How does TC store info for plugins?

[MicroSuck]

I put TC on my (very awesome) Windows PE/RE boot disk ("rescue disk"), it's exceptionally well suited for that, and runs in the PE without any modification. But I have no plugins. "Installing" plugins in the PE is somewhat complicated, there is no way to install to the PE while it's running, at least not permanently, anyway. I have to copy it in, somehow. The easy way would be to copy the info from the registry of my real windows system, but I have gone through there pretty well, and can't find anything for TC. And there isn't a config file in the program folder, either (that would be too easy). So how do I install plugins on a system that can't be installed to? The PE boot disk NEEDS TC!


Using Windows 10 Enterprise 19041.450, if it matters, for the PE as well.

[Dalai]

TC doesn't use the Windows registry except for very few basic settings (see HKLM\Software\Ghisler and HKCU\Software\Ghisler). Everything else and also about plugins is set in wincmd.ini which can be located anywhere on the system or even on the network. The location of the currently used wincmd.ini can be seen in TC's Help > About Total Commander. This file can also be directly edited via Configuration > Change Settings Files Directly.

Adding TC to WinPE is certainly possible (I've done it for BartPE and WinPE 3.x, 5.x and newer) and once you understand how the plugins need to be defined in wincmd.ini, it's (relatively) easy to do. The use of %COMMANDER_PATH% and similar variables is recommended when specifying the paths to the plugin files.

Note that each plugin might require its own settings file in a specific location, and some of them may even have additional dependencies like additional runtimes (e.g. Visual C++).

Regards
Dalai

[Stefan2]

Just install the plugins on your computer into TC.

Close TC, edit the wincmd.ini to add UseIniInProgramDir for to work with wincmd.ini in TC folder
[Configuration]
UseIniInProgramDir=7

Install all plugins.

Close TC, edit the wincmd.ini and be sure all paths are relative to the TC folder.

F.ex., Instead of:
[ListerPlugins]
0=C:\Full path to Totalcmd\plugins\wlx\CudaLister\cudalister.wlx
0_detect="EXT = "txt""

Use:
[ListerPlugins]
0=%Commander_Path%\plugins\wlx\CudaLister\cudalister.wlx
0_detect="EXT = "txt""

Or just
[ListerPlugins]
0=plugins\wlx\CudaLister\cudalister.wlx
0_detect="EXT = "txt""


Have dependencies of the plugin in the plugin folder.

Plugin settings are stored mostly in INI files in plugin or TC folder.

At the end just copy the whole TC folder to where you want.



.

[MicroSuck]

Thank you! I got them all working, that was simple enough. I assaulted wincmd.ini with my hex editor, and replaced all instances of "C:\" with "X:\", and it worked perfect.
I know I could have inserted a variable instead, but the PE is always going to be X:\, and there was the possibility of causing errors the way I cheated with my hex editor.