I have started using portable apps on my USB drive. I have noticed, however, that creating shortcuts to my apps doesn't always give me the results I want, because on my laptop at home, the USB is the E drive. On other computers that I use it on, it is labeled the B drive.
Is there a way to create shortcuts that always point to the app in the folders, regardless of the letter than Windows gives to the USB drive itself?
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That's what the platform is for. You always launch Start.exe in the root of your drive and you always get a full list of the apps you have available regardless of any changes in drive letter.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Take a look at expresso at https://portableapps.com/node/27101
that looks very promising. That's not exactly what I was asking about, but of course it would eliminate the need to (1) open up an app, and then (2) browse to open up graphics, videos, files, etc.
Thanks.
Sorry, but I don't see anything called start.exe. I have some stuff I haven't tried yet, like Club San Disk or whatever. Is this what you are referring to? I clicked on it once, and it tried to install something so I just xed out.
Please download at first the Platform installer. Then install the Platform installer in the root directory of your USB flash drive. In Windows Explorer you now open the root directory of your USB flash drive. Viola, you now see a file called Start.exe (besides 2 folders called Documents and PortableApps and a file called Autorun.inf), what you run by double-clicking. That's all.
Edit: Of course you must now install all portable apps within this platform.
You could use PStart. http://www.pegtop.de/start/
It's a portable start menu that uses relative paths for apps. Additionally features include parameters for every app, notes, groups, and reminders.
PStart will not be developed any further but it works fine on Win 98/XP/Vista/7.
EDIT:
It also has the advantage that it supports all portable programs, not just the ones that come in *.paf.exe format. Just place PStart in the root of your USB-drive and drag your program executables into the menu. Or specify a folder to search in. It will find all apps within.
There's no need as the platform already supports non-PAF apps just fine. Always has. PStart is dead dead dead and won't ever get an updater, app store, etc.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
You could configure things so your drive is assigned to the same drive letter on all your PCs. I use P for my portable apps drive on all my PCs.
On Windows 7:
- click the Start button
- right click 'Computer'
- choose 'Manage'
- select 'Disk Management'
- right click the removable drive
- select 'Change Drive Letter and Paths...'
This won't help on PCs where you don't have admin access, but if you do have admin access to all the PCs you use this would be a straightforward way to fix the shortcut problem.
This method only seems straightforward at first sight. At least on WinXP a single switch of flash drives (plug in a new drive that gets the same letter and the already assigned drive thereafter) might mess up the assignment. P: should be safe on most machines, though, but I hapen to get to drive P very often (several network shares and trucrypt containers on removable drives that are mounted automatically).
unfortunately I don't have admin access where I need to use my USB drive.
Just because a prgoram isn't updated anymore it doesn't have to be bad. And as good as the PAF-Launcher may be, PStart has a lot of functions the Launcher doesn't have. Especially if you are using a lot of non-PAF programs. If notes, user-defined-groups and parameters are added maybe I'll start using it. Until then its only good feature is the update button.
You can already define your own folders/categories, just right-click.
If you mean notes attached to individual programs, that is planned at some point but a lower priority.
Parameters are planned as well. You can do this already by just creating the proper appinfo details for a given app as well, though it is manual effort.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Well then get a move on. Maybe it will actually be usable in the near future.
'actually be usable', eh? Nice attitude. I guess the millions of users are suffering with it
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Usability is a very individual experience. I for one tried out a lot of different starters over the last few years, including Appetizer, Lupo, Cylog Toolbox, Portable Application Launcher, PStart, RocketDock. I used PStart for a while but found it way too fiddly to use (especially with more than 90 apps). It has some nice features though, but needs too much maintaining for me. I used Appetizer for a long time parallel to the PA.c menu but ditched it for the same reason. I just found myself using the PA.c menu more an more often. Lupo had some good ideas to add to PStart but updating it was far from satisfactory.
I came back to the PA.c Menu a year ago and used it since then despite its "limitations", mostly because it just worked. With the new additions, I cannot imagine using another starter anymore as most programs I need are either officially released or available as dev test. And the tendency of the development is clearly to ease up thing even more. The instant search blasts away any categories (in my case) where I simply cannot remember where I may have put any seldomly used app.
Don't get me wrong, PStart was a gem when it was developed and I find it very capable still, but I feel it getting in my way when it comes to its main job: Starting apps simple and quick. And I consider tweaking settings and app arrangements as part of my hobby.
Actually I find PA.C too fiddly with the 100 or so apps I'm using. But I guess that depends. Once you got a Launcher going there's not much maintenance to do, unless you change your apps constantly. So I can live with a bit of fiddling now and then. I guess I'M a bit old-school when it comes to Launchers. The PA.c doesn't really work for me. I kind of hate it when a program does too much on its own.