Utorrent portable does not detect download directory

[Gurthang]

I have tried lots of versions of utorrent portable including the latest build, mostly on Win XP machines. I always get the same problem. The program does not detect the directory where new downloads are to be put.

 

As I start a download I am automatically asked where to put the files. Everytime I close and restart the program all existing downloads disappear from the panel. In order to resume them I must reclick the original .torrent file and then direct the program to the directory where the partial download is stored.

 

Trouble is, utorrent must then check the file anew and this may take hours for very large downloads, especially on slow machines.

 

I asked on the troubleshooting forum and got this promising piece of info:

 

http://forum.utorrent.com/topic/87627-portable-encapsulated-install-problems/

 

However, it looks like BEncode is unable to read the file settings.dat beyond “…devices (I) [0]”. I can delete the .fileguard key, but I am unable to edit the exe_path key and set the value to the fully qualified path for my installation.

 

So I am stuck. I remember having exactly the same problem on desktop installs couple years ago, so it may be something that was fixed on regular installs but not on portable versions.

 

Can you help me out of this quandary? I am no computer guru and need easy to follow advice. Thanks in advance!