Tag: Launching QAP

How do I make sure that Quick Access Popup is launched when I start Windows?

If you installed Quick Access Popup with the Easy Setup installation, the application is launched automatically when you start Windows. If you prefered the portable installation (ZIP file) you will see hot to enable the auto-start here (this will create a shortcut in the Windows Startup folder).

This option can be turned on or off in one of these ways.

  • Right-click the QAP icon in the Notification Area (System Tray) menu to open the QAP system menu and select/deselect Run at Startup.
    or
  • In the Customize dialog box, select Options, General in the menu bar to open the Options dialog box and check/uncheck the Run at Startup option in General tab.

Notes for users who choose portable install: When you install a the new version of QAP, the shortcut in your Startup folder is automatically updated to launch the new version, if automatic startup is enabled.

1) Installing , , , ,

How can I install Quick Access Popup to make it fully portable?

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

By installing Quick Access Popup 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 Quick Access Popup from an external drive or USB key that can be connected to the host system and removed after usage.

Follow these instructions to install QAP in portable mode.

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

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 QuickAccessPopup-32-bit.exe or QuickAccessPopup-64-bit.exe version depending on your system). Quick Access Popup will create and update the quickaccesspopup.ini file in this folder.
4. At your convenience, create a shortcut on your Desktop or select Run at Startup in the System Tray to launch Quick Access Popup automatically at startup.

If an anti-virus or protection software reports Quick Access Popup as a potential threat, this is not the case. Please read this post: 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 on to stay up-to-date! You may also wish to enable Explorer context menus (right-click in Explorer or Desktop). Read the page Explorer Context Menus Help.

Installing a new version of Quick Access Popup in portable mode

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

More info here: How do I install a new version of Quick Access Popup?.

Quick Access Popup 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 Access Popup does not write any information in the Windows registry or in any system or temporary Windows folder. Running the .EXE file launches Quick Access Popup in its current directory. That’s it!

The app creates a temporary folder named _QAP_temp_nnn to store small images, language files and 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, General tab, if you do not want to use the host computer’s temporary folder.

The only permanent files are created by Quick Access Popup in its own current directory: the QuickAccessPopup.ini file containing your favorite folders and options, the QAP_Frequent.DB SQLite database file containing data required to build dynamic menus and, if you select the Run at Startup option, the QuickAccessPopup.lnk file in your Startup folder.

To completely remove Quick Access Popup from a PC, delete the folder where you are running the app (preserve the QuickAccessPopup.ini and QAP_Frequent.DB files if you plan to re-use QAP) and delete the file QuickAccessPopup.lnk from your C:\Users\[name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup folder. If you enabled Explorer context menu, remove them following the instruction in the Explorer Context Menus Help.

See also:
What file managers are supported in addition to Windows Explorer?
Can I use relative paths in favorite settings?
Can I use system environment variables in favorite paths?

1) Installing , ,

How do I install a new version of Quick Access Popup?

Using the Easy Setup tool

  1. Download the latest version of Quick Access Popup Easy Setup file.
  2. Run the setup file. If QAP is already running, the setup program will close it for you.
  3. Follow the instructions. Quick Access Popup will be launch at the end of the installation.
  4. The setup procedure will preserve your previous configuration and data in the QuickAccessPopup.ini and QAP_Frequent.DB files.

Using the portable ZIP file

  1. Download the latest version of Quick Access Popup Portable installation ZIP file.
  2. Quit your current version of Quick Access Popup: right-click the Quick Access Popup icon in the System Tray and choose Exit Quick Access Popup. If you don’t close QAP before executing the next step, QAP will not be updated.
  3. Extract the new version zip file content in the folder where your current version is installed, overwriting all existing content. Do not worry: this will NOT overwrite your settings in QuickAccessPopup.ini and your dynamic menus data in QAP_Frequent.DB because these files is not part of the ZIP file. All your settings and favorites will be preserved.
  4. For your information, a text file was added to your folder with, in its name, the version of the installed version (for example: QAP-v11_2.txt). You can delete this file as it is not required to run QAP.
  5. Restart Quick Access Popup by double-clicking the executable (.EXE) file of the new version. Choose the 32-bit or 64-bit version depending on your system: QuickAccessPopup-32-bit.exe or QuickAccessPopup-64-bit.exe.
  6. If you enabled this option, the shortcut in your Startup folder is automatically updated and will launch the new version when you will restart Windows.
1) Installing ,

Can I launch QAP with administrator privileges?

Yes, starting with QAP v8.7.1. But do you really want to launch QAP as an administrator? Keep in mind that User Account Control (UAC) is there to protect you against yourselves or against hackers. When running Quick Access Popup in Administrator mode, every application launched by QAP inherits administrative privileges. This can result in unexpected consequences when launching programs that may themselves be infected with malicious code. This could allow malicious programs to inherit administrative privileges and to damage, infect or take control of your computer.

Windows User Account Control (UAC) logo

To launch QAP with “elevated UAC privileges”, click the checkbox Run as administrator in the Options window, Launch Advanced Options tab. After saving options with Run as administrator enabled, QAP will offer to reload itself in Admin mode. On the opposite, after saving with this option turned OFF, QAP could not relaunch itself as normal user because the reloaded instance of QAP would inherit admin privileges. Instead, QAP will offer to quit and you will have to relaunch it yourselves.

When launching QAP with administrator privileges, Windows asks for an administrator password if the current user has normal privileges. If user declines elevation (ie: do not enter the admin password), QAP is launched with normal privileges. If user enters the admin password, QAP displays a security alert to remind user about the risks described earlier. Also, the QAP icon in the Notification zone (tray icon) embeds the Windows UAC logo and the “[admin]” tag is added to the application name in Settings window and other dialog boxes when QAP is running as administrator (only if QAP is running as admin because of the “Run as administrator” option, ie: not if user launched QAP as administrator by other means).

Power user who need to run QAP in admin mode and want to skip the security alert can launch QAP with the command-line parameter /AdminSilent (you can use a Windows shortcut to add this parameter).

A) Harnessing Windows, FAQ ,

Can I set the QAP settings file location from the command line or a file shortcut?

You can set the settings file location from command-line using the parameter “/Settings:”, for example:

"C:\Program Files\Quick Access Popup\QuickAccessPopup.exe" "/Settings:C:\Users\UserName\Documents\Quick Access Popup\My Settings.ini"

Use separate double-quotes for application file and for parameter if the location includes one or more spaces.

If you create a file shortcut (.lnk file) for QAP, insert the command in the Target field.

The Settings file location can include environment variable (like %userprofile%) and supports relative paths based on the QAP working directory. See Can I use system environment variables in favorite paths? and Can I use relative paths in favorite settings?

Note 1: If you only need to change the QAP settings file temporarily, see: Can I load QAP with an alternative settings file?

Note 2: Changing the QAP settings file location does not change the QAP Settings Folder (aka Working Directory). Other settings files (like QAP_Frequent.DB) will still be read or updated in the active Settings folder. See how to change the Settings Folder if you want this change to be persistent for your future use of QAP.

9) Settings File (.ini) , , ,

QAP stops loading with an error message. What happened?

If you use QAP v11.5.3 or more recent, you could see this message alerting you that the last time your favorites were saved, QAP was interrupted before completing its task. When this happens, QAP loads your previous settings and your recent changes are lost. To avoid this error in the future, make sure QAP completes its saving before turning off your computer.

You could also see this error message.

Two reasons can explain this error message:

1) something wrong happened interrupting QAP while it was saving your settings and QAP could not react to fix it;

or 2) you edited the settings file manually and did not respect the structure of the settings file (see What is the structure of QAP settings (ini) file?)

The easiest way to solve this issue is to restore your latest settings backup. You can do it by renaming your current QuickAccessPopup.ini to QuickAccessPopup-broken.ini and renaming your latest backup to QuickAccessPopup.ini.

  1. Open the QAP working directory in your file manager. In the Customize window, select File, Open QAP working directory (pre-v10 users, see What’s the QAP working directory?).
  2. Close QAP before renaming the settings file: select File, Exit Quick Access Popup.
  3. Rename QuickAccessPopup.ini to QuickAccessPopup-broken.ini.
  4. Find your latest backup file and copy it in your QAP working directory. Your backup files are saved in the Main settings file backup folder set in Options, General tab.
  5. Rename this file from something like QuickAccessPopup-backup-20210219.ini (the last part of the file name is the backup date in “YYYYMMDD” format) to QuickAccessPopup.ini.
  6. Restart QAP.
B) Issues ,