Portable App Development

I'm working on an online installer right now, and for some reason it can't seem to handle folders with dollar signs in the folder name. Here's the installer's file structure:

topocr.exe [installer]
-----topocr.exe [application]
-----$COMMONFILES
----------[a lot of files here]
-----$PLUGINSDIR
----------[a lot more files here]

Here's a sample installer.ini I've tried:

[DownloadFiles]
DownloadURL=http://www.topocr.com/topocr.exe
DownloadName=TopOCR
DownloadFilename=topocrinstaller.exe
DownloadMD5=d2438258b5eb61a6357a27984f84866e

I'm working on an online installer for TopOCR; however, the AdvancedExtract1To parameter seems to be failing. It correctly creates the folder, but doesn't extract the installer's files into that folder.
I know it should be able to, since 7-Zip shows the embedded files without a hitch... anyone know what the problem might be?

Here's my installer.ini:

Hi,

I've just finished making TopOCR, a great OCR program, portable.
I need to clarify a couple of things before I post it here, though...

* I've been unable to find a spelled-out license; the only "license" I've been able to find is freeware. Any problem with that?

* Can I make a live (online) installer, or am I stuck just posting the launcher?

* I assume I need to get permission from TopOCR, right? I did manage to find a contact e-mail address on their site...

Hi, I'm hoping you can give me some ideas...

I'm building a "game" to train pollution control operators. The game must have the following characteristics:
* Run off a USB drive on Windows machines (not a web-based app)
* Contain a main window that shows equipment operations and contains 10-15 data entry fields (some textboxes, some drop downs, maybe a slider or two)
* Intensive background calculations (calculus)
* Several tabs or popups to collect info about transactions (eg, purchasing inputs, selling/disposing waste)

Need these apps made portable I would like to do it but no clue just a beginner apps at http://www.piriform.com/

How do you Create Portable apps that can Work with the Portableapps.com Suite

[Topic clarified by mod Tim]

First let me say I'm a portable apps junkie, and as such I wanted to try to build one myself and also try to give back to the community a bit.

I always thought that for an app to be truly portable it never wrote anything to the computer. It wasn't until I started digging into the scripts that I realized some of it is copying and files/settings to and from the host computer.

This is developed especially for files with odd binary data, such ass media libraries and any Unicoded files.

I have modified textreplace.dll, to deal with ALL unicode files.
NewTextReplace Plugin for Ansi- & Unicode NSIS

Release Notes:

Development Test 4.1 (2010-01-19)

i was wondering if someone could point me to a portable open source version of the .net framework? Several computers including my home computer don't have it and i cannot install it on them. One because of admin rights at school, and 2 because of no internet at home. I get done with the work i try to do and have free time to do otherstuff until the end of the period. So any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thx.