Fldigi Users Manual  4.2.00
Installing fldigi on a thumb drive

Table of Contents

Installing fldigi (and any of the other NBEMS flxxxx applications) on a thumb drive is very simple. Create a folder on the thumb drive named FL_APPS. Then copy the fldigi executable to that folder. Note that folder FL_APPS may reside on any hard drive, or removable drive (including a rewritable CD/DVD) on your system. Copy the executable for flarq, flrig, flmsg, flamp, etc to that same folder if you want to have a complete NBEMS installation on that device:

  • fldigi.exe
  • flarq.exe
  • flmsg.exe
  • flamp.exe
  • flrig.exe

The key to using the applications thus installed is to execute the program from that folder. This is best accomplished by opening the FL_APPS folder using the system files explorer. Then start the application by double clicking on it's icon.

You will be guided through the new install wizard the first time you do this and fldigi will place all of it's configuration folders in the same folder from which it was started. For example, if the thumb drive were on an XP system and the drive was system device "H:"

  • H:\FL_APPS\fldigi.exe
  • H:\FL_APPS\fldigi.files
  • H:\FL_APPS\fldigi.files\fldigi_def.xml
  • etc ...

Moving thumb drive between computers

If this removable drive installation is to be used on several computers or you expect that the hardware configuration might change then you should follow these steps each and every time that you exit the program. This will insure that fldigi will restart correctly.

  • select sound card as "File I/O only"
  • deselect all transceiver control (be sure to Initialize any changes)
  • note: you do not have to disable xmlrpc rig control
  • save the configuration


You will follow a similar procedure when you shut down flrig. The purpose is to remove all configuration items which are hardware specific. Reconfiguring the sound card and transceiver control only takes a few steps the next time fldigi is executed.

Extended Character Set Install

This installation technique works equally well on the C:\ drive, and it should be used when the operating system uses an extended character set for folder names and user login names such as Björn. fldigi will try to convert that user name to a UTF-8 character sequence which the OS (typically Microsoft) will not be able to use to create the fldigi.files folder, etc.

Create the folder c:\FL_APPS
Copy fldigi, flarq, flrig, flmsg, etc executables to the newly created folder and then either

  • delete the original desktop icon for the flxxx application, and create a new one for the copied file(s), or
  • modify the properties dialog of the original desktop icon so that the "Target:" entry points to the newly copied file(s)

The fldigi.files, NBEMS.files, flrig.files, etc. folders will be created as sub-folders in the c:\FL_APPS folder the first time that the respective application is executed.
Configure each application. If you already have logs, macro files, etc. copy these to the respective places in the c:\FL_APPS tree.
When you upgrade fldigi you will only need to copy the new executable to that c:\FL_APPS folder, perhaps renaming the existing file as fldigi.exe.bak so that it can be recovered if necessary.

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