Nemp can be installed via the installer, but it can also be used as portable software. To do this, simply unzip the zip archive to a location of your choice.

Installation

The file NempSetup.exe will install Nemp on your computer. Follow the instructions and/or change the defaults as you wish.

Portable version

Download the file Nemp.zip and unzip the file to a folder of your choice. Then run the nemp.exe to start listening to your favorite music.

"The installation is faulty"

If a message window is displayed when Nemp is started stating that the installation is faulty, this is usually because the "portable version" was copied to a directory in which Nemp has no write permissions. This is usually the case in "C:\Program Files (x86)" and "C:\Program Files". A likely cause is that you extracted the zip archive in the "Program Files" directory.

You can fix this problem in the following ways - this usually requires administrator privileges.

  1. Convert the portable version to an "installed" version. To do this, delete or rename the file UseLocalData.cfg in the installation directory. 
  2. Enable the usage as "portable software". For example, move the installation directory to the folder where your other portable programs are located. (You may then need to adjust the access rights).
  3. Alternatively, you can change the access rights in the currently locked data directory, i.e. remove the write protection. (Not recommended.)

You can open the respective directories by clicking on the respective button in the message window in the Explorer and make the changes. After restarting Nemp, this message should then no longer be displayed.

Portable version on a read-only medium

If you want to use Nemp in portable mode on a read-only medium, then you can add the following lines to UseLocalData.cfg to suppress this warning at startup:

[Settings]
ShowWarning=0

Please note that Nemp will then not be able to save any data or settings, and will no longer display any warning messages.

Technical backgrounds

The question that is relevant to, or where the two versions differ, is this: "Where should the settings be stored?"

For an "installed program", it is generally expected that all settings and other files required by the program are written to the user directory. For "portable software", it should be written directly to the directory where the application itself is located.

Up to version 4.13, this question was simply settled on the basis of the directory to which Nemp was copied. If the directory was the programs folder (e.g. c:\program files), then the data was written to the user directory, as is common practice under Windows. Otherwise, the data was written directly to the programs directory. However, this heuristic no longer works on some devices and thus causes some errors.

Since version 4.14 there is therefore a marker file in the nemp directory:

  • If the file UseLocalData.cfg is present, the data is stored locally in the program directory.
  • If the file UseLocalData.cfg is not present, the data goes into the user directory.

The content of this file does not matter at first - it is only a matter of whether the file is present or not. The installation tool of Nemp asks whether Nemp should be installed portably and copies this file into the Nemp directory - or not. The zip archive contains this file, so Nemp becomes "portable" in this sense.

Further explanations about the portability of Nemp in section USB-Discs, the cloud and portability.