How to Check Portable Apps on Removable USB Stick for Available Updates?

[lmacri]

I'm new to Patch My PC and want to know if I can configure this utility to check for available updates for portable apps that I run from a removable USB stick (D:\ drive).  All these apps are located on the USB stick in a folder called D:\Portable in separate subfolders (e.g., D:\Portable\CCleaner, D:\Portable\Speccy 1_32, etc.).



Is it possible to configure Patch My PC to scan the executables in these D:\Portable subfolders when this USB is plugged in to my computer?  I only want to use Patch My PC to scan for available updates but don't plan to use it to actually download installers or perform updates (I'll do that manually).  I've change the portable app download location to D:\Portable as shown below but Patch My PC still doesn't detect any of the portable apps on my USB stick.



Since revising the download path for my portable apps to D:\Portable the first entry in PatchMyPC.log for each of my scans has changed from "Cannot get portable App path from the registry" to "Using portable App path from the registry: D:\Portable" but scans still don't detect that executables for portable editions of CCleaner, Speccy, etc. are located in subfolders of D:\Portable. I'm assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that the Patch My PC interface would list these portable apps in green text if they are up-to-date and are on the list of portable apps at https://patchmypc.com/home-updater that are currently supported by Patch My PC.
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Dell Inspiron 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.3324 * Firefox v117.0.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.23070.1004-1.1.23080.1005 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.6.1.280-1.0.2117 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7279 * Patch My PC v4.5.0.4

[StPendl]

As far as I can tell portable applications are not scanned, they are just downloaded.
I have never used that feature, just made a simple test, where only the ZIP file was downloaded.

[Stuart Watsica]

After installation, launch Patch My PC by double-clicking on its desktop icon or searching for it in your computer's Start menu.

[lmacri]

After installation, launch Patch My PC by double-clicking on its desktop icon or searching for it in your computer's Start menu.

Hi Stuart Watsica:

A Patch My PC scan is able to detect updates for programs installed on the hard drive that create entries in the registry and listed under "Main Software" in the Patch My PC interface, but as far as I can tell it is unable to actually detect the current version number of any portable apps [i.e., apps that are downloaded as a single .exe or .zip file, are not installed in C:\Programs Files or C:\Programs Files (x86), and can be run from any location like removable USB stick] that are listed under "Portable Software" .

See the example in my 13-Oct-2023 reply # 428 in the Wilders Security Forum thread UCheck - Update Your Software in 2 Clicks.  That example shows how I downloaded the current AdwCleaner v8.4.0 portable executable (adwcleaner_8.4.0.exe) to a removable USB stick using Patch My PC and then deleted that v8.4.0 executable and replaced it with an outdated v7.4.2 executable (adwcleaner_7.4.2.exe). Now when I run a scan with Patch My PC it "remembers" that it downloaded v8.4.0 but doesn't actually scan my removable USB to check the version of the outdated executable I am using.

As of today this means Patch My PC (which currently supports only 7 apps on my system) incorrectly reports that I have the latest AdwCleaner v8.4.0 ...



... while SUMo and UCheck ** both detect over 40 installed and portable apps on my system, scan the executables of portable apps on my removable USB stick to check the current version number, and correctly report that I need to update AdwCleaner v7.4.2 to the current v8.4.0.

** Unfortunately, SUMo is reaching end of support on 31-Oct-2023.  As of today UCheck only supports a limited number of portable apps but is planning to expand that list by the end of October 2023.




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Dell Inspiron 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.3570 * Firefox v118.0.2 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.23090.2008-1.1.23090.2007 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.6.4.286-1.0.2163 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7690 * Patch My PC Portable v4.5.0.4 * SUMo Free Portable v5.17.10.542 * UCheck Free Portable v5.0.3.0

[OldNavyGuy]

After installation, launch Patch My PC by double-clicking on its desktop icon or searching for it in your computer's Start menu.

This sounds like a bot...or someone who didn't read the original post.