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Over the past few years, USB thumb drives have become very popular.
This is in fact, what most people do with thumb drives–nothing special so far.
Sites likePortableAppsactually have pre-packaged applications that you might install directly to your USB drive.
Looks like it’s time to learn how to create a portable app for flash drive.
The example software I’m going to make portable isAudacity, an open source audio editing program.
Step 1: Download the software setup file
If you’re following along, download theAudacityinstallation file.
double-check this download is relatively isolated or things will get confusing later.
Step 2: Download Universal Extractor and WinRAR
DownloadUniversal Extractorand a program such asWinRAR.
Install both programs–we need both to make this work.
I didn’t need to restart, but it couldn’t hurt.
Go ahead and specify a folder that you would like to extract the setup file to.
A folder will be created with the extracted files inside.
Open up that folder for the next step.
For instance, in my case, the .exe is named “audacity.exe”.
Double hit the file and verify that it runs the program successfully.
In the resulting dialogue box, name your archive “Audacity Portable” or whatever you prefer.
Under compression method, select “Best”, and be sure to check “Create SFX archive”.
Next, go for the ‘Advanced’ tab and click “SFX Options…”.
In my case, the name was “audacity.exe”.
Now go ahead and hit OK, and watch WinRAR generate an software file.
Step 6: Copy the file to your USB drive
This step is pretty self explanatory.
Double smack the software to run it–on any Windows machine!
This version of Audacity is Windows only.
What do you think?
Did this process work for you?
Unfortunately, the other methods I’ve tried have been unreliable.
