Portable Apps for Dummies
Have a crucial presentation but the video can’t play? Need to edit an image but no editor installed on your host machine? Need to edit your documents but no documents editor on hand? Worry no more. Whether you’re a student, stay home mum, working professional, or company CEO, make full use of the 16gb thumbdrive in your pocket, and discover the magical world of portable applications. A great resource to start from is at PortableApps.com, and below is their definition of a “Portable” “Application”
A portable app is a computer program that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any Windows computer. When your USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod or other portable device is plugged in, you have access to your software and personal data just as you would on your own PC. And when you unplug the device, none of your personal data is left behind.
how to make it work
You may be wondering? How do I make it work? Is it hack software, illegal, or are there any special configuration needed. Well, all I can say is if you have the ability to download and transfer a file to your thumbdrive, portable apps will work for you.
From the previously mentioned portableapps.com, browse through the list of available applications here.
For this example, we will be downloading the Sudoku Portable application.
Once you click on the “Download Now” link and you will be redirected to a site for you to save the file. Save the file and you will end up with a “.paf.exe” file extension. This is the default extension for all portable applications from portableapps.com
Double click on the downloaded file and you will be asked for permission to run the application.
Follow through the installation process and you will come to a dialogue box asking you to choose the installation location before allowing you to proceed. Click “Browse” and select “Desktop” or what location you deem appropriate.
Follow through the process and you will end up with the application folder on your chosen installation location
Enter the folder and look for the “.exe” file and double click to start the application. That’s it. No configuration needed. You are free to copy this whole folder into your thumbdrive or any device that can be mounted on a PC and recognized as a mass storage device and it will work without any installation or configuration needed. So why wait, run through all the list of applications on portableapps.com and keep them handy in your thumbdrive because you never know when one of these portable applications will save your ass……
other portable applications resources
Below are a list of sites which offers other applications not part of the portableapps.com repository. There is sure one to meet your needs. In no order of merit:
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