I've just posted a pre-release of OpenOffice.org Portable 2.0.3 and need some folks to test it out... especially if you use Windows 2000 and had the old issue of it not being able to open or save files before I included a default set of settings. For the unfamiliar, OpenOffice.org is a complete office suite (word processing, spreadsheet, presentations, etc). This new release is the result of quite a bit of research and experimentation, allowing me to add some of the new features:
Live CD Support - OpenOffice.org Portable now supports runnings from a CD. Just install it to a local drive and run it once, making any settings changes you like within OpenOffice.org. Then exit out and copy the OpenOfficePortable.ini file from OpenOfficePortable\Other\OpenOfficePortableSource to the OpenOfficePortable directory. Edit it and change the RunDataLocally parameter to true. Then, run it again from your local drive so that the launcher can pre-configure OpenOffice.org to run from a read-only media. Finally, you can burn the OpenOfficePortable directory to a read-only drive. The OpenOffice.org files will run directly from the read-only media. The settings files will be copied to the local machine within the My Documents directory (specifically to a directory called OpenOfficePortableTemp within there). When complete, this directory will be deleted.
In-Place Upgrades - OpenOffice.org Portable supports the ability to do what I'm calling an "in-place upgrade". This means that you can extract it right over an existing installation of OpenOffice.org Portable without losing any of your existing preferences and it'll Just Work (tm).
Java Autodetection - OpenOffice.org Portable will now correctly detect and utilize a locally installed Java Runtime Environment, and will continue to do so as you move PCs. If there is none installed, OpenOffice.org will let you know of this when you first attempt to use a feature that requires a JRE (like the Wizards).
Long Paths Fix - When used in the default directory layouts, OpenOffice.org Portable should be much more forgiving of long paths and paths with special characters. For this reason, no default set of settings is included and OpenOffice.org will generate its own on first launch. It should not have the problems that some users encountered on some Windows 2000 systems where OO could not open or save files. Any users with access to a Windows 2000 system are *highly* encouraged to test this. After a first run, if you delete the OpenOfficePortable\Data\settings\user directory, it will be the same as a first launch.
Unicode Commandline Fix - OpenOffice.org Portable should correctly accept unicode paths if you pass them in (so you can drag a document with a unicode file name right onto the launcher, for instance).
WINE Support - OpenOffice.org Portable supports running within WINE on your favorite Linux/UNIX distro. You can install, configure and use it as you would in Windows. Just be sure not to use any functions that require a Java Runtime Environment (like wizards, etc) as it will cause OpenOffice.org to crash within WINE.
Grab the self-extractor here: OpenOffice.org Portable 2.0.3 Pre-Release (64.8MB download)
Thanks,
John