How can I update my portable 64bit Notepad++ without losing my settings / data?

Cletos

PeterJones

You just have to keep your various settings files: so when you browse into the zipfile, instead of unzipping and overwriting everything in your destination, first de-select the config files, like stylers.xml, shortcuts.xml, session.xml, … and any of the other .xml files that you have customized.

Or you can unzip to a new location, then copy over those *.xml from the original portable to the new portable. If you do it this way, you can also copy over the various subfolders from your original portable’s plugins directory.

PeterJones

Additional info for first paragraph: I think all you really need from the zipfile is the notepad++.exe, NppShell_06.dll, SciLexer.dll; oh, and plugins\Config\nppPluginList.dll

Cletos

[QUOTE]You just have to keep your various settings files: so when you browse into the zipfile, instead of unzipping and overwriting everything in your destination, first de-select the config files, like stylers.xml, shortcuts.xml, session.xml, … and any of the other .xml files that you have customized.[/QUOTE]
I didn’t customize any files (directly), so I do not know which files these are.

[QUOTE]Or you can unzip to a new location, then copy over those *.xml from the original portable to the new portable. If you do it this way, you can also copy over the various subfolders from your original portable’s plugins directory.[/QUOTE]
But may be I will lose updates (of files) when I just overwrite them or isn’t that possible? So I do not know which ones to overwrite which ones not.

[QUOTE]

Additional info for first paragraph: I think all you really need from the zipfile is the notepad++.exe, NppShell_06.dll, SciLexer.dll; oh, and plugins\Config\nppPluginList.dll[/QUOTE]
So 4 files are enough to be copied to my (old) Notepad++?

PeterJones

@Cletos said:

[QUOTE]…[/QUOTE]

This forum uses Markdown syntax, so you prefix quotes with old-fashioned email quote characters: the > at the beginning of the line. The little ? next to the word COMPOSE in the upper-right of this edit window takes you to a popup which directs you to the site I linked above. The PREVIEW window to the right shows you what will be seen once you SUBMIT your post.

I didn’t customize any files (directly), so I do not know which files these are.

If their dates are newer than the notepad++.exe, they were probably edited at some point. Pretty much any of the .xml files in the listed directory are likely to be customized.

But may be I will lose updates (of files) when I just overwrite them or isn’t that possible? So I do not know which ones to overwrite which ones not.

Yes. Your choices are keep your old settings, or update to the newest defaults. The chances are, if you’re only upgrading a version or two, none of the settings have been added to those files; they are pretty static, so keeping the old .xml shouldn’t hurt.

So 4 files are enough to be copied to my (old) Notepad++?

As I said, “I think all you really need”. I make no guarantees, but as far as I know, that’s sufficient.

Actually, the mimimalist 7z from the download page and the portable zip package and 7z package don’t even have the NppShell_06.dll, so it’s not strictly necessary. (i think you need it if you want the “shell extension”, but I don’t think that one changes often, either, so you can probably leave your old copy of it. And I think it only comes with the installer version, so you won’t need to worry about that anyway.)

It would very much surprise me if it didn’t work by just updating the three files: notepad++.exe, SciLexer.dll; plugins\Config\nppPluginList.dll. (And the third is only necessary if you’re looking for newer versions of plugins that weren’t available at the last NPP version.)

Cletos

Very sorry about the old fashioned e-mail characters, I cannot cope with this forum software at all. When I click “Reply” the text I want to reply to is disaapeared. Many thanks for the link.

So updating Notepad sounds quite complicated (for me).

If their dates are newer than the notepad++.exe, they were probably edited at some point. Pretty much any of the .xml files in the listed directory are likely to be customized.

So there might be some which should be overwritten if I understand it right.

Yes. Your choices are keep your old settings, or update to the newest defaults.

So get that (part of the) update or not or keep one’s own settings or not. if I see it right, Very strange handling. What might be the sense of it?

It would very much surprise me if it didn’t work by just updating the three files: notepad++.exe, SciLexer.dll; plugins\Config\nppPluginList.dll. (And the third is only necessary if you’re looking for newer versions of plugins that weren’t available at the last NPP version.)

That surprises me, so only 3, 4 files of Notepad are really updated, each time generally, obviously.

So the easiest / best I could do - like mentioned abouve - is to each time just unzip the new version and copy my old version over the new one, and that is it?

PeterJones

You’re making this much more complicated than it is. You have two real options:

Unzip to a new directory, and copy over all the .xml files from your old portable into the new portable. No decisions to be made.
Unzip the ~3 files (exe, dll, dll) from the zipfile overtop of what you already have. No decisions to be made.

Either way, you run a miniscule risk of having your old settings file be missing some new setting that didn’t exist in the old version… but that rarely happens. I’m still actively using .xml config files that I started using back in the 7.5.x era (2017), and they still work, and I don’t notice any features that haven’t been properly configured.

So get that (part of the) update or not or keep one’s own settings or not. … Very strange handling. What might be the sense of it?

The “sense” of it is that trying to do a settings merge is a non-trivial task (and since you chose to not use an installer, you don’t even have that extra program to try to do the merge for you). If you want to do a merge, you could do a file-compare using Notepad++ and the Compare Plugin, and see where things are different between your new/fresh portable and your customized portable – and just copy over the settings you want. But that’s a lot of extra work. In most cases, the merge (whether automated or manual) is pointless, since you really just want the same old settings as you had before, and no new settings were added into the config file.

That surprises me, so only 3, 4 files of Notepad are really updated, each time generally, obviously.

There are just a couple of binary files; the others are all config files. And the structure of the config files isn’t really changing (or at least, not changing much) from one version to the next.

Cletos

Alright, many thanks, so from now on I always will just unzip the new portable version and copy my old version over this new one (clicking the option) overwriting all the files. Seems to be the easiest way.

(and since you chose to not use an installer, you don’t even have that extra program to try to do the merge for you).

So the installer always installs all updates, respectively parts of an update and keeps one’s own settings / without deleting any own settings. I am wondering why this procedure is not supplied for the portable version.

Alan Kilborn

@Peter Jones said:

You’re making this much more complicated than it is.

Wow. Strongly agree.

@Cletos said:

so from now on I always will just unzip the new portable version and copy my old version over this new one (clicking the option) overwriting all the files.

I don’t think that is what Peter said to do. But given the fact that nothing seems to be “getting through” I guess this thread should probably stop now.

Cletos

Very sorry :

So from now on I always will just unzip the new portable version and copy all the xml files of my old version over this new one (clicking the option) overwriting all the files. Seems to be the easiest way.

Or remove all the xml files from the new version and copy the rest over the old version.

Alan Kilborn

@PeterJones said:

Unzip the ~3 files (exe, dll, dll) from the zipfile overtop of what you already have.

THAT sounds simplest for your situation @Cletos , but that’s just my 2c.

I’m still actively using .xml config files that I started using back in the 7.5.x era (2017), and they still work, and I don’t notice any features that haven’t been properly configured.

Here’s what I do (note: this is way too advanced for @Cletos), note that I always run portable:

get minimalist zip file for version I currently have
get minimialist zip for version I’m migrating to
compare the zips (using BeyondCompare)
copy my existing configuration xml to the migrating version folder (over the newer xml)
manually add anything that I need to (from the results of the compare) to the xml files so that I don’t miss new features or potentially have strange stuff happen (at least this has worked for me thus far)

Cletos

THAT sounds simplest for your situation @Cletos , but that’s just my 2c.

Yes, that is very great, thank you!

Here’s what I do (note: this is way too advanced for @Cletos), note that I always run portable:

Yes, extreemly too advanced. Sounds like a quite big effort.