Installing software onto a Flash Drive: Possible?

Well after my post on trying to find a great flash drive, I am now the proud owner of a couple of 4 gig Titanum Cruzers.

My new question is is it possible to run software applications like Office, Instant Messengers, Itunes, and all kinds of software to run on a flash drive?

Is it possible if the computer used to install the software was XP Pro. If I were to run my flash drive onto another computer, say a friend can it run down to 2000? ME? XP Home? Or in general the OS was different?

 

I wouldn't suggest it at all. Most newer installed programs require registry keys on the computer that the program was installed on. you CAN install a program on any drive, but if you were to take that drive and put it onto another computer, you may run into issues running it.

 

^ That makes sense. I run Partition Magic off my flash drive but I haven't tried it on another PC yet...

 

To a certain extent, yes. Look at portable apps.

 

Your Cruzer Titanium should have shipped with the U3 Platform, enabling you to install complete apps on a flash drive. while the selection may be few, they still are entire and complete applications that you can intsall on your flash drive. For example, there is Portable Firefox, thunderbird, and even portableVLC, although I dont know if portableVLC is U3, because I have it on my regular sony micro vault turbo flash drive that while it is u3 compatible I do not have the U3 Platform on it.

 

I have a 1 GB Titanium cruzer. Suggest you visit portableapps.com. There are replacements for most the software you list that have been adapted to portable forms. I am able to use Firefox, Thunderbird, GAIM, OpenOffice, GIMP (Photoshop type prog), 7-zip, & ClamWIN (AV) from both my home PC (Win XP Pro) and my work PC (Win 2000). There are other media players available that have similar functionality to Itunes, I just haven't gotten around to installing one (my work PC doesn't have speakers or sound )
I think The_Stamp is correct about installing FULL versions of programs on the flash drive, registry keys are needed and thus the applications will not be fully portable.

Vespoli & Acaurora beat me to it!

 

I got a lot of info and sources for 'pocket apps' from wikipedia. I keep a few in the extra space on my 1Gb camera card.

 

Take a look at this: Mojopac

It's like running Windows off of the flash drive. You can install any windows program on it after you have mojopac installed. Only downside is that (at least for now) you have to use an admin account on the computer you are using for it to work.

 

I install these programs on my flash drive (4gb) and use it on differ computers sometime.

Limewire Pro(P2P), Trillian(Messenger), POPPeeper(Email Client), OpenOffice, TugZip, All of FastStone Free Image Apps, VLC player, Winamp, and a few others I can't think of at the moment.

Alot of programs are near impossible to put on a Flash drive and use on another PC without no install or registry changes. I wish I could carry MS Office 2007 with me. I also wish virtual drives like Damon or PowerISO had that capability.

 

This isn't always true at all

A lot of very popular programs are being made so they work on portable drives. Off the top of my head:

Fire Fox. Access to your bookmarks as well.

GIMP.

DeepBurner.

PicoCrypt.

Abiword.

Torpark.

TLC media player.

Edit: And more applications are being designed all the time. Check software sites.

 

Is there a software that will ask for a password before any pc can access it? (non u3 preferably) or with those with u3 which one is recommended?

 

This is what I used on the flash drive I had before my U3 drive: Keynesis Lockngo. There's also a professional version that has more features. The standard version has a free demo but I don't know about the pro version.

 

well nowadays we have dirt-cheap non-u3 flash drives and 30%-50% more expensive u3 capable ones... is it worth it to go u3?

4gb FD is almost the same price of a 2gb u3 FD....

...IMO one thing that I dislike with normal FD is that it can get infected with a virus when you plug it in random PCs (which can't be helped) and then when you plug it in your own pc it wont open and you'd have to format it.