Run any app off a USB drive?

[wonkotheinsane]

Hey, guys, do you have the experience of running your daily used apps off a USB drive?

Which is I am now trying to do. But I find that only portable apps can be run like that.

while some apps like MS office are not portably available. How can I do that?

 

[madstork91]

Sandisk as a thing called U3 (or something like that, I am being lazy and not googling it.) that will let you run a ton of applications from a USB drive. U3 came with OpenOffice pre installed on the thing, so that could be your office solution.

It would also let you install other applications too... not sure what the limitations on it were other than storage space. I would assume that anti-virus software will make some of this idea hard, so dont be bummed if that happens.

It had other applications pre-installed on it as well.

Hope this helps.

 

[TheCrimsonStar]

Yeah I have a Sandisk Cruzer Micro 8GB flash drive, and it came pre-installed with the U3 system on it. I just wound up deleting it because I have no use for it.

 

[madstork91]

I tried finding a solution for deleting the first thumb i bought for it, and the second I left it installed because I had started using OOo more.

OpenOffice is really a great solution for an MS office alternative. Ive used it quite often here in Korea when my only option in sometimes office 03, or even worse 97.

It can open office extensions, works well, and comes with U3.

 

[wonkotheinsane]

Just stumbled upon <a herf="http://www.prayaya.com">Prayaya</a>. I installed prayaya on my USB drive and then installed MS Office 2003 suite on prayaya. It seems working very well on other computers.

 

[madstork91]

Let me know how well it works, I might pop it on a drive and test it at work myself.

 

[wonkotheinsane]

Hi, glad to share, just have some apps tried.

As far as I see, it virtualizes a new Windows OS, which makes it possible for installing and running apps, managing files, desktops etc.

A few apps and games that I have tried on it: Firefox, Opera, Safari, MS office, Nero, Winrar, Virtual DJ, Skype, Plants vs Zombie, Icy Tower, Super Mario, Couter Srike, KM Player, Yahoo Messenger, MSN, Picasa. These are my daily used apps. And they work perfectly.

However, there are some that seems not working on it like Google Chrome, PhotoShop, Coreldraw.

Also I found that Prayaya V3 seems to write registry into USB but not a host computer. I think that is why it can launch so many apps and games. a good advantage is that not any trace will be left on a computer if you run it off a USB drive.

To sum, I think it is a cool ware that is worthy of a try. I like its cool interface, cool feeling switching between two systems, two desktops. However, if you just want to run common apps off a USB drive, I think PortableApps.com is enough for you. If you want to go furthur, Prayaya V3 is a good try.