Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[chrisjj]

Following the only documentation I found on registering a portable install - this forum post - I  made a portable install under a Win7 standard user. On registering it I got

1 a UAC dialog asking for Admin permission - which I think I really should not have got - then after providing the licence file...
2 this dialog reporting sucess, then
3 this dialog reporting an error, then
4 I am left with the portable installation showing unregistered when run by the standard user (though registered when 'Run as administrator').

How can I fix the registration failure, please?

Thanks.

[JimH]

A wiki search yielded this topic:

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Portable_Drive_Installation

[chrisjj]

A wiki search yielded this topic:

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Portable_Drive_Installation

Thanks, but that article provides no information on registering a portable install.

[JimH]

You need to install it from a machine that has a licensed copy of MC installed.

[chrisjj]

Thanks Jim but I already did. As I said: I followed the documentation, which includes that.

[JimH]

If you install from a licensed machine, using the same version, you should not need to install a license at all.

[Alex B]

No license install is required or possible. A portable install includes the original registration data. It is not possible to register it anyhow.

I just tested this. I created a new "standard user" account on Windows 7 Home Premium. MC was already installed and registered (on my administrator account.) I got the UAC prompt once when I started the MC installer on this standard account, but it was just asking a permission from an administrator to run the installer (i.e. it was necessary to provide a Windows password from an administrator.) Nothing else was needed for creating a registered portable install.

[chrisjj]

No license install is required

I wonder then why the portable install is saying it is unregistered.

or possible.

Nevertheless, it is offered.

A portable install includes the original registration data.

This portable install says not.

It is not possible to register it anyhow.

OK, thanks.

Suggestion for Devs: remove this non-functional registration command from the portable install.

I just tested this. I created a new "standard user" account on Windows 7 Home Premium. MC was already installed and registered (on my administrator account.)

Ah, you're going from one account to another. I was using just one account. I'll try your method. Thanks.

[JimH]

The Portable Install is designed for something like a USB flash drive.  What are you installing it on?  Is it the same version as your licensed copy? 

[chrisjj]

The Portable Install is designed for something like a USB flash drive.  What are you installing it on?

A USB flash drive, IDed by Win7 IDs as a "Removable Disk", hardware "Generic Flash Disk USB Device".

Is it the same version as your licensed copy?  

Yes (18.0.106)

The installer says Upgrading from a previous version... but since I gave it a fresh directory, this is apparently in error.

[chrisjj]

I created a new "standard user" account on Windows 7 Home Premium. MC was already installed and registered (on my administrator account.)

I just tried that - creating a new Administrator user, installing, registering, creating a portable install, and then verifying in a new standard user account. This worked. Thanks for the workaround.

Then I went back to the old standard user account, and verified the new Admin-created install now shows as registered. But now all the previously unregisted installs also show as registered. Very odd. I wonder if the original failure was due to some secret security check going wrong because of e.g. a pre-existing unregistered install. There was one on the failing user but not one on the succeeding user (<<< Devs). Thanks for that workaround too!

Returning to the regular standard user portable install, if anyone has got this to work on MC18, please do say.

[chrisjj]

Then I went back to the old standard user account, and verified the new Admin-created install now shows as registered.

I spoke to soon. When run normally, it has reverted to unregistered. As have all other portable installs. When 'Run as administrator', they are OK.

It seems that, as Alex says, "A portable install includes the original registration data", but definitely MC can sometimes fail to find it.

[Alex B]

Are you by any chance moving your portable installs between drives? That might explain the behavior you are seeing.

A portable install does not check the registration details from the system specific locations. The registration details are hard coded within the portable instance and they are drive specific (the reason for this should be obvious). When a portable install is moved to a different drive it will start up as unregistered and expired. Running the registration process will not help because it will just install the license for the standard MC instance (or instances, e.g. MC18 license for MC17 & MC18). If you want to move a portable install from a drive to another you must create a new drive specific portable MC instance and restore a library backup file from the first instance.

[chrisjj]

Are you by any chance moving your portable installs between drives? That might explain the behavior you are seeing.

Thanks for the thought Alex, but definitely not. The affected portable installs remained on one USB stick.

A portable install does not check the registration details from the system specific locations. The registration details are hard coded within the portable instance and they are drive specific (the reason for this should be obvious). When a portable install is moved to a different drive it will start up as unregistered and expired.

Useful into - thanks.

Running the registration process will not help because it will just install the license for the standard MC instance (or instances, e.g. MC18 license for MC17 & MC18).

Thanks. Devs, perhaps fix that, or at least put up an alert.

[chrisjj]

Further info: when this portable install's machine is remote accessed, the reported registration status fails.

When locally accessed, it succeeds.

Possibly (but not certainly) for all my previous reports in this topic, failures were under remote access, and successes were under local access. So remote access could be the full explanation.

A non-portable installation does not show the failure.

Is this known behaviour?

[chrisjj]

(Deleted by author after post in error.)

[chrisjj]

The failure doesn't occur when the machine is remote accessing by Logmein.

Is MC deliberately detecting Remote Desktop Connection and disabling the registration, for some reason?