PortableApps and U3?

Maybe I was configuring it wrong or something, but I would deactivate the autolaunch from their menu, and it would still load. I'd try a different setting, and it would still load up. I didn't like the fake drive, as that was just an extra step.

The only thing that the U3 would be good for me are the U3-only software.

"... 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."
--till next time, Jameson Stalanthas Yu -x-

Hi everyone,

First post here, but have been coming to the site since last summer when I bought my first U3 Cruzer. After buying it, I had no idea what U3 was having had a small regular drive before. Then I loved it, then I found Portable Apps and love them just as much if not more. As you mentioned, both seem to offer software the other doesn't and both make great tools. I used my drive at work with no problems, and a coworker ran out ran out and bought himself a U3 drive after seeing how mine worked. Both of us liked the idea of not using the work PC software for web surfing email, etc. I've also never had the Avast issues I keep reading here, although the log file needs to be deleted now and then because it just keeps growing otherwise. I've gotten so used to using my U3/Portable drive that I even use it at home rather than some of the software on my PC.

Anyway, here is the problem I have encountered with U3, which is making me wonder if this is the best option. Last month I traveled to Germany to visit family. Since my laptop wasn't working, and I figured my PDA phone wouldn't with them using a different network, I made sure to bring my U3 drive to use there. The first hotel we stayed in I had access to PCs with web access. When I plugged my U3 in, it was blocked and wouldn't allow the software to run. Not even an error prompt, just nothing. But when you look at the disks on the PC it did show the extra drive now plugged in, but there was nothing to read from it. This left my U3 dead in the water on this PC and I used simple old Yahoo through their IE browser to access my mail. Later in the week I stopped at an internet cafe in a store similar to Best Buy here. I asked the guy if my thumbdrive would work, he said U3 would not. I tried it anyway, and the same thing, no prompts, but the drive showed.

I thought the whole idea of portable apps and U3 was to take your software and files with you. But if U3 is blocked from running, this leaves you with a completely dead drive. I'm wondering if I should now get rid of U3 and just use PAM. But I like some of the software I have in U3 and also wonder if PAM would be blocked. Has anyone else encountered this? Is there a way to get rid of the U3 functionality and make PAM the main primary "operating system" on the drive, yet still be able to run the U3 software I like? I'm just disappointed that my first attempt to use all my software away from home ended up being a bust. My thumbdrive was more than useless.

Mike