressing .dll, .ocx and .com files is not so
obvious so you should test them.
© tpr 2007
The NSIS script has a line that says:
CRCCheck off
This disables CRC check so the launcher will not check if its size is the same as it was when
creating it.
If you change it to "CRCCheck on" and compress it with upx, you'll get an error when you try
to launch the resulting .exe file:
NSIS Error
The installer you are trying to use is corrupted or incomplete.

This could be the result of a damaged disk, a failed download or a virus.
You may want to contact the author of this installer to obtain a new copy.
It may be possible to skip this check using the /NCRC command line switch
(NOT RECOMMENDED).
If you want to protect your portable launcher, use "CRCCheck on". If a virus modifies the
size of the launcher it simply will not run and thus protects your computer from being
infected. And because your portable may travel from one computer to another it is greatly
exposed to virus attacks.
Until now I did compress my launchers with upx because I was a brave man. But as I reread
my last few lines I thought I shouldn't be so brave...
You can find upx in directory "Tools\UPX 2.03" so you do not need to download it. But I
recommend to check if there's a newer version available before using it.
You can see in its website how to use UPX from command line. Here's an example for
compressing "toobigfile.dll" (with maximum compression):
"D:\Tools\UPX\upx.exe" -9 "H:\Data\toobigfile.dll"
And another one for decompressing:
"D:\Tools\UPX\upx.exe" -d "H:\Data\toobigfile.dll"
To compress files with upx I use it from command line but I created a context menu with
PowerPro so I only have to select files and select "Compress with UPX" or "Uncompress
with UPX" from the context menu. It is not a built-in feature but you should add it manually. I
won't discuss PowerPro here; see the website or its forum for more info about it.
Using it from command line is somewhat cumbersome if you have a large number of files to
compress so I recommend you to use a GUI for that like UPX Mass Compressor, UPX Shell,
UPX-it or other tools. Unfortunately from this list only UPX Mass Compressor has the ability
to compress several files at once but maybe you'll find another great GUI for it on the net.
4.13 13. Failures

From all that I've written so far in this guide you could think that every attempt to create a
portable version of a software would be crowned with success. But unfortunately it's not true.
Even if you're an experienced portable creator, there will be many cases when you simply
© tpr 2007
can't get the portable version to work.
However, there are signs of possible future failures when you start creating the portable:
 setup installs a service

 setup installs a driver
 software protection is based on hardware ID (so the portable you create won't work on
other computers because the hardware ID is not the same as on your computer)
 the software is heavily tied to the registry (hundreds or even thousands of registry keys -
although in these cases it is possible to create a working portable version but it can be a
really hard work)
 the launcher should copy too many files to the host computer. For example, copying some
100 MB of data before launching the main exe would take a lot of time. Again, it is
possible to get it work but the portable will be hell slow.
 .NET or Java is required to run the software (see topic 11 ".NET and Java" in this chapter)
 etc.
As I wrote before, if the user has no admin rights he or she may not be able to run the
portable. So if you have a chance to decide how to make the portable, make it that way that
users without admin rights could also use it.
5 Final Words
By this time you should have enough knowledge about how to create a portable launcher.
You've seen that there's no simple method that works for every software. Sometimes it may
take a lot of time to create one but in other cases it'll take only a few minutes.
When you become more and more experienced, the time you spent on creating a portable
app will be only the fraction of that you spent on it now. You'll see that all I wrote here is only
the basics, it's up to you and your creativity to make better portables.
Sometimes you'll come across softwares that cannot be made portable, or at least not with
this method. But NSIS can do a lot more than I discussed here. In fact, this is only the tip of
the iceberg, just go to the NSIS Forum and see what topics are there. And NSIS is only an
install maker software, imagine what could a hardcore programmer do if he begin producing
portables... Sky's the limit, I think.
I cannot finish this guide without mentioning Thinstall Virtualization Suite. It brings a brand
new approach to creating (or modifying) applications that run without installation. Info about
it from their website:
Thinstall is an Application Virtualization Platform that enables complex software to be

delivered as self-contained EXE files which can run instantly with zero installation from any
data source.
Furthermore, thinstalled applications can run even if the user has no admin rights on the
computer and they do not use the Windows registry. They run in a portable manner but it's
an entirely new technology, that's why we call them virtual or thinstalled applications.
Maybe that's the way this whole portable-thing will go, but right now hand-made portable (or
© tpr 2007
portablized) applications are more reliable than their thinstalled counterparts, I think. There
are so many question marks about thinstalled applications. Some programs cannot be
thinstalled but portable versions of them are working good, and vice versa. So which one is
better? The one that works, I think, no matter if it is portable or thinstalled.
I think we'll see a lot of happenings in the portable field in the following months and years, so
stay tuned.
© tpr 2007

Make Portable With NSIS

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Make Portable With NSIS

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Contents I

Part II Chapter I - General Information 3

Part III Chapter II - The Basics 8

Part IV Chapter III - Advanced Topics 39

11 11. .NET and...................................................................................................................................

Part V Final Words 59

2 Chapter I - General Information

It also restores the settings of a local installation of the program, if any.

2.2 2. About Portables

What is a portable app?

portable - carried or moved with ease

Consider the Possibilities...

 Carry your web browser with all your favorite bookmarks

2.3 3. Required Level Of Knowledge

2.4 4. Softwares Used

Icons From File

Of course, you can use other softwares if you wish.

2.5 5. Overview Of The Launcher

2.6 6. Choosing The Software

So, back to trial limitations... Basically two situations can occur:

2.7 7. Safe Portable

3 Chapter II - The Basics

3.1 1. Selecting Software

Info about the software from its website:

My Notes Keeper is the premier note/outliner application for Windows 9x/2000/XP/NT. It

3.2 2. Capturing Changes

Now MNK is registered, you can close it.

3.3 3. Interpreting Results

3.4 4. File System Changes

The first branch is "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\My Notes

Next one is "C:\WINDOWS\Debug\UserMode\userenv.log". Just a log file, delete this

directory and some other files "wbem\Repository\FS" directory.

3.5 5. Windows Registry

The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and HKEY_CURRENT_USER nodes have a similar structure

"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Vendor's name\Application's name\Version\Setting

3.6 6. Registry Changes

Now it has three items:

Expand the second one (CLSID) and its sub-branch

Here's only one branch:

In HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE the first branch is

Next one is "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows

If you have printers installed, you may have

NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Printers\YOUR PRINTER'S NAME". Delete it from the list.

3.7 7. Validating Results

Because we have exported registration info to a .reg file (RegInfo.reg, remember?), we

So the key we need is

Now press Enter and RW should jump to this key instantly.

3.8 8. Bringing NSIS To The Game

Appdata directory: the main program files go here

location of registry data (RegInfo.reg, Settings.reg, RegClean.reg,

the NSIS source file of the launcher (Portable Application.nsi) and

3.9 9. Modifying The Template

In the third line you'll find this:

!define SNAME "Portable Application"

VIAddVersionKey /LANG=${LANG_ENGLISH} "FileVersion" "0.1"

In Section "Main" you can see these lines:

${registry::RestoreKey} "$EXEDIR\portable\Settings.reg" $R0

$EXEDIR\portable\Settings.reg ---> D:\MyPortables\portable\Settings.reg (if you launch it

$INSTDIR, $OUTDIR, $CMDLINE, $LANGUAGE, $PROGRAMFILES, $COMMONFILES, $DESKTOP,

The next line is "${registry::RestoreKey} "$EXEDIR\portable\RegInfo.reg" $R0". It import the

Next two lines can be deleted ("${registry::RestoreKey} "$EXEDIR\portable\DirSettings.reg"

The next part is straightforward:

;-----Launching My Notes Keeper------