I love portable apps, I really do. But how can we ever expect this to take off with the public when autolaunching is such a pain? Can we really expect people to know to click into my computer, and then into the drive letter, EACH time they want to launch the software? To me, this is a massive Achilles Heal.
Perhaps this is why the browser is so successful? "Autolaunching" is dead simple, all you need is a browser and a URL. However, the major draw back of the browser is access to the local computer. I know for me I keep movies on my 32GB drive, which I can then play anywhere. I know a service could stream them to me off the net, but what if I don't have internet?
At the end of the day, I don't see why portable apps couldn't kill the browser. Really they are the same, the ability to access your software and content on any computer. There is only one thing browser has, no finicky auto launching.
When will this be fixed? Why hasn't Microsoft allowed a more intuitive way to do this? Will Windows 7 have anything? I don't see PA taking off until this can be fixed, so that any user can autolaunch on any computer.
Thoughts? Is there some way to do a hybrid of web app and portable app?
Just thought it would be an interesting discussion
Ted