# Best way to make Paraview (5.8.1) portable?
**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/best-way-to-make-paraview-5-8-1-portable/7573
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [July 8, 2021, 10:44pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/best-way-to-make-paraview-5-8-1-portable/7573 "2021-07-08T22:44:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@anthomas](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/anthomas)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2021, 10:44pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/best-way-to-make-paraview-5-8-1-portable/7573/1 "2021-07-08T22:44:18Z")
I have developed a plugin for paraview 5.8.1, and now a downloadable package with a working version of paraview and other files to run the plugin. I have successfully done so for linux, after building paraview and writing a file to change the path variable. Attempting to do the same thing on windows fails due to Qt missing, and qt does not seem to be portable. What is the best way to make plugin enabled paraview portable?
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### Author:  [@ben.boeckel](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/ben.boeckel)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 2:56am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/best-way-to-make-paraview-5-8-1-portable/7573/2 "2021-07-09T02:56:05Z")
Qt is portable, but it is done so via `qt.conf`. Are you unpacking the 5.8.1 binaries, adding your plugin and then repacking? The best way to make plugins portable is to set up RPATH entries properly. Windows just kind of needs to work with the `PATH` though. Qt _should_ be provided by the ParaView client (if necessary). Some more detail would help here.
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 8:08am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/best-way-to-make-paraview-5-8-1-portable/7573/3 "2021-07-09T08:08:50Z")
> [@anthomas](#):
>
> I have developed a plugin for paraview 5.8.1, and now a downloadable package with a working version of paraview and other files to run the plugin.
If you are looking to make a plugin compatible with the official release of ParaView, you can use ParaViewPluginBuilder instead.
[https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview-plugin-builder/tree/master](https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview-plugin-builder/tree/master)
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### Author:  [@anthomas](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/anthomas)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 6:40pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/best-way-to-make-paraview-5-8-1-portable/7573/4 "2021-07-09T18:40:06Z")
After building Paraview with qt, changing the location and corresponding PATH entry, Paraview fails to open. A qt error message pops up: “Qt platform plugin ‘windows’ not found in ’ '.” I would be curious to know how to fix this but I think Mathieu’s solution of ParaViewPluginBuilder would fix many of my other problems with distribution so I am going to try that route. Thank you
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### Author:  [@anthomas](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/anthomas)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2021, 7:05pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/best-way-to-make-paraview-5-8-1-portable/7573/5 "2021-07-09T19:05:34Z")
The readme only mentions CentOS, does this work or is their an analog for windows?
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### Author:  [@anthomas](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/anthomas)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2021, 4:42pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/best-way-to-make-paraview-5-8-1-portable/7573/6 "2021-07-13T16:42:13Z")
Copying qt dlls and platforms folder to bin/release fixed the launch issue, but now certain icons are missing.
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### Author:  [@anthomas](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/anthomas)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2021, 8:34pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/best-way-to-make-paraview-5-8-1-portable/7573/7 "2021-07-13T20:34:47Z")
Fixed by moving several dll’s from qt to the paraview bin
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2021, 12:44pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/best-way-to-make-paraview-5-8-1-portable/7573/8 "2021-08-03T12:44:22Z")
On windows this is doable by replicating the release manually.