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#66 Windows Compatibility
Greetings from the southern shores of Lake Superior. My name is Doug Hollowell.
By my reckoning I have been using PortaBase since 2011. Previously I was using an MS DOS database distributed by Ashton Tate known as Rapidfile. It was very powerful and I was pleased with the programs capabilities but after migrating to the Windows operating system it became a Herculean effort to continue using Rapidfile.
That's when I discovered PortaBase 2.0 and it was a perfect match for my many small database files. I can't thankyou enough for developing PortaBase. During 2012 I upgraded to version 2.1 and have created many useful apps since them.
Sorry for the venting and windy preamble.
For reasons of security in 2023 I purchase a Windows 11 laptop computer. In January of 2024 I initiated the operating system and installed PortaBase 2.1. It worked just as well as it always has on my windows 7 computer. Until mid November of 2024!
At that time I could still open and view a PortaBase database file, but when adding a row or editing an existing record and then clicking the dialog OK button, PortaBase just closes without displaying the main screen and the record / edit is not saved. None of the files attributes have been changed to read only. I've tinkered around for quite awhile and even uninstalled and reinstalled PortaBase and the problem still exists. BTW windows 11 demanded elevated administrative authority to reinstall PortaBase 2.1.
I'm well into my 80's and my cogitating abilities have declined in the last 20 years, So I've decided to reach out to the only PortaBase help source that seems to be available and hoping you might have time to offer a few suggestions for resolving the issue.
If time or any other constraints prevent your assistance or the issue is without remedy that's OK. I'm suspicious that the problem has been caused by Windows Update and I have windows 7 to fall back to. Thanks for reading, Sorry I'm so windy and a big thankyou for PortaBase!
Doug Hollowell
Discussion
Anonymous
Hello! I have been slowly chipping away at getting a new PortaBase release out, and made pretty good progress a few months ago when I got GitHub Actions to build unsigned installers for all the currently supported platforms (although I still need to fix a minor bug that prevented me from downloading the Windows one). You can see the changes since 2.1 at https://github.com/jmbowman/portabase/blob/master/CHANGES ; I'm cautiously optimistic that the upgrade to Qt 5 and other minor bugfixes may address the problem you've hit.
Between a new job and family obligations spare time is in rather short supply at the moment. but I'll see if I can get you at least an updated unsigned Windows installer in the next few days. A signed one that doesn't require admin privileges will take a little longer, since I still need to renew my code signing certificates.
I'm still using PortaBase myself on a daily basis for all kinds of things (primarily on Android, Linux, and sometimes macOS). You'd think that in 22 years someone would have come up with a clear improvement on this little app maintained intermittently in one person's spare time, but I haven't found anything else with the same combination of features plus usability. I really wish I'd been able to spare more time over the years to keep it in better shape (at least tracking Qt upgrades and code signing requirements more promptly) so more people could benefit from it. It just hit a point where there was so much work involved in making a new release that I could almost never get it all done; I'm trying to fix that now through better automation, but that also takes time.
I would also like to have a version of PortaBase which can be writable again on Windows. Some years ago I bought the Android version, so I can still add and modify the database, but it is cumbersome. (I did not check whether WSL works, however)