Hi,

thanks to Fred I finally managed to correctly install an updated version of the German build by clickfish.
Unfortunately this build doesn't include the loader, and I hate that initial startup delay. So I'd like to install the loader (and only the loader) in addition to the existing K-Meleon installation.
How could I do that? Do I only need to extract the loader from the official 0.9 release? What settings do I need additionally?
Maybe someone could post only the needed file(s) plus instructions?

Thanks
Alex

As far as I know it is sufficient to copy and paste the loader.exe
from 0.9 into the top folder of your version.
Pull it over to your desktop using your right mouse key and click
"add shortcut here". An icon will appear in your taskbar.
Fred

Thanks again,

it works like you said. I just wish the loader would be separately downloable. So I had to do another install (of the "official" 0.9 release) just to get the file.

BTW: I know about the shutdown/disk cache problem. Hope somebody will fix it (although the loader doesn't seem to be very popular).

Alex

Fiestaforever, the loader has traditionally not been used, as a number of people have felt it was more trouble than it was worth. It gets in the way, particularly, of multiple instances of K-M. Because the loader keeps the browser running "on idle" when it isn't in use, it prevents a second K-M from being called up.

This is a nuisance if you are running more than one K-M. For all the people using just one K-Meleon, it wouldn't matter. However, they would still have to either disable the loader or else reboot their system when they wished to implement changes to K-M that required the browser to be re-started.

Otherwise they might be left wondering why their changes weren't implemented.

Apart from those items, I've seen the loader rated as "buggy", but I don't know why.

I'm interested that you notice a speed difference. That is what it is there for, and yet I never picked up on any difference myself. More about that would be interesting. Thanks.

Carson, the speed difference concerning the initial launch is easily noticeable, even in the weak "fast" setting. I measured 3 vs. 8-9 seconds without the loader.
Actually, I was amazed by only 8-9 seconds for a cold start.
My initial impressions were much more significant, but that was probably due to special problems I have with my Thinkpad 600E. Its 366 MHz PII processor is *very* often used up 90-100% by different apps and services. This is an increasing problem I have, which I don't quite understand. For a while now, the worst offender is services.exe; but FF w/ a lot of extensions was behaving very badly, too. (No, I don't think I have spyware/trojans/viruses.) For the measurements above, I explicitly used periods of low CPU activity. My earlier impressions were more like 20 seconds or more for a cold start.

Yes, I know that the loader is a memory hog (it constantly takes about 3-3.5 MB of RAM in addition to what the pre-loaded browser needs). Concerning bugs, I can't think of any except the shutdown/disk cache problem reported by kko and now known as Bug 787. This problem could be worked around using a shutdown script that exits the loader and then shuts down (I hope).

The problem is that I want to advocate K-Meleon towards some people that I want to get away from IE. A much longer load time than IE won't be accepted (I know that MS is cheating when it comes to IE's load time). Weird configuration is not so much an issue, as they wouldn't be able to configure IE either ;-)

Alex

loader has disadvantages - (& is possibly buggy //on very few systems shows bugs)
I wish You success & even with buggy loader k-m is IMHO better than MSIE

p. s.

ja stimmt IE lädt schnell - aber MSIE mogelt - und das tut -M mit loader dann auch.

wenn der IE einmal deinstlliert war - lädt er sich m. E. nicht mehr beim start.
und dann ist k-m schon ohne loader schneller. // unpoplär: loader hat halt nen paar
nachteile und macken - mfG

Fiestaforever, your reply is almost exactly what I would have written myself--what I DID write myself--when I switched from Firefox to K-M. I was a very keen experimenter with Firebird --> Firefox up to the end of 0.9.

I found I could play with K-M in a whole new way, because restarts were so quick that I could press the button any old time. I didn't have to wait the 15 to 25 seconds Firefox demanded of my system, which is a slow Celeron 1.7 /512.

I experimented mainly with large numbers (30-50) of extensions running on Firefox, and my Cely was very, very happy when I gave them up for the green lizard.

However, I caution you not to expect too much of your friends on IE6. The reason THEY are not telling YOU to switch away from IE is not by chance; not very likely. It is because IE is brilliantly tailored to a personality that wants to use a computer the way you might use a telephone.

If that seems distasteful--"but, but, but . . . ."--consider your own interest or ability in working under the hood of your car. You may be an expert mechanic, but I'll guess there is a better chance you just want the darned thing to run. (I'm asking for trouble, here, 'cuz Fast sJonny, who used to be here all the time before he switched to Linux, was a motorcycle ace.)

Just my humble opinion. A few of my friends HAVE K-Meleon, but I think every one of them uses only IE--when I ain't looking. :-) Good luck.

@Carson - FF starts almost as fast as k-m when Profile is in the install folder. i tested with older FF portable that starts with bat (had that from Sebstian's page).

Eyes-Only found the same with when installing a suite with profiles inside install folder. If You cut the yellow splash screen out (resource hack) or start by bat using param quiet You get it start yet a little faster. Furthermore You can link its xpt for faster start. Which can be also combined with FF chrome (but about:config not working) to make a fairly fast (a little buggy) starting and browsing little machine.

I am at the moment off line - can probably load up a hacked sea monkey for You end of next week. if You want?

& welcome back home ;-))

Yes yes yes. I always liked Seamonkey. Thank you.

When I used FF, I didn't know about these nifty-keeners ways around things. It would be interesting now to experiment some more. (During the time I worked with FF, there were half a dozen ways to load extensions. Way back, I think before FF 0.8 but I'm not sure, for awhile you could load 30 extensions as fast as you could type--it took maybe a minute for the whole shebang. Cewl.)

Before I reported Bug 787 (the shutdown/disk cache problem), I tried to find a workarround. I had the idea, to shutdown the loader process properly by a windows script. This script - I thought - could then be set up as a logoff script (in Win2k/XP's Group Policies). That turned out to not work (on my Win2k system), because the logoff scripts are executed too late (the loader process is allready killed at that time). But of course, it would be possible to log off/shut down by script and close the loader process before. So, here is my JScript code (designed for Win2k/XP's Windows Management Instrumentation):

var s = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell");
// Get all instances of loader.exe
var t = new Enumerator(GetObject("winmgmts:").ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_Process where name='loader.exe'"));
// For each instance (normally there is only one)
for (t.moveFirst(); !t.atEnd(); t.moveNext()) {
// Create another instance
s.Run("\"" + t.item().ExecutablePath + "\"");
// A window pops up, asking whether we want to close the loader.
// The "Yes" button has the focus, so we simply send an "Enter".
WScript.Sleep(50);
s.AppActivate("Previous Instance Detected");
WScript.Sleep(50);
s.SendKeys("~");
// Now the loader is properly shut down
}

After this code snippet you can then paste your logoff/shutdown commands. Increase the Sleep() delays to watch how it works.

Wasn't it Archimedes who said, "Give me a good script-writer, and I will move the world"?

-- with apologies to Archimedes, and thanks to kko. :-)