Hi guys, great forum you got here! I have a quick question. I am wanting to set up a flash drive to run apps. The problem I am finding is when I install portable apps to the drive it works fine. If I take it to another computer, Windows may assign it a different drive letter then the apps dont work because the path is wrong. I want to set up my drive to run much like a normal desktop setting. I have two options the way I see it and was wanting feedback from you all on the subject.
The first is, I have a U3 smartdrive. Can I use U3 and build my portable app collection around that?? Is this the best option.
The second option is just putting the apps on the drive and manually finding the program I want each time.
I like the idea of having a portable "start menu" that shows up in Windows when the drive is plugged in, but cant fgure out how to make that happen.
Thanks for the help!
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If an app requires a specific drive letter to be maintained, then it is NOT portable. U3 will not help with that at all (U3 only works with specially modified and packaged U3 apps... it does not assist you in making regular apps portable at all).
Your best bet is to use the PortableApps.com Menu to launch all your apps. You can download it from the PortableApps.com Suite page. If you already have some portable apps, just move them to the X:\PortableApps directory on your device and install the Suite base edition (just the menu, backup utility, custom icons and autorun.inf) and you're ready to go.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
So this suite wil autorun when I plug in my drive, right?? And no matter what drive letter it assigns to the drive, the suite will find the right path. Then it's a metter of installing the progs I want and adding the shortcut to the portable apps start menu?? Sound right?
Thanks for the help by the way!
You can add any programs from here to the suite. As well as any other programs that are already portable by following these directions:
https://portableapps.com/support/portable_apps_suite#addingapps
But if an app is not already portable, it won't work when you move computers.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I suppose someone has a list of some of the good portable apps out there that aren't listed in this website that follow John's excellent guidelines? I've looked through the list in that other thread about "What's on your Portable" which is a nice list, but I haven't downloaded most of them mainly because I don't need the apps (besides more games).
"... respect, all good works are not done by only good folk. For here, at the end of all things, we shall do what needs to be done."
Don't be an uberPr∅. They are stinky.