HELP / FAQ / HOW TO

It’s a program that you can use WITHOUT INSTALLATION! Yes! Just 1-click and it runs. They’re usually a single exe file, packed personally by me. You’ve really nothing to do, just download & use it with 1-click! Easy huh? Welcome to portable world 🙂

[ DEEPER EXPLAINATION ]
PRO
A portable app is a program that doesn’t need installation – or activation usually. All is pre-configured and packed in a single ready-to-run executable, you just launch it and use the software. You can also put that executable wherever you want, in any folder, even on a removable USB stick, bringing your programs on any PC with ease – hence the name portable! It does not modify the host computer, as all configurations are saved into Sandbox folder near the main executable. Deleting that folder will reset the portable to ‘just-downloaded’ state, in case you messed up something.

It’s the easiest way to get a program and I’m sure you agree!

CONS
Despite how good this is, nothing is perfect. ‘Packing’ implicates some kind of virtualization, in fact a software is not born to be run on a USB drive or in any folder different than Program Files. That’s why virtualization is needed, the software runs in some kind of micro virtual machine, without the OS but only the program inside. It still has communication with host system of course, for example to open or save files outside Sandbox. It thinks it C: drive is Sandbox, while still being able to manage stuff outside it.

You may guess this is tricky, and it is indeed. Virtualization can have some problems, depending on how the virtualized software is programmed, or on the system version it runs on.
All portables I publish are made on latest Windows version available, and functionality is guaranteed only on that same version, despite there’s a big chance it also works on previous build of same Windows and even in previous Windows versions, depends again on how the software behaves.
Note that an installed version of the same software that is portabilized, or similar other programs, might – or might not – interfere with the functionality of the software. All you have to do is try.

General problems of virtualization are:
1. a little worse performance, depends again on the software, often you won’t notice it, but that’s why big games are not much useful and I don’t make them
2. if the portable starts and works, some secondary tool might misbehave a bit or even crash the software. That’s some hidden incompatibility, I can’t fully test each portable I make, if you find any just send me a notice, maybe I can help!

I can’t find a program that I want portable!

You can REQUEST it! See contact page! I’ll be happy to portabilize it for you asap, although I’m always quite busy.

E’ un programma che può essere eseguito senza installazione. Esatto! Basta un click e parte immediatamente. Di solito si presentano come un singolo file exe creato personalmente da me. A te non resta altro che scaricarlo, doppio click e funzionerà subito! Facile no? Benvenuto nel mondo dei portable.

Non sporcano il pc né il registro, hanno i propri file di configurazione affianco, nella stessa cartella dove sono salvati, invece che sparsi per il computer. Perciò li puoi mettere anche su una chiavetta USB e farli partire su qualsiasi PC, con tutti i tuoi file, le tue cronologie e le tue impostazioni: da qui la parola Portable!

Per il resto, la funzionalità è al 100% come quella di un programma installato 🙂

Non riesco a trovare un programma che mi piacerebbe avere portable!

Puoi sempre farne richiesta! Visita la pagina Contact Us e scrivimi pure in italiano, mi siete più simpatici ovviamente. Cercherò di soddisfare la tua richiesta anche se sono sempre molto impegnato. Sapete, ingegneria.

It’s easy! You need a program that lets you extract the files from the rar parts.
This program is WinRAR and I have it, portable!
get it here: https://thehouseofportable.com/32/winrar/
Once downloaded, open it, (optional: maybe set it as default for rar files through settings) and open the first part you downloaded, and extract the files in it. WinRAR will automatically extract from all the parts you downloaded (you must have them in the same folder)!
Password is thehouseofportable.com for latest portables (since ~2018), for older it’s thop+thop. Make sure to extract using winrar latest version, other softwares like 7zip may cause problems.
Note: if you downloaded all archives, extract with latest winrar version 5.80+ and the extraction is successful, it means the files are good (no need to re-download or re-extract)
E’ facile! Ti serve un programma che ti fa estrarre i file dalle parti rar che hai scaricato.
Questo programma è WinRAR e noi l’abbiamo!
scaricalo qui: https://thehouseofportable.com/32/winrar/
Quando l’hai scaricato, aprilo (opzionale: se vuoi puoi impostarlo come predefinito per aprire i file rar, nelle impostazioni) e apri la prima parte che hai scaricato, ed estrai i file da lì. WinRAR estrarrà da solo i file da tutte le parti che hai scaricato (ma devi averle nella stessa cartella)!
La password è sempre thehouseofportable.com per gli ultimi portable (dal ~2018), se non va per i più vecchi era thop+thop. Assicurati di estrarre con l’ultima versione di winrar e non altri software, cose come 7zip possono causare problemi, o persino chiedere la password quando in realtà non è richiesta.

WHY?

I divide big files in multiple parts to allow users download easily (if it was 1 big part, the download can be interrupted easily and you’re fked up) and if we provide mirrors you can download more than one parts at a time, so even faster!

Divido i file pesanti in più parti per permettere agli utenti di scaricare più tranquilli (se fosse una parte sola, se succede che si interrompe dovete scaricare tutto di nuovo) e se riusciamo a mettere mirror, potete scaricare più di una parte contemporaneamente quindi ancora più veloce!

You may have clicked on some ads – so check better how to download, scroll to point 6!
Probabilmente hai cliccato su qualche pubblicità, controlla meglio come scaricare dai vari siti… vedi punto 6.

If you DONT see the download website, maybe it’s down for a while, or maybe it has been blacked out by your government – but in that case it might be a simple DNS obscuration! Here’s how to bypass it, on Windows 7-8-10. Google ‘how to change dns on ***’ if you have a different OS!

• Start -> Control Panel
• Choose Network and Internet and go to the Network and Sharing Center
• Click on Change adapter settings
• Right click on the network you’re using -> Properties
• scroll down to Internet Protocol Version 4 and click on Properties
• choose Use the following DNS server addresses and enter these: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
• Click OK. Now do the same thing for Internet Protocol Version 6 and enter these: 2001:4860:4860::8888 and 2001:4860:4860::8844
• ok ok ok exit and that’s it! you should see the website.

In italia è molto probabile che tu non riesca a vedere NowDownload o RapidGator. E ci credo, li hanno oscurati! (o anche altri siti) Ma è facile aggirare il blocco.. ecco come fare su Windows 7-8-10, se hai altri sistemi cerca su google ‘come cambiare i dns su..’ il tuo sistema operativo

• Clicca su Start -> Pannello di Controllo -> Rete e Internet -> Centro connessioni di rete e condivisione
• Clicca nella barra a sinistra Modifica impostazioni scheda
• fai tasto destro sulla connessione che stai usando, e scegli Proprietà
• scorri giù e scegli Protocollo Internet versione 4 e scegli Proprietà
• scegli Utilizza i seguenti indirizzi server DNS e inserisci: 8.8.8.8 e 8.8.4.4
• clicca OK. Fai la stessa cosa per Protocollo Internet versione 6 e inserisci: 2001:4860:4860::8888 e 2001:4860:4860::8844
• ok ok ok, esci e per magia ora vedrai il sito che prima sembrava non esistere! 😀

!! A file is doesn’t exist (deleted) only if you read that it’s deleted. If you don’t see the website, that doesn’t mean it’s deleted – in that case, go to point 4.
Unfortunately almost all the hosts delete the files after 30 days if they’re not downloaded. This almost never happens, we’re popular enough! 😛 Another reason is that the file has infringed the copyright, so it was reported and then deleted. Don’t comment for deleted files, fill in the form below! I’ll reupload asap, if I can, I’ve a life out there 🙂

Il file non esiste solo se c’è scritto e lo leggi che è stato cancellato/non trovato. Se non vedi proprio il sito, NON vuol dire che è stato cancellato! In quel caso devi vedere il punto 4 sopra.
Purtroppo quasi tutti gli host cancellano i file se non vengono scaricati per 30 giorni, anche se questo non succede quasi mai. Un’altra ragione può essere che il file ha infranto qualche misterioso copyright, è stato segnalato e in seguito cancellato. Non commentare se hanno cancellato un file, ma riempi il form qui sotto! Cercherò di ricaricarlo appena riesco, se riesco, eh già anch’io ho una vita ^^

3 steps:
(1) In the post: scroll to download table and the links in the last column are download links, select ‘Portable’ or ‘Setup’ format (if available), and version (latest is strongly recommended). Plugins are optional, in a different row and with different download links.
Once a row is selected, each link in the last column contains the same files but hosted on different websites. Why?? Since you can’t download more than 1 file at a time from the same host (unless you have premium account), having more ‘mirrors’ lets you make multiple downloads from different hosts and download faster overall. Click a link (aka select one of the hosts), then:

(2) In the /download/ page: (white/grey box page) after that there will be n links (where n is the number of parts), one link for each part. (link are loaded after some seconds, make sure javascript is enabled because it’s needed to load links. Colorful buttons are ads.. 🙂 ).
Note: You have to download all parts, (file name: xxxxx.part1.rar) so if a release has 3 parts you have to download part1+part2+part3. For example you can download part1 from mexashare, part2 from turbobit, part3 from rapidgator – that’s why they’re called ‘mirrors’.

(3) After download: extract from first part using winrar (see step 2), and run the exe file. Everything is ready for you, no installation needed and nothing else, just use 🙂 portable magic!

At beginning of November 2018 I implemented a new method for links which is crazy easier for me instead of doing everything by hand.
I can update links easily and add mirrors in a second -> more time to make portables 😉
If you’re having issues with this new links, that may be due to javascript not loading correctly. Links are generated with a little script made by a friend, so js must be enabled for you to see links.
Possible solution: Try refreshing that page with Ctrl+F5 (=hard refresh) and make sure nothing is blocking javascript (check little icons at the end of URL bar for notifications or popups saying ‘script blocked’ or whatever)
If you’re still having issues, sorry 🙁 contact me in Contact page

binbox.io is a website where users can paste text. I use it to paste file links so in the blog’s posts we can post only 1 link instead of tons of links (and for some other security reasons).

When you go to a binbox.io link from our blog, you’ll probably see some ads, ignore them (but always remember that if you click ads, you will help everybody, and you lose nothing :).
PASSWORD: The password that binbox asks you is included in the link itself, after the hash(#). It should bypass it automatically, but sometimes  it doesn’t. So copy the part of the link after the # and paste it when it asks for it!
you can also look at the picture below
binbox.io è un sito dove puoi incollare del testo. Noi lo usiamo per incollare i link, così nei post del blog possiamo postare solo un link e non duemila (per i file a più parti) e anche per ragioni di sicurezza.
Quando vai su un link di binbox.io dal nostro blog, probabilmente vedrai della pubblicità ma ignorala (ricorda comunque che se la clicchi aiuti tutti e tu non perdi nulla :).
PASSWORD: la password che binbox ti chiede in realtà è già inclusa nel link che clicchi, ed è il pezzo dopo il cancelletto #. Dovrebbe funzionare automaticamente, senza che tu la debba inserire, ma se te la chiede, sai da dove prenderla!

Common issue with an easy fix. Usually the missing file is in the format “_____XXX.dll” where XXX is a number like 100 or 140. This is just a generic Microsoft library missing, and to solve that you have to either install that library (official Microsoft link) or download a small .svm file made by me which should fix those errors (use this if you don’t have Admin access to install stuff)

If you have admin, I suggest you to install official Microsoft libraries:

• ____80.dll -> install  Microsoft Redistributable Package 2005 x64
• ____90.dll -> install  Microsoft Redistributable Package 2008 x64
• ___100.dll -> install  Microsoft Redistributable Package 2010 x64
• ___110.dll -> install  Microsoft Redistributable Package 2012 x64
• ___120.dll -> install  Microsoft Redistributable Package 2013 x64
• ___140.dll -> install  Microsoft Redistributable Package 2015 x64

If you don’t have admin, you can try downloading this little .svm file I made which contains all the dll mentioned above (ending with 3 numbers), put it next to main portable exe and run it again, read notes for more info.

If you have an error regarding something like api-ms-win-core-string-l1-1-0.dll, you’re in terrible danger because you’re using Windows 7, isn’t it? W7 is ten years old and will get discontinued on January 2020, please update. All portables are made on latest w11 and best functionality is on it. Also, don’t wait for “Windows 11” to update your system – there won’t be any. Windows 10 will be the last one ever. So get it now 🙂
For other dlls without a number, try looking on google (do NOT download the single dll, never do it!), or contact me for help. Most likely this is not solvable, portables are strange and not always like the system they run on. Of course the dll mentioned in the error is always included in the package, but sometimes somehow it fails to load in portable mode for obscure reasons. Make sure you stay updated with latest portable and windows versions.

It could be different things:

• You used the integrated Win11 folders to extract my multi-part RAR archive. This feature is completely BROKEN, and CUTS the output file without showing any error. Check the extracted size: it is probably like 500MB instead of 1GB+. Stupid win11 used only data from part1, ignoring the rest. The worst thing is that it shows no errors at extraction, and no errors at execution: it just starts with THOP splash and then closes. Of course. So please, use WinRAR to extract. (More rant here)
• You’re using a portable built before May 2019 and you’re running latest win10 update version 1903+. This new update broke these ‘old portables’ resulting in a blank execution (no errors). There are 3 possible solutions, explained here (also read description): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp4nKMOJfIE
  Note: maybe there’s a new portable version available for your program, always check and stay up to date, newer portables have this fixed. Future Windows updates may break things again, blame ol’ Bill.

Yet another Windows update that broke everything, like it happened in 2019. This time, it is the Win11 update 24H2 from October 2024 (update KB5046740) that caused all (I guess) previous portables to break and show this error.
The solution, unfortunately, afaik, is only to use a portable built from November 2024 onwards. (No magic fix like error 7b – yet?). Or to downgrade your system and uninstall update KB5046740. Or use a virtual machine with an older win10/win11 installed. If you really need an older app that I made and you can’t downgrade etc, you can try asking me by email, and I can try to rebuild it for you with the time that I have… pls be patient w me 🙂

This is one of the weirdest errors ever happened. I am pretty sure you have a Windows version newer than that, right? And still, the app complains for some reason. This error is still under investigation, I think it happens only on Photoshop, otherwise kindly tell me. Anyway, one user had a surprising twist: Ps was showing that error if he run the app from an external disk (in his case, an external SSD), while the app started normally if he put the app on the internal disk (in his case, an internal HDD), usually C:, where Windows is installed. Please try this and let me know!