QCE Portable installation

Most users prefer to install Quick Clipboard Editor Easy Setup installation program. But you may have specific needs that would require a “portable” installation.

By installing Quick Clipboard Editor (QCE) in “portable” mode, you can use the application on a host PC without leaving any trace after usage. This will, for example, allow you to run QCE from an external drive or USB key that can be connected to the host system and removed after usage.

Note: You must not install Quick Clipboard Editor in “portable” mode in a system-protected folders like those under C:\Program Files or C:\. This could prevent QCE from saving your configuration.

Follow these instructions to install QCE in portable mode.

1. Download the zip file under the Portable installation zip file.
2. Just extract the files from the zip file to the folder of your choice (but not in a system-protected folders like those under C:\Program Files or C:\).
3. Run the .EXE file from this folder (choose QuickClipboardEditor-32-bit.exe or QuickClipboardEditor-64-bit.exe version depending on your system). Quick Clipboard Editor will create and update the quickclipboardeditor.ini file in this folder.
4. At your convenience, create a shortcut on your Desktop or select Launch at Startup in Options, Launch to launch Quick Clipboard Editor automatically at startup.

If an anti-virus or protection software reports Quick Clipboard Editor as a potential threat, this is not the case. Please read this post about my other application Quick Access Popup: How can I use QAP if an anti-virus is blocking its download or its execution?

If you are doing a portable “permanent” installation, you could turn the Check for updates option in the Launch section to stay up-to-date!

Installing a new version of Quick Clipboard Editor in portable mode

Updating QCE is easy. All you have to do is to 1) quit QCE to allow overwriting of the the executable file and 2) unzip the content of the new ZIP file over the existing files in your QCE folder. Your settings files (.ini and .DB) will *not* be overwritten.

Quick Clipboard Editor is a Portable App

A portable application, sometimes also called standalone, is a program designed to run on a computer without being installed in a way that modifies the computer’s configuration information. This type of application can be stored on any storage device, including internal mass storage and external storage such as USB drives – storing its program files and any configuration information and data on the storage medium alone (source: Wikipedia).

Specifically, when installed using the Portable installation procedure, Quick Clipboard Editor does not write any information in the Windows registry or in any system or temporary Windows folder. Running the .EXE file launches Quick Clipboard Editor in its current directory. That’s it!

The app creates a temporary folder named _QCE_temp_nnn to store working files required at run time. The default location of the folder is in the Windows %TEMP% folder (e.g. C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Temp). This folder is deleted when the app quits normally. You can set another default location for the temporary folder in Options, Launch tab, if you do not want to use the host computer’s temporary folder.

The only permanent files are created by Quick Clipboard Editor in its own current directory: the QuickClipboardEditor.ini file containing settings and options, the QCE-DB4.db SQLite database file containing data for saved commands and clipboards history and, if you select the Run at Startup option, the QuickClipboardEditor.lnk file in your Startup folder.

To completely remove Quick Clipboard Editor from a PC, delete the folder where you are running the app (preserve the .ini and .DB files if you plan to re-use QCE) and delete the file QuickClipboardEditor.lnk from your C:\Users\[name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup folder.