Python? C++? How about... Flash?

Why wouldn't this work? Seems like such a bright idea, but I gotta be overlooking something?

You put your flash drive in, you're using XP, you tell it yes, go ahead and start the PortableApps.com Platform.

What this does instead, is it launches a heavily modified version of Firefox. We can't call it Firefox, because it's altered, such are the rules (see Blackbird, Iceweasel), so we call it the PortableApps.com Base. What the PAB does is, it takes over the Active Desktop functionality, and places an "overlay" or transparent web page over your desktop, you can still click the icons (unless you turn that off and make it opaque) but you get a pretty PortableApps.com logo in the upper right corner, complete with the round arrow icon. Mouseover the icon, and the menu, rendered in Flash, comes out. This slick Active Desktop implementation could also have desktop icons -- rather, web elements, widgets, or just images hyperlinked, to the apps. It could have a lot of stuff, the sky's the limit for that.

And then, as it's a base for Firefox, you launch the web browser, any link, or the Firefox icon, and it's already running, since you have a modified Firefox doing the active desktop, so it launches many times faster.

Caveats -- before y'all pick this apart, let me start.

1. Flash. First and foremost, I know you can't bundle it. So the PortableApps.com Base installer downloads it automatically; it's a live installer. Once Flash is in the plugins directory, it should work on any computer.

2. Other computers with low capabilities. Not sure how badly this would tax a slower system. So when you start it, it could pop up a list of selection boxes asking what all to enable. If it's a slow work/school/library computer, you just open the base (the desktop and the flash menu). If it's a fast computer, you open all the cool widgets.

3. Firefox -- Base plus browser. I am actually not sure how (if at all) you can break up Firefox like this. I know there are launchers that load a lot of it into memory and the browser comes up so much faster. That's what I'm thinking, if the rendering engine were in memory, doing the active desktop, and then when you want to surf the web, all that comes up is a new browser window which calls the chrome, bookmarks, history, extensions, theme (the chrome), etc.

Any other issues?

Now, I don't mean this as a "this year" or "next year". I'm thinking, this is what PortableApps.com could be doing way in the future, way back when we look at the menu the way it is now and laugh, and wonder how we ever got along with just that.