I have the Portable Apps versions of OpenJDKJRE installed. Would like to use them for running another app, which is NOT distributed by portableapps.com, in portable fashion. Experience to date is a bit limited but it seems to working as expected but with one serious problem. Apparently Java is using the Windows registry to store persistent data. While I suspect that this is something the application developer could/should avoid it is NOT a problem peculiar to Java. Lots of the apps offered on portableapps.com are based on software packages that can be installed on Windows and do make use of the registry. This is something that I remain pretty ignorant about when it comes to the methods used and the implications involved in when making alterations aimed at achieving portability.
My first question is, "is this behavior a result of launching an app (.jar file) without using the portable apps platform?" In that, if .jar file launched by portable apps platform would problem still occur?
I've certainly have the idea that registry utilization is a NO-NO for an app to be portable. What's involved in undoing the registry dependency when making apps portable? Is there something about Java that defies do it?
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That would be up to the app publisher to publish a portable version of their app. We make Java and the JDK available for use without installing but that doesn't do anything to apps that use it. LibreOffice Portable, for example, uses jPortable. The jPortable launcher allows you to run JARs and will attempt to set environment variables and pass a command line to alter paths, but not all apps will respond to that. For apps that use the registry, you'll need a custom launcher to move it in or out.
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