Went ahead and installed the new T'bird since my previous post failed to be seen. The first issue I've come across is that I can't change C:\ to D\ in the Local Directory setting. Waiting for word from Mozilla.
I’m sure many of us saw your post, but I, for one, had no answers for you. Now, with this post, I’m just puzzled. I don’t know what you mean by “change C:\ to D:\ in the Local Directory setting.” I think that if you state your problem a little more clearly, someone here will try to help.
I’m sure many of us saw your post, but I, for one, had no answers for you. Now, with this post, I’m just puzzled. I don’t know what you mean by “change C:\ to D:\ in the Local Directory setting.” I think that if you state your problem a little more clearly, someone here will try to help.
In Account Settings > Local Directory. I want change C:\ to D:\. Tried it, could not do it. TB disallows changing it. I need to change it. See screenshot.
Another possibility to consider:
(On the basis of your question, I am assuming that you want to keep things off the C:\ drive when possible, and you have a D:\ drive where you keep non-OS stuff when possible.)
Use the portable version of Thunderbird. You don't even have to uninstall your current (installed) version first. Just try the portable and see for yourself. I have mine "installed" on my D:\ drive, and all of its supporting files are kept right there. You can open the ThunderbirdPortable folder, then open the Data folder, and then open the Profile folder, and you'll see all of your mail and settings and operating files stored right there.
If you decide to try the portable, post here with any questions you have, and I'll try to handle them for you. I'm a D-drive-portable-apps addict, and I've had a bunch of experience with the portable versions of many software programs.
Thunderbird is the safe, fast email client that's easy to use. It has lots of great features including quick message search, customizable views, support for IMAP/POP, RSS support and more. Plus, the portable version leaves no personal information behind on the machine you run it on, so you can...
portableapps.com
If you can get your portables from PortableApps.com, do. There are many purveyors of portables online who are less than scrupulous about what they deliver. Portable Apps is absolutely trustworthy, and their versions are absolutely reliable.
Another possibility to consider:
(On the basis of your question, I am assuming that you want to keep things off the C:\ drive when possible, and you have a D:\ drive where you keep non-OS stuff when possible.)
Use the portable version of Thunderbird. You don't even have to uninstall your current (installed) version first. Just try the portable and see for yourself. I have mine "installed" on my D:\ drive, and all of its supporting files are kept right there. You can open the ThunderbirdPortable folder, then open the Data folder, and then open the Profile folder, and you'll see all of your mail and settings and operating files stored right there.
If you decide to try the portable, post here with any questions you have, and I'll try to handle them for you. I'm a D-drive-portable-apps addict, and I've had a bunch of experience with the portable versions of many software programs.
Thunderbird is the safe, fast email client that's easy to use. It has lots of great features including quick message search, customizable views, support for IMAP/POP, RSS support and more. Plus, the portable version leaves no personal information behind on the machine you run it on, so you can...
portableapps.com
If you can get your portables from PortableApps.com, do. There are many purveyors of portables online who are less than scrupulous about what they deliver. Portable Apps is absolutely trustworthy, and their versions are absolutely reliable.
No downsides at all to the TBird portables. I'm running both the 115.2 and the 118.0b2 currently, and I've had numerous flawless updates through the in-app (Help > About) updater, to several editions. The new files go directly to the appropriate folders on D:\, with no futzing required. Once you "install" the portable, you're all set.
But BTW, there have been gobs of complaints about the update from 102 to 115, and when I tried it, I didn't like what I saw, so I just picked up the portable 115 and dumped the portable 102. Even with a brand new version (115), the installation, setup and configuring is so easy that I can do it all in under ten minutes, and then I can send my whole fully configured ThunderbirdPortable folder over to my other PC, with no adjustments required. I'm not absolutely certain, but I don't think you can just copy the profile from an installed version to the profile folder of the portable. But it's straightforward to copy the contents of your Local Folders from one version to another. Piece o' cake. IMAP takes care of the rest of my mail.
The average user is perfectly happy to let an "installation wizard" select a folder (usually in Program Files or PF(x86)) and spread the junk around wherever it wants to, including making unnecessary entries all over the registry, because the average user isn't concerned, period. The more you know, the more care you take of your machines. PortableApps.com caters to people who care and want to make their own choices.
Correct. But my statement was basically asking why programs/apps are made to integrate with the OS when they don't need to?
I understand that some of them might not be able to made portable, but apparently a large number of them can, yet they're not.
Wisewiz summed it up pretty well. A shame, really.
The average user is perfectly happy to let an "installation wizard" select a folder (usually in Program Files or PF(x86)) and spread the junk around wherever it wants to, including making unnecessary entries all over the registry, because the average user isn't concerned, period. The more you know, the more care you take of your machines. PortableApps.com caters to people who care and want to make their own choices.
I'm grateful that you told me about PortableApps.com. I've been aware of only a small handful of portable apps in the 25 years I've been online. Somehow it escaped me that so many more exist. Now I know, and I see a ton of installed apps that are about to go portable on my machine. Not to mention a thorough registry cleaning (I do know how to safely do that).
If you look at the contents of the profile folder for an installed version, you'll see that a bunch of things that are present in the portable profile are missing. Still, since it's easy to "install" the portable in your choice of folder and run it alongside the installed version (even both at the same time, so long as you launch the portable first -- the portable won't launch if there's another Thunderbird running), you don't have to uninstall the installed version, and it's worth a try opening the installed and navigating through Help > Troubleshooting information to the active profile folder, then closing TBird and copying the profile folder's contents (not the folder itself) and pasting them to the ThunderbirdPortable\Data\profile folder, after you copy that profile folder to a holding place, so that if the transfer doesn't work, you can delete the contents of profile and replace them with the original contents.
Just a suggestion. I haven't done the transfer from installed profile to portable profile, but I've copied portable profiles to portable profiles several times, and that works perfectly.
