Portable 0.8.51 getting "handle is invalid" error

[DVus]

I have a thumb drive that I have placed Portable 0.8.51 on. I have copied my Library to the drive, and confirmed that I am able to open Portable on my desktop. I moved the thumb drive to my laptop, so that I could import the books into the Library. However, when I try to run Portable on the laptop I get the attached error popup indicating that a handle is invalid.

I have isolated the issue to be that the drive letter assigned to the thumb drive on the desktop when I initially ran the program was M:, and the drive letter assigned to the thumb drive on the laptop was Z: and thus the program is looking on a non-existent M: when the thumb drive is plugged into the laptop. I opened and read a couple of the files in the Settings folder to figure this out.

This invalidates my plan for using Portable. If it is hard coded to a specific drive letter, I cannot move this from one machine to another unless the thumb drive will receive the same drive letter on each machine, in which case why do I want to use Portable at all?

My questions are:
1. Is there a way to have Portable look at the current drive letter rather than a drive letter assignment being hard coded into the config files?
2. Can I edit those files to change M: to something like <current drive>?
3. Can I delete the contents of the Settings folder and have Portable regenerate those for the current drive letter assignment if I move the thumb drive from one machine to another?

Thanks for reading and thinking about this...

[kovidgoyal]

portable does not have hardcoded drives. You need to double click on calibre-portable.exe to launch it. DO not create shortcuts to it.

[DVus]

I am not using a shortcut, I am directly double-clicking the calibre-portable.exe file to execute.

[DVus]

Is it possible that Portable is writing something of a config nature to the local hard drive and not the thumb drive?

The reason I ask is that I just did a test. I freshly formatted a thumb drive, downloaded Portable 0.8.52 from the web site directly to that thumb drive. I then extracted the folders, went to the Calibre Portable folder, double-clicked on calibre-portable.exe and immediately got the "handle is invalid" error shown in my initial post.

I have a large library of about 21GB with over 14,000 books in it that I need to do a lot of cleanup on. Author names, titles, etc. that are inconsistent due to the various sources I have obtained them from. My intent is to use Portable with the library on a thumb drive so I can work on this library whenever I have a chance, on any machine I can access. Be it work desktop, work laptop, home desktop, home laptop, etc.

[DVus]

Along these lines, I did a registry search for "calibre" and found entries in the following registry keys:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\MuiCache - shows F:\Calibre Portable\calibre-portable.exe as an executable program.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\MuiCache - shows F:\Calibre Portable\calibre-portable.exe as an executable program.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\IntelliPoint\ AppSpecific\calibre.exe - most interesting so far, it shows a Path value of G:\Calibre Portable\Calibre\calibre.exe (as opposed to F:\, since it might have originally been used on a thumb drive that was seen as G: instead of F.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Trolltech\OrganizationD efaults\Qt Factory Cache 4.8\com.trolltech.Qt.QIconEngineFactoryInterface:\ F:\Calibre Portable - really has me wondering, what this is? Especially with a name like Trolltech?

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Trolltech\OrganizationD efaults\Qt Factory Cache 4.8\com.trolltech.Qt.QIconEngineFactoryInterface:\ G:\Calibre Portable - another Trolltech entry, this one showing G: instead of F:...

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Trolltech\OrganizationD efaults\Qt Factory Cache 4.8\com.trolltech.Qt.QIconEngineFactoryInterfaceV2 :\F:\Calibre Portable

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Trolltech\OrganizationD efaults\Qt Factory Cache 4.8\com.trolltech.Qt.QIconEngineFactoryInterfaceV2 :\G:\Calibre Portable

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Trolltech\OrganizationD efaults\Qt Factory Cache 4.8\com.trolltech.Qt.QImageIOHandlerFactoryInterfa ce:\F:\Calibre Portable

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Trolltech\OrganizationD efaults\Qt Factory Cache 4.8\com.trolltech.Qt.QImageIOHandlerFactoryInterfa ce:\G:\Calibre Portable

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Trolltech\OrganizationD efaults\Qt Plugin Cache 4.8.false\F:\Calibre Portable

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Trolltech\OrganizationD efaults\Qt Plugin Cache 4.8.false\G:\Calibre Portable

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\RADAR\HeapLe akDetection\DiagnosedApplications\calibre.exe

HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-15890611-392985980-6498272-12734\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\MuiCache - shows F:\Calibre Portable\calibre-portable.exe as an executable program.

HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-15890611-392985980-6498272-12734\Software\Microsoft\IntelliPoint\AppSpecific\ calibre.exe - shows a Path value of G:\Calibre Portable\Calibre\calibre.exe

There was also another whole set of Trolltech keys under HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-15890611-392985980-6498272-12734\Software\Trolltech\OrganizationDefaults\Qt Factory Cache 4.8\com.trolltech.Qt.QIconEngineFactoryInterface:\ F:\Calibre Portable that duplicated the previous set for F: and G: as well as the MUICache keys too.

This sure does seem to be a lot of registry entries pointing to specific drives and paths, especially for an application that is supposed to be portable and keep everything in the application's folders.

I'm not trying to be snippy or anything, merely trying to help point out what I'm seeing so that maybe the application can be modified to operate in the manner I'm hoping for.

[itimpi]

All of those keys look like ones that Windows Has set up as part of its normal operation, not ones Calibre itself has set up.

[DVus]

I edited the registry values that showed a Path value of G:\Calibre Portable\Calibre\calibre.exe to change the drive to F: instead of G:, and also removed the Trolltech keys that specified G: and left the ones that specified F: and I still have the same error.

[DVus]

Is there any way to get Calibre to run in the manner in which I'm attempting? Command line switches, etc., to use an environment variable to assign the current drive letter that Calibre is running from?

As I stated before, I have a large library of about 21GB with over 14,000 books in it that I need to do a lot of cleanup on. I have copied my library and Calibre Portable to the thumb drive, and want to run this as a self-contained stand-alone instance.

I need to do this so I can work on this library whenever I have a chance, on any machine I can access. Be it work desktop, work laptop, home desktop, home laptop, etc. But when I plug the thumb drive into a machine that doesn't assign the same drive letter to the thumb drive as when I set up the library, Calibre Portable won't work.

Am I maybe just missing something easy? I've been through the manual, and even looked at the calibre-portable.bat file in the \Calibre Portable\Calibre\resources folder for clues.

When I start Calibre, I'm using the \Calibre Portable\calibre-portable.exe

Thanks...

[DVus]

Update: I have found that I am able to run Portable from the thumb drive on several machines, using varying drive letters, without any problem.

However, I cannot get it to run on the one machine that I most need to. I still get the same "handle is invalid" error as indicated in the earlier screenshot.

I have successfully run it on:
1) Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit as J: (desktop)
2) Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit as M: (desktop)
3) Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit as F: (laptop)

I cannot get it to run on my Windows 7 Enterprise 32-bit (laptop) as F: or G: or even H:

I tried loading the same version of the full application on the Windows 7 Enterprise 32-bit laptop, and it works fine. I then had to uninstall it because this is my work laptop. I thought, however, that doing this might clean up any registry stuff that was keeping Portable from working. Alas, it did not help as Portable still will not run on this laptop.

Any thoughts on what the problem might be?

Thanks...

[kovidgoyal]

You probably have some security policy on that machine that prevents executables being loaded from removable drives. Try running it from the main hard disk.

[DVus]

Thanks for the reply.

I checked and there's no group policy on that but that Symantec Endpoint is apparently set up to exclude this and the settings are all locked down. I did find that disabling the "Scan for trojans and worms" in the Proactive Threat Protection settings allows Portable to work from the thumb drive. This just happens to be the only setting that isn't locked down.

Thanks for the help in resolving this.... now I can get to work organizing this mess...

Thanks....