Some apps not working as portable; only installed

Questions about Wine on Linux
Locked
F_style
Level 4
Level 4
Posts: 153
Joined: Sat Sep 25, 2010 8:55 pm

Some apps not working as portable; only installed

Post by F_style »

I have found some Windows applications fail to run with the "portable" versions, and only work with the installer versions.

For example, with Pale Moon browser (currently the only example I clearly recall), running the portable version just gives:
"Your Pale Moon profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible"
As mentioned, it only works with the installer.

I read around internet that Wine perhaps creates and saves some unknown data in order to emulate complete Windows environment for the application in question.
But, how would this explain the failure with portable applications?

Any help or ideas?
Thanks.
jkfloris
Level 12
Level 12
Posts: 3136
Joined: Thu Aug 14, 2014 10:10 am

Re: Some apps not working as portable; only installed

Post by jkfloris »

I can't reproduce your issue with Wine 4.12.1 and Pale Moon Portable 28.6.0.1 (32 or 64-bit).

How do you start the browser?
Do you have write permissions in the directory where the "Palemoon-Portable.exe" is?
User avatar
Bob Wya
Level 12
Level 12
Posts: 3068
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2010 7:40 pm

Re: Some apps not working as portable; only installed

Post by Bob Wya »

@F_style

You didn't state what version of Palemoon you are running...
But you should be made aware that their Windows archive version were recently compromised.

I personally wouldn't trust a tiny team like this, to maintain and distribute such a complex piece of software.
Especially a web browser, which is the primary attack surface on most desktop systems.

Bob
lahmbi5678
Level 7
Level 7
Posts: 823
Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2009 6:23 am

Re: Some apps not working as portable; only installed

Post by lahmbi5678 »

Well, the strategy of the Pale Moon and Waterfox developers is to look at the patches of the Firefox project and incorporate useful changes into their project. Especially the security fixes are scrutinously looked at and integrated when they are relevant. So you can assume, that you are roughly getting the same level of security as a Firefox user.

Concerning security, we as users are completely fooled anyways. Remember the recent RDP hole (from Windows 2k to 10). Before it was publicly fixed, I heard in a number of forums, that it was widely abused already, there were logs, etc, people just didn't know exactly, what was going on. Imo all these holes are known (to some organizations) for some time and will only ever get fixed, if script kiddies or evil countries already are using them in public. You can safely assume, that the 3-letters organizations knew about that one many years before. Computer security is a joke.
F_style
Level 4
Level 4
Posts: 153
Joined: Sat Sep 25, 2010 8:55 pm

Re: Some apps not working as portable; only installed

Post by F_style »

I used to use Firefox, but got tired of its eventual changes circa since "quantum"; and I had already heard about Pale Moon and their "relationship" with Mozilla, but the trigger making me to switch browsers was this.

@Bob Wya:
Actually I have never used the archive versions; I prefer to use always latest. The post there says that, seemingly and luckily, only the archive versions were affected.

Anyway, sorry, I realize I gave no information about my issue.

I use openSUSE Leap 15.0, did an update and now using Wine 4.12.1.
I tried latest Pale Moon 28.6.0.1 (32 bit) portable.

Began with brand new clean Wine prefix. Only changed option in winecfg being emulating Windows 10 (default is still Windows 7).
After running the self-extractor, tried both

Code: Select all

cd ~/testDirectory
wine Pale-Moon-Portable.exe

Code: Select all

wine ~/testDirectory/Pale-Moon-Portable.exe
(Sorry, I can't recall the exact name of the executable... Also, last time I used Wine *years ago*, second way didn't work and wasn't even supported)

And this time no messages at all: browser simply doesn't start. Just one second of waiting, then command does nothing. And there's no output in console.

Changing permissions recursively to 0777 in testDirectory (just as a test) didn't work neither.
jkfloris
Level 12
Level 12
Posts: 3136
Joined: Thu Aug 14, 2014 10:10 am

Re: Some apps not working as portable; only installed

Post by jkfloris »

Only changed option in winecfg being emulating Windows 10
I can confirm that setting the Windows version to Windows 10 breaks the program. Any other version will work.
F_style
Level 4
Level 4
Posts: 153
Joined: Sat Sep 25, 2010 8:55 pm

Re: Some apps not working as portable; only installed

Post by F_style »

Yes, you're right: now it worked for me as well!

I guess the previous Wine version was somewhat a bit broken...?
Anyway, thanks very much. Pale Moon portable does run.

Too bad it's buggy: any attempt to download something from it results in Wine freezing and breaking (Ctrl+C).
Also, dll plugins put into browser's Lib/Mozilla/Plugins directory are not recognized by Pale Moon. This certainly surprised me. Any theory?
Locked