USB Flashdrive – Portable Applications

USB FLASHDRIVE APPS PROJECT

 

Goal: Put a sufficient array of portable applications (preferably freeware and/or open-source) onto a USB flashdrive so as to have a portable, personal, application suite (and, of course, personal data files). The apps should leave minimal to no trace of their activities on the host machine, and should absolutely not leave copies (even temporary ones) of personal data files on the host hard drive.

Current status: preliminary – like, pre-alpha. I’ve slammed together a mess of apps, and now I’m sorting through them. There are doubtless better apps for some of the functions, and there are definitely functions that I’ve ignored completely. I’m not big on games, but there ARE some portable game apps out there, as well.

I’m certainly not the first to think of this. Through the links below, you’ll see that people have been pursuing this for some (a couple of?) years. However, prices on flashdrives have now dropped, and capacities increased, to the point where it seems more feasible/comfortable to fit everything I want onto the drive. I managed to lay hands on a 2 GB RiData USB drive for about $20 in January, 2007, which gave me enough room to work in. (The 256 MB drives I was playing with previously were of limited utility, although DamnSmall Linux loves ‘em)

Note that an alternative is to use live CD’s, like any of the(literally) hundreds of bootable CD-linux(es) out there, like Damn Small Linux, or Knoppix. (On the Knoppix site you’ll have to click the US/Australian (?) flag if you don’t read German).

Using this USB approach, however, should let me bring my applications and data to a foreign (Windows) machine and use them without a reboot.
That’s the idea, anyway.

Some of the applications are free for personal use, but demand different license terms for commercial use. Check the licenses before assuming complete freedom, if you’re doing more than strictly personal stuff.

GENERAL
PLACES TO FIND USB APPS

 

http://www.app-stick.com/index.php
some very cool stuff here! IM clients, photo retouching, etc.

http://portableapps.com/
 A good starting point. (There are, of course, others!) – portableApps packages a fairly large, comprehensive group of apps into a single download. I only touch on some of the apps in the list below (the ones I picked out initially for my own purposes). The repackagings appear to have been done by John Haller, and he’s done an excellent job!

http://www.portablefreeware.com/
100 portable application links on 1/22/2007. Good place to find things!

http://acfwiki.pbwiki.com/NoInstallFreeware
- finally, not to belabor the point, this site points you to more of the “best” freeware
portable app sites.

3/19/07:

Discovered a couple of blogs ( one, two) by “meprisant,” who provides a nice list with some replication but also a few new players.
Also, DailyCupofTech has a 32Mb PCTools package (winner of a what-do-you-do-with-your-flash-drive contest) and at TheInfoBox.com there’s another collection. This site is apparently run by the owner(s) of Rio Technology Solutions, but specific information about the authors was not apparent on the website.

Keep hunting, googling… new stuff keeps coming up frequently.

WHAT’S
ON MY FLASHDRIVE TODAY

 

2 GB RiData.

Groupings of applications and the order of same are somewhat arbitrary at this point.

Windows reports:

Removable Disk (F:) Properties

Used 575,569,920 bytes (548 MB) – 3/19/07 – now up to 735 Mb consumed
by Portable Apps

Free 1,479,311,360 bytes (1.37 GB)

Capacity 2,054,881,280 bytes (1.91 GB)

i.disk reports

Total (used) 378.84 M (see notes at end – bye-bye i.disk)

Disktective reports

(000,540,835,840)…………F:\

-   22 JAN 2007 / 8:22:29 PM

-   free disk space: 001,171,578,880 bytes

-
(000,524,746,752)…………PortableApps (where almost all of my applications live – inherited from PortableApps suite initial load)

3/19/07 – all of the above measurements are now obsolete, but the comparisons between reporting may still be of value.

START MENU

It is handy to have a little menu that you can pop up from the taskbar to start your various applications – saves rummaging around using Windows Explorer or whatever.

While PortableApps provides one, I found I preferred the simplicity and complete control offered by Pstart. You do have to build the menu by hand, or you can have Pstart make a global menu with every .EXE it can find on the drive – I’ve tried both ways and found that it took less time to build from scratch than to delete all the ancillary EXE references generated automatically.

(Pstart note: I recently suffered a system crash that trashed my Pstart menu – forcing me to rebuild it by hand. Strongly recommend the use of the backup function in Pstart to avoid similar fate.)

SCREEN CAPTURE

WinSnapPortableXP (screen capture for WinXP) [about 1/2 Mb]
WinSnapPortable2K (screen capture for Win2K and pre-) [about 3 Mb]

Winsnap (http://www.ntwind.com/software/winsnap.html) provides a fairly sophisticated way of getting screen shots, including serial shots. I grabbed both versions, since I don’t know which host OS I’m apt to be using.
Status: Awaiting testing.

COMMAND SHELL

unixkit-tiny (a unix command shell w/lots of shell commands) [about 8 Mb]

Supposedly provides arc arj bash bunzip2 bzip2 bzip2recover cat  chmod cksum cp csplit cut dd df diff du file find  fmt fold funzip grep gunzip gzip head join less ln  ls md5sum mkdir more mv nano nl paste patch pico  pr rm rmdir sed sort split stat tac tail tar touch tr  tsort uniq unrar unzip uudecode uuencode vi wcwget zip zsh.  If you’re not a Unix/linux geek, this is probably of little use to you.

Status: I got it. I have it. Untested.
http://jlb.twu.net/code/unixkit.php Download site seems to be is down (1/22/2007). Try this site, as this guy says he’ll leave it available unless he’s directed to shut it
down (3/19/07) – Thanks, man!

REMOTE DESKTOP

UltraVNCviewer (can use with channel encryption) [about 1.25 Mb]

UltraVNC is a very cool remote desktop application for those of us who don’t have Win XP. You can install the server on a Win 98 or Win 2K machine and log into the desktop remotely. (I’ve even done it using Network Address Translation [port assignments] through my D-Link router). You have to read some, and that documentation is somewhat fragmented, but you can enable encryption (a handful of possibles, including MS, AES(?), etc.) to bury your activities from prying peepers. It’s a little cumbersome to manage multiple desktops and multiple encryption keys, and it seems to only let you run one instance on a given client machine at one time. The Portable Version confines its activities to a local (i.e., flashdrive) directory structure. — and doesn’t work with encryption! It worked on a LAN, but not thru the router from outside.

Further work revealed that the Portable Version I tested was actually using resources from the machine that already had UltraVNC installed on it. (oops). After some hunting around, I determined the following:

Download and install UltraVNC from the primary site on SourceForge.
Download and unpack the MSRC4 plug-in (version 1.2.2) if you want encryption. Version is critical.
Copy/move MSRC4plugin_NOREG.dsm into the same dir as vncviewer.exe
Copy the whole UltraVNC directory onto the flashdrive.
Set up key, etc. and you’re running.

Now you get to figure out what’s really needed in that directory and what can get deleted. Cost = about 4.5 MB. Portable version claimed cost of about 2.5 MB. For 2 MB, I’ll fix mine later. It works now!
Status: tested to connect to a machine already server’ed. Worked, including encryption.

Remote command line:
PortaPutty [about 2 Mb]

PortaPutty is a portable version of Putty, a ssh client program. Ssh is a secure
shell, that is, command-line access over an encrypted channel. I use it to screw with my linux-based file server from time to time. (Stuck this into this category for want of a better place to put it.)
Status: tested, working; workhorse.

INSTANT MESSAGING

GaimPortable (AIM, YAHOO!, MSN, others?) [about 28Mb]

Gaim is a stripped-down, open-source instant messaging client. I like it, but people who like AIM’s bells and whistles may find it too spartan. Portable version available as
part of the PortableApps package (link at top of page). There are LOTS of free, portable messaging apps out there.
Status: tested and found functional.

WEB BROWSERS

FirefoxPortable [about 36 Mb]

Firefox version 2.0.1, which then wants to update. Update takes a while (several minutes), since writes to the flashdrive are a little slow(?). Portable version available as
part of the PortableApps package (link at top of page).
Status: tested and found functional. Remembers its own bookmarks, etc.

operausb910 [about 11.5 Mb]

Opera is the up-and-comer behind Firefox. It’s supposedly pretty big in Europe. Nice piece of work, and this is a good way to experiment with it without installing it. Portable version available as part of the PortableApps package (link at top of page).
Status: preliminary testing successful.

FILE TRANSFER

FileZillaPortable (crispy open-source ftp client) [about 3.5 Mb]

I didn’t even know about FileZilla until I started this flashdrive project (sheltered life). Prior to that, I used FTP Commander which, I believe, requires installation (i.e., no portable version that I know of). FileZilla is a nice, clean, basic FTP client which does its
job and is also open-source. Don’t think it has file/directory synchronization functions, however. (Does FTP Commander?) Portable version available as part of the PortableApps package (link at top of page).
Status: my new FTP client. Love it.

utorrent (bittorrent client) [about 200 Kb - yes, that's K !]

utorrent has been around for a while. Very small footprint, does what a bittorrent client
should do. Comprehensive FAQ on website.

Status: used it a few times (downloading CD ISO image files) without issues.

BitComet (bittorrent client) [about 19 Mb]

bitcomet is another bittorrent client. Untested.

MAIL CLIENTS

ThunderbirdPortable (More full-featured email client) [about 26 Mb]

Thunderbird is Mozilla’s answer to Outlook. Seems to work pretty well, but I haven’t
exercised it to any great extent yet. Portable version available as part of the PortableApps package (link at top of page).
Status: untested.

Sylpheed-2.3.0 (Low-end but effective email client) [about 33 Mb, but with emails in there I'm up to about 91 Mb]

Sylpheed is an open-source, very basic mail client. Provides the windows for mailboxes, email display, can hook into plug-ins (I guess) that let you expand its built-in functionality. The installed version of Sylpheed (a “more advanced” version called Sylpheed-Claws) is part of the gpgee package (mail and file encryption), but gpgee and winPT have to be installed. Portable version available as part of PortableApps pkg.

 3/19/07: note, as I’ve accumulated more emails on my USB drive, I find sylpheed is taking longer and longer to load… funny thing…

Status: used it day to day… looking for something better. Maybe Thunderbird?

CALENDAR / PIM

EssentialPIM (Personal Information Manager) [about 4.5 Mb]

EssentialPIM is a pretty cool information manager – that is, calendar, scheduler, to-do, etc. Cleanest, simplest one I’ve seen,  but I haven’t tried Sunbird. Portable version is available from the main site.
Status: using it daily.

SunbirdPortable (Mozilla calendar/appointments, etc.) [about 4 Mb]

SunBird is Mozilla’s answer to the calendar/scheduling functions found in Outlook. I hear it getting mixed reviews, with some users liking it a lot, and others (particularly Outlook proponents) disliking it. Still reported to be under massive development. Portable version available as part of the PortableApps package (link at top of page).
Status: untested.

SYSTEM TOOLS: FORENSICS & REPAIRS

My “forensics” work tends to be more like “what happened and how can I fix it?” rather than the criminal forensics type stuff. For that, or for more in-depth repair work, you need much more than a flashdrive on the host operating system: you need to boot an independent OS (e.g., “live” linux) to absolutely preserve the hard drive state or be able to modify it at will.

TCPIPstack directory (TCP/IP stack repair – LSP editor) [about 300 Kb]

The two tools in the TCPIPstack directory (LSPfix and sockfix) let you view and clear the Layered Service Provider stack entries. You’ve gotta know what *should* be there, and then you can trash what doesn’t belong. Good way to clean out crap like New.Net internet
crippling on attempted uninstalls of that piece of adware garbage. It’s not, however, very automatic – that is, it isn’t very good at automatically identifying what should *not* be there. Experiment on a clean machine, and you’ll get the idea real quick. (Hint: you’ll end up using Expert mode).
Status: works like a charm.

RootkitRevealer (find some rootkits) [about 265 Kb]

As I understand it, RootkitRevealer came about when Mark Russinovich, of Sysinternals.com fame, was hacking about with Sony music CD’s that contained some nasty code that buried itself on your computer silently and stealthily, to monitor music CD’s and prevent illegal copying. RKR doesn’t find all, but it is pretty good. (The only way I know of  to really determine that your system is clean of rootkits is to compare a full directory listing generated by the potentially corrupt operating system against one
generated on the same drive by a known-clean operating system… linux comes to mind, but Microsoft was experimenting in the early 00’s with DOS). BTW, MS bought Sysinternals, but has “promised” to leave the system tools available for free download. Get ‘em while you can.

Status: works as advertised.

Autoruns (auto-starting programs during boot/login) [about 721 Kb]

Autoruns is another Sysinternals gem. Looks in all the usual places for stuff that automatically starts at boot up or login time, and lists them with checkboxes to disable.
Status: works like a charm.

Hash (MD5, SHA1, CRC32 calculations) [32 Kb]

Hash gives a window-version of checksum calculation. Very useful for verifying download integrity, when MD5 or other checksums are provided by the host download site.
Status: works as advertised.

HJT199_0_1 (HiJack This! – recent) [about 230 Kb]
HJT198_2 (HiJack This! – older) [about 395 Kb]

Hijack This! : these two apps are primary spyware/adware killers. Use them in good
health, but be very careful what you delete! Two versions are kept since 199.0.1 can get crashed under the stesses of certain malwares, which are then overcome with 198.2.
Status: works, but can be technically challenging (what’s good, what’s bad?) Unless you’re experienced, you’ll probably need help. BTW, do poke around the spywareinfo.com site while you’re there – lots of good information about crapware and how to remove/prevent.

EverestXP (system information to the max) [about 4.75 Mb]

Everest XP : An older version that was freeware (home edition), this program gives a complete rundown of hardware and software on the windows system. Reports can be
quite lengthy, and there’s usually more information in there than you need. May not correctly identify newest processors or memory modules. Newer versions from lavalys.com are pay-ware.
Status: workhorse – but only because I work on some older machines.

Disktective (folder and file disk consumption) [about 1.1 Mb]

Disktective provides graphical and numerical readout of where the disk is being used. Let’s you find disk pigs.

Status: workhorse.

GAMES

SudokuPortable (obvious) [about 750 Kb]

Came along as part of the PortableApps package (link at top of page).

Status: played a couple of games. Seems to work.

MATH

SpecMath (Math calculation & basic plotting) [about 850 Kb]

This is a cute math function calculator and plotter. Kind of like a TI-81 plotting calculator. Handy little tool for people that play with plots, graphs, distributions, functions, etc. Plots are NOT publication quality, but they can answer your questions.
Status: played with it some, more testing needed. Like what I’ve seen so far, for what it does.

EDITORS & WP

NVUPortable (HTML WYSIWYG editing) [about 24 Mb]

NVU is a nice, little, WYSIWYG open-source HTML editor. While nowhere near as sophisticated as, say, FrontPage, it does a competent job for relatively simple web page work. Making CSS’s is a pain in the … Portable version available as part of the PortableApps package (link at top of page).
Status: reliable tool, limited functions. If it does what you need, it does it well. Crashes with too many tabs open, though.

3/19/07 – A new version (same size) has been packaged by John Haller (PortableApps.com guy) using a program called Kompozer, which is, supposedly, an unofficial version of NVU with bugfixes. Remains to be tested by me. (3/23/07 – started using it… no complaints)

AbiWordPortable (.RTF and internal-code files) [about 30 Mb]

A decent word processor, fairly limited. Claims to be able to read WORD .DOC, but I’ve had problems. Also claims RTF, WordPerfect, OpenDoc. Portable version available as part of the PortableApps package (link at top of page).
Status: new version from what I’ve used in the past… due for testing.

Notepad++PE (multi-tab programmer’s text editor) [only about 3.5 Mb]

Sweet little programmer’s editor. Let’s you define language syntax for highlighting. Also lets you define (in a crude fashion) code blocks for indentation and annotation. Multiple tabs, auto-indenting, the works. I love this one!
Status: testing portable edition. Installed version is an old stand-by for me.

OFFICE SUITE

OpenOfficePortable (wp, spreadsheet, draw, presentation) [a 241 Mb pig]

OpenOffice is a pig, both for disk and runtime resources. But it does a pretty good job of reading MS Office files. It also works quite well as its own office suite. Can take more than a minute to load. Portable version available as part of the PortableApps package (link at
top of page).
Status: good suite, major pig. I use it, tho.

FO (Floppy Office) [about 6.1 Mb]

Floppy Office : This one’s new to me, although it appears to have been around for quite some time. Applications and notes follow:

* spread32.exe  Excel file reader/spreadsheet. A little cumbersome to use, but tiny footprint on disk and in RAM.

* PDFproducer  Makes PDF from text files

* kpad little RTF word processor

* Ted notepad Widows notepad replacement

* 100kZipper zip file doer/undoer

* npop tiny POP3 mail client

* iFTP tiny FTP client

* RenameFiles mass file renaming utility

Only one I’ve used so far is spread32, which does what I need it to do.
Status: more testing to take place.

TWEAKING TOOLS

SIPageDefrag (individual file defragger) [262 Kb]

PageDefrag: Another Sysinternals gem (now from MS), this program lets you defrag
individual files (think registry hives, large graphics images, pigs like office and OpenOffice, etc.) Noticable improvement in system performance when applied to certain bottleneck points.

Status: workhorse.

TASK MANAGERS

ProcessExplorer (high-tech task manager) [about 1.4 Mb]

ProcessExplorer: Another from Sysinternals, this program shows all processes running,
along with optional CPU usage plotting, various system resource numbers, and a subwindow that let’s you peek into the DLL’s, file handles, and various other features of the system being employed or abused by a particular program.
Status: workhorse.

ibprocman (low-profile task manager – full pathnames) [32 Kb]

ibprocman is ProcessExplorer’s baby brother, from the author of Hijack This!. This little
program just lists each running program by full pathname, and lets you kill or suspend (XP) program operation. You can rename this program file if you suspect target programs (bad guys) are detecting and hiding from it.
Status: workhorse.

GRAPHICS

IrfanView (display, basic manipulation, format translation) [about 9.25 Mb]

Irfanview is a very flexible, very fluent image display and translation program. Lets you do a fair amount of image processing, cropping, resizing, etc. Not a hard-core image editing suite like theGIMP or Photoshop, but a definite must-have in the toolbox. Make sure you get all the plugins for it (separate download). Current version is 3.99, however the version I have (for historical reasons) is 3.95
Status: workhorse.

XnView (display, manipulation, format translation?) [about 13.5 Mb]

XnView is suposedly a work-alike to IrfanView.
Status: In testing.

FILE TOOLS

enCopyFileRecovery (file recovery for corrupted files) [about 100 Kb]

enCopy File Recovery is reported to perform repeated file recovery from corrupted/formatted media, including USB drives and CDROMs. Last resort, but may save those pictures on the flashdrive from the camera after you’ve accidentally deleted all!
Status: untested.

DSynchronize (file system synch, e.g., flashdrive to hard drive) [about 360 Kb]

dsynchronize performs file synchronization between two file systems. I use it to keep my flashdrive backed up, and to keep various documents in progress at their most recent version on multiple computer systems.

Status: becoming workhorse.

ANTIVIRUS

ClamWinPortable [about 9.5 Mb]

Reputed to be a decent scanner, but signature definitions have lagged more comprehensive programs like AVG, AVAST!, or the commercial ones. Portable
version available as part of the PortableApps package (link at top of page).
Status: to be tested.

FILE ENCRYPTION

Remora USB Disk Guard (AES encryption) [about 1.1 Mb]

RemoraUSB Disk Guard offers a simple user interface to encrypt/decrypt data files. Uses a sophisticated, fairly reliable algorithm, assuming you use hard passphrases. Gotta have encryption on a portable drive, and you’ve gotta use it!
Status: testing.

DISCARDED (notes follow)

[590 Kb] i.Disk – bye-bye!

[525 Kb] PortableAppsMenu

[786 Kb] PortableAppsBackup

i.disk and disktective are two (freeware) programs that assess relative disk usage so that you can track down lost disk space (i.e., huge files and directories) – allowing you to answer the question “where did all my disk space go?” Both are on my flashdrive for testing purposes. Disktective presents information numerically and in a pie chart. Disktective also provides percentage values for the segments in the pie chart. i.disk, on the other hand, presents the information numerically and with adjacent bar charts. Less information, and a bigger footprint (439KB/608KB for i.disk vs. 520KB/576KB for Disktective) to boot. idisk came along with some other stuff I downloaded for the stick
(portableapps? need to find out). Looked good at first, but it’s too simple; a waste of space compared to DT. ‘Bye i.disk!

Disktective appears to have the closest stats to those reported by Windows (2K-SP4) – for what that’s worth.

PortableAppsMenu and PortableAppsBackup are two directories associated with stuff that came down with portableapps.com package – the first thing I put onto the drive. PortableApps program has been replaced by Pstart, which provides a fully customizable mini-Start menu in the task bar that you set up to point to all of the apps you want to access on the flashdrive. (Pstart note: I recently suffered a system crash that trashed my Pstart menu – forcing me to rebuild it by hand. Strongly recommend the use of the
backup function in Pstart to avoid similar fate.)

Any judgemental statements about any of the programs listed here are my own opinions, and reflect my own biases and/or mistakes regarding utility, ease-of-use, and
functionality. I may be wrong about some of these conclusions – if so, I apologize to the
authors and will promptly correct errors if informed. Any and all tradenames, trademarks, service marks, etc. etc. are the property of their respective owners, and no suggestion of endorsement or any other arrangement is made here whatsoever.