Minimal installation (Windows)

[mjung]

I am going on holiday

Now I would like to use Xnview at the internetcoffees. But I do not like to install it on these pc's.
The idea is to run Xnview from the compact flash of the camera.
If I test at home I only need the file "xnview.exe" and it looks good. But on this pc is also a normal installation of Xnview - and I am not sure if this would also run on an other pc.

Is it possible to run Xnview direct without a installation. And what is the absolute minimum I need from the files.

Thanks
Markus

[helmut]

Note: The following information is a little bit technical and not intended for novice Windows users.

XnView does not need any installation since all the settings are stored in the xnview.ini and bookmark.ini, located in the program directory of XnView. Mainly, the installation (setup) is for convenience reasons and allows easy installation and deinstallation.

This means that you just need to know which XnView files you need and make them available on a drive (local drive, CD rom, network drive, or even a memory stick), further installation is not needed.

The minimal version, which is available on the XnView download page almost contains the minimum of files and is about 900 KB in size, only.
So I recommend to download the ZIP archive and unpack it to a directory. Then you can copy or move the files to the drive you need (memory stick, digital camera, ...)

If the minimal version is still to large, you can remove its language dlls and the skins, actually the two files xnview.exe and xnview.exe.manifest are the only two files needed to run XnView.

Sure enough, you can also add specific language files and make your tailored version of XnView. When starting, XnView will automatically use the available files, given that these are located in the correct directories (language, plugins, help, ...).

Please note, that you must not distribute your tailored XnView version (put on a download page or give to a large number of people), since this might make support very hard for us, also the licence agreements might be missing.

Wish you nice holidays!

[mjung]

Thanks for the good reply. (Was not to technical)

[Guest]

You might also want to copy the xnview.ini file to mantain your preferences/configuration. This is, save xnview.exe, xnview.exe.manifest, xnview.ini and your language file to run XnView from a portable device (such as a camera's memory stick or a pen drive).

[helmut]

You might also want to copy the xnview.ini file to mantain your preferences/configuration. This is, save xnview.exe, xnview.exe.manifest, xnview.ini and your language file to run XnView from a portable device (such as a camera's memory stick or a pen drive).

Right, in the case you want to have specific settings the "xnview.ini" must be added. It should work out of the box, but it might be a good idea to edit the 'xnview.ini" with a text editor (e.g. notepad) and search for some settings and change these. For example, all recently used paths and files won't work on another computer (unless it's a clone), so it might be good to clear these.

For clearing a specific value you can set it to nothing (e.g. "SavePath="). For settings that are not available in xnview.ini, XnView will use a default value, so you can alternatively remove the whole entry.

- Clean the most recently used files:

Code: Select all

DirName_0=
DirName_1=
DirName_2=
DirName_3=
DirName_4=
DirName_5=
DirName_6=
DirName_7=
DirName_8=
DirName_9=

FileName_0=
FileName_1=
FileName_2=
FileName_3=
FileName_4=
FileName_5=
FileName_6=
FileName_7=
FileName_8=
FileName_9=

- Change initial path and save path:

Code: Select all

PathBrowse=D:\Projekt_XnView\Test-Bilder\

PathSave=D:\Projekt_XnView\Test-Bilder\Info icons\

[Drahken]

Note that you won't be able to view some filetypes without the appropriate plugins. If you'll just be viewing common types like JPG and PNG, don't worry about it. Otherwise, look in your plugins folder and find the plugin for the filetypes you plan to view and copy them to your portable disk.

(Personally, I always prefer to download the minimal version of xnview, then grab the plugins and such seperately. The normal version contains too much stuff that is usless to me (like all the non-english language files). I also prefer to download zips over installers whenever the option is available.)

[helmut]

Please note that the XnView.exe file is no longer packed with an executable packer. This means that the .exe file is larger and so is the minimal version of XnView. The above mentioned size of 900kByte is no longer valid, a stripped down minimal version is about 4.7MB in size (one language file, no Shell extension, no help file, no filter, no plugins, no addons, only default icon skin).

See topic for more background info on executable packer:
- XnView incompatible with Data Execution Protection