The new Kodi version 20 Nexus has just dropped. I've began early stages of transitioning from the super solid Version 19.5 Matrix edition. Major feature updates on Version 20 include upgrades to Subtitling, libretro savestate support, Windows HDR support, and more!
I've decided to do a fresh upgrade of my kodi install from V19.5 and take shortcuts where i can to get the cleanest upgrade; while not having to reconfigure EVERYTHING as I have a pretty involved system setup. For the purposes of this article I'll start out with simply getting to a portable Kodi installation. This is handy if you want to install Kodi on multiple machines with the same OS without having to physically touch every machine and achieve a synchronous setup on all machines. This way can be moved to multiple machines over the network.
First, Grab the executable download from the main Kodi Site at the link below. I'll be using the latest Stable 64x version.
https://mirrors.kodi.tv/releases/windows/win64/kodi-20.0-Nexus-x64.exe?https=1
Open the location of the downloaded Executable on your machine
Select 'Next' on the first Wizard Screen
Select "I Agree" on the EULA
Allow for a 'Full' install'
Next, Choose the location to install Kodi, I would recommend NOT installing it in the default location and instead picking a data drive to install, I have created a Main Kodi folder for multiple instances of Kodi and then a Kodi - V20 Nexus sub-directory. Multiple instances of Kodi can live under this directory without interfering with each other as long as the names are Ambiguous.
Finish the Wizard, but DO NOT START KODI AT THIS POINT!
Navigate to the folder where you installed Kodi, right click the "Kodi.exe" executable.
If you are on Windows 11, select "Show More Options"
Select "Create Shortcut"
A Shortcut file will be created underneath the main executable named "kodi.exe-Shortcut"
Right-Click the shortcut and select "Properties"
On the Properties screen in the target field, add a "-p" in the target path. This flags Kodi to launch as "Portable" You will NEVER use the main executable to launch Kodi...only the Shortcut.
Once the flag has been added, you may rename the shortcut however you like and also relocate the shortcut wherever you like, on the desktop, network drive path, doesn't matter. The shortcut will always know to point to this specific instance of Kodi.
That's it! Now you can launch Kodi for the first time. Launching Kodi will create a "portable_data" folder that will store all your user settings. In a traditional installation this folder would be created in the "AppData\roaming" folder, now it is all self-contained.
Coming up in future articles, Kodi repo installs and basic skin settings