Don, The type of portable app you are referring to is usually built from the ground up to be portable from the software maker. I am under the impression that even many of those (designed to be portable) apps still use the registry, but are designed to create any missing registry entries on startup, instead of reporting errors for needed entries. Here are a few links with more info on using loaders to make an app portable: http://portableapps.com/development http://www.systemsaflame.in/portapps/apploader.aspx http://www.portablefreeware.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=16 The $6,000 VMware ThinApp is the bulk corporate license, where I'm pretty sure the non-corporate single-user license starts at $47. Go to the following link, click "Buy Now", then click the "ThinApp 4 client license" tab: http://www.vmware.com/products/thinapp/howtobuy.html BTW, the "virtual machine of sorts" you referred to is what I called "sandbox". I don't agree with your phrase "environment totally isolated from the workstation". ThinApp lets you totally customize the amount of isolation it uses. I forget the details since I only played around with the trial version for a week or so, but I believe there are 3 options (something like 1=access sandbox only; 2=access real system only; 3=access item in sandbox if it exists there, otherwise access real system) which you can set one as default and specify folders (or registry keys) to use other options. Some apps work fine being "totally isolated" in the sandbox, but apps like disk utils that need to make changes to the filesystem will have to get access to the real system. Most apps could work correctly with the registry totally isolated, but definitely not all. Also, when you setup a ThinApp app, you can have several programs in that one ThinApp, but tell ThinApp to create shortcuts to the extra programs. Basically, ThinApp puts everything into the main .exe and the shortcuts you specify are actually very small .exe loader's that tell ThinApp where in the main .exe file the other programs are. Because of this you can't rename the main .exe after it has been created by ThinApp if you are using shortcuts to other programs inside that ThinApp application. I'm a bit tired, so I'm not sure if I explained that in a way anyone other than me can understand. lol Ed -----Original Message----- From: pctechtalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:pctechtalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of recklessmaverick@xxxxxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 9:29 AM To: pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: -=PCTechTalk=- Re: Good Sync On your first point, can you point me to a website that explains this process? I am under the impression that each portable app uses INI files and hard coding instead of entries in the registry. They also use relative rather than absolute paths so the app can find whatever it needs. I am anxious to learn about this "loader" tool. If I understand correctly, the VMware product installs a normal software product like MS Office into a virtual machine of sorts that keeps it isolated from the workstation hardware and software. This is designed to facilitate software distribution and deployment. The desired software is wrapped up into an EXE file that will open the software in an environment totally isolated from the workstation. I would think you would wrap only one program up in one EXE file since I saw no mention of a menu system that would let you select which program to launch. The price of this VMware product starts at over $6000. Don EddieB wrote: > I agree. Most of the portable apps out there use a loader, which basically > means a program that writes to the registry all the things the app needs > before loading the app, and then removing the registry entries and other > cleanup duties after the app closes. Some are pretty good at doing that, > but I would think that few are perfect and some are pretty bad. One major > worry is how the loader handles your PC crashing before it can clean up. > > The other popular way to make a portable app is by using a program called > ThinApp by VMware. It basically wraps the app in a sandbox which has its > pros and cons. If setup right, the sandbox gives an added level of security > against an app going awry and causing problems on the system. The problem > is that you take a slight performance hit (which is less of an issue every > year) and the sandbox causes compatibility issues with certain types of > apps. Now the setting up of a ThinApp program is very critical. When > creating the ThinApp you can specify which parts of the registry and > harddrive the app reads/writes to the sandbox or the real system. > > Ed > > -----Original Message----- > From: pctechtalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > [mailto:pctechtalk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Gman > Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2009 5:39 PM > To: pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: -=PCTechTalk=- Re: Good Sync > > There are portable apps that are not as postable as you might believe. A > simple test would be to first run it in a sandbox app like Sandboxie to make > > sure it's not adding files anywhere else. > > Peace, > Gman > > > --------------------------------------------------------------- Please remember to trim your replies (including this sentence and everything below it) and adjust the subject line as necessary. 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