Thunderbird Plus

I don't know what was done by the LupoPen crew to make this a "Plus", but I am very surprised that it did not include an import tool to import from an installed version of Thunderbird to the portable version.

I have tried every which way to get the mail, accounts, address book and settings moved over with absolutely no luck. I followed the steps on the mozilla site too. No help. Mozbackup too. No Help.

Is there some reason why the portable version cannot import from the installed version? Is there some reason why copying the files over per the mozilla site's help file instructions does not work?

Can somebody suggest how to make the switch?

Don

It's very strange, I have successfully used the mozilla wizard that appear at the first start. Have you a particular error during the importing, or it only doesn't work?

What mozilla wizard do you speak of. All I found at the mozilla site was instructions to copy contents of data\profiles in the installed version to data\profiles in the portable version. I did that and it did not work. I had only a single profile so the portable limit of a single profile should not be the problem

I then tried to use mozbackup utility to back up the installed version with the idea of restoring it to the portable version. mozbackup failed three times because it could not open a zip file.

I still can't believe you can not simply import from one version to another. Could such a feature be that difficult to incorporate? I'm not a programmer so I do not know.

Thanks,
Don

Thunderbird doesn't include a feature to import settings from another Thunderbird installation because you can install it only once per computer. Anyway if you have an installed version of it and you want to import local settings in the portable version, you have to correctly copy your profile folder.
Your local Thunderbird profile is usually installed in "C:\Documents and Settings\[user]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\default.???\" Just copy all of those files to the "Data\profile" directory within Thunderbird Plus (note that you mustn't copy "C:\Documents and Settings\[user]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles" folder, but the content of its subfolder "default.???" in the "Data\profile" folder, otherwise it doesn't work fine).
Sometimes, certain profiles will cause the launcher to fail or hang. In that case, start from scratch and try just copying your mailstores ("Mail" and "ImapMail" directories) and your "prefs.js" and "abook.mab" files.

At this page you could fine some useful info about files that compose your profile settings:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Thunderbird

I just extracted the newest version of the suite. The directory structure looks like this:
F:\LupoPenSuite v6.72 Full\Apps\Thunderbird Plus\App\DefaultData\profile
also available is this path:
F:\LupoPenSuitev6.72Full\Apps\ThunderbirdPlus\thunderbird\defaults\profile
and:
F:\LupoPenSuite v6.72 Full\Apps\Thunderbird Plus\data

Note that the last one does not have a \profile folder in it, yet I suspect that is the location that you refer to above as Data\profile.

I will put a \profile folder there and then copy the contents of default.??? into it.

If that is not correct please drop me another note.

Thanks,
Don

Yes, the correct directory is:
[...]\Apps\Thunderbird Plus\Data\profile

It is created at the first Thunderbird startup: you can create it and copy setting files there, or you can run Thunderbird one time and then close it, remove files included in profile folder and replace them with your setting files.

Thank you. I did exactly as I described above and it worked! Thank you.

I have noticed that Thunderbird Plus is very slow to load whether the Suite is installed on a thumb drive or an external hard drive, though it is faster on the hard drive.

I have not worked with other stuff in the suite yet so I don't know if that is unique to Thunderbird. I will try it on an installed hard drive and see if speed improves.

Yes, I normally use the Suite from hard disk, because the read/write speed of pendrive is slower. I think the good solution is to use the Full version on hard disk and the Zero version with some essential apps on the usb key.

As I use the Suite more and more I will have it installed on all my computers and a thumbdrive with just the most used applications. On my external hard drive I will keep the entire suite installed just in case I ever need an application I did not keep on the local drives.

Thanks again for your help.

Don

I copied the entire contents of my thumbdrive with the suite on it to an external harddrive. I then moved it to another computer. When I opened the launcher from the systray and selected Thunderbird Plus I got an error message saying it could not be run.

If I double-click on ThunderbirdPortable.exe it runs OK.

Any idea what the problem might be?

Don

Can you post a screenshot of the error? It could be a problem of the main launcher ASuite.. but I'm not sure..