Never install software again! We look at more than 20 portable apps, from office suites to IP scanners.

BY MICHAEL DESMOND

here was a time, back in the days of DOS, .EXE into the Start menu, and run the portable app direct when installing a program meant copying from the hard drive. With portable apps, you can carry its files into a directory on a hard disk. 15 your programs and settings to almost any PC. years and many versions of Microsoft Win- For Haller, what began as a simple project has turned T dows later, the install process has become into a full-time job. Today, he maintains and distributes so complex and treacherous that it’s often blamed for portable versions of nearly a dozen open source applica- everything from program incompatibilities to system tions, which can be found at www.portableapps.com. From crashes. In fact, a cottage industry has emerged just to and the Thunderbird e- client, to pop- clean up Windows Registries mucked up by things like ular open source programs like the OpenOffice suite and partial software uninstalls. FileZilla FTP client, his work is getting noticed. It doesn’t have to be that way. At least, that’s what John T. “I’ve got tons of e-mails from soldiers in Iraq and Haller believes. A Web developer in Queens, New York, Afghanistan, saying ‘Thank you for making this available Haller was able to tune the Firefox Web browser so it and making my life easier. It’s enabled me to keep in touch could run from a single folder on a USB storage key. with my kids and family. It’s enabled me to not take my It’s a big deal. So-called portable apps, like Haller’s mobi- laptop while I’m hiking up a mountain,’” says Haller, who lized Firefox, can run on any computer—even if the user also recalls having his site cited on such popular news sites lacks rights to install software. Plug in a USB key, double- as Slashdot and Digg on the day he released Portable click the firefox.exe file, and Firefox just runs. Or drop the OpenOffice. “It took out the site for about a day and a half. program folder onto the hard disk, move a shortcut to the That was a first for me.”

ProductivityProductivity onon thethe GoGo

Redmondmag.com Productivity on the Go

So, should you be looking at portable The Tabs Have It user-customizable e-mail filters, apps as an alternative for your business? Mozilla Firefox and capable search and sort func- To help you decide, we looked at a bevy http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/browsers/portable_ tionality. While Thunderbird of install-free programs, ranging from firefox ably supports multiple POP3 productivity behemoths like the Disk space: 19MB accounts, the configuration inter- OpenOffice suite to nifty IT utilities The feature-identical version of the face is difficult and controls for like the Angry IP Scanner. The broad popular Firefox browser weighs in at managing passwords and upstream range of mature software surprised us, just under 20MB and offers familiar connections are unnecessarily features like tabbed complicated. browsing, support for Rating: 3.5 USB keys plug-ins and automat- ed program updates. PDF Portable Portable Firefox loads FoxIt PDF Reader a bit less quickly than www.foxitsoftware.com the installable version, Disk space: 2.6MB but the time difference Whether you work the line in IT is negligible. This is a or man a desk in marketing, you must-have app that can gotta read PDF files. FoxIt PDF help secure your surf- Reader ensures that you can read ing. Just be sure to any PDF, from any machine. manually turn on In our tests, it displayed large caching and other set- and complex PDF files with aplomb, tings if you intend to opening them in a fraction of the run this from your sys- time of the criminally bloated Figure 1. A host of portable apps can do everything from tem’s hard disk; these Acrobat 6 client. Scrolling and manage your schedule and e-mail to sleuth system settings and ping devices on the network. settings are turned off navigation are also slippery fast—a by default to streamline far cry from the delayed rendering as did the overall stability and perform- performance on flash-based USB keys. of Adobe’s client. ance of the portable code. Rating: 5 USB keys One annoying quirk: while FoxIt PDF Reader faithfully displayed text Productivity Apps All-in-One IM edit marks in our PDF files, it failed The Kitchen Sink Portable GAIM Beta 2 to pick up the associated text. The OpenOffice http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/chat/portable_gaim $35 Pro version includes edit tools. http://portableapps.com/apps/office/suites/portable_ Disk space: 15MB Rating: 5 USB keys openoffice This multi-protocol IM client replaces Disk space: 147MB dedicated IM software for MSN Mes- An Undercooked Almost ludicrously complete, this senger, Yahoo! Messenger, AOL IM, competitor comes and a host of other protocols (including http://portableapps.com/apps/office/organization/ packed with word processor, spread- GroupWise, IRC and SameTime). portable_sunbird sheet, presentation, graphics design Quick and unobtrusive, GAIM includes Disk space: 7.44MB and database software. The massive nice features like Buddy Pounce for Mozilla’s answer to Outlook’s download may be too large for many catching elusive contacts the moment scheduling and task management USB keys, but the programs run reli- they log on. It also integrates better features is not nearly ready for ably and as quickly as the installable with Windows than Miranda, another prime time (as the 0.2 version version of OpenOffice. The applica- portable IM client alternative. number attests). tions read and write the latest Rating: 4 USB keys While there are daily, weekly and Microsoft Office formats and include monthly calendar views and support built-in PDF output—a nice plus. The POP Goes Your E-mail for recurring appointments and one concern: application load times. alarms, Sunbird suffers from some Launching from the hard disk, http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/email/portable_ show-stopping issues. For instance, OpenOffice Writer took a full 15 thunderbird error messages can bedevil alarm seconds to come up on a 1.6GHz Disk space: 12MB notifications, especially when several Pentium M-based laptop. This capable POP3 e-mail client overdue events clamor for attention. Rating: 4.5 USB keys comes packed with junk mail controls, Rating: 2 USB keys

Redmondmag.com Productivity on the Go

PIM and Proper PIM replacement. But it sure is pretty. pound gorilla of image editing, but the EssentialPIM Portable Rating: 3.5 USB keys popular, open source application The www.essentialpim.com/?r=products&pr=dvsp GIMP has earned a spot in the primate Disk space: 1.7MB HTML Hotness display. A richly featured photo and Outlook schmoutlook. EssentialPIM Nvu image editor, The GIMP comes could be the killer app that keeps your http://portableapps.com/apps/development/web_ packed with powerful tools, controls Registry tidy and your schedule and editors/portable_nvu and filters for creating professional- contacts in order. The program offers Disk space: 10.3MB quality images. The portable version Creating HTML content was meant can take a long time to load, and the to be simple, straightforward and beta I worked with coughed up three clean, but along the way vendors like or four error messages during launch. Microsoft and Macromedia also made But the program lets you work with all it expensive. The solid, open source manner of files—including Photoshop Nvu HTML editor lets you create native .PSD files—and can be used for standards-compliant HTML pages everything from photo touchup and for nothing, and the portable version logo design to ground-up image cre- lets you do it from anywhere. The ation. Best of all, you can’t beat the interface can be a bit brittle—for price ($0 U.S.) with a stick. instance, HTML code and rendered Rating: 4 USB keys output reside under different tabs Figure 2. EssentialPIM supports recur- rather than side-by-side. But the Play Anything ring events and custom alarms, and lets graphical interface produces clean and Video LAN Client (VLC) you import calendar and task data from consistent HTML that roundtrips www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html Outlook and Outlook Express. reliably with Dreamweaver and other Disk space: 35MB ample calendar views and options, well-behaved HTML editors. Never open Windows Media Player including recurring appointments and Rating: 5 USB keys again. VLC is a self-contained media a useful text filter for hunting down player that supports an incredibly tasks, notes and contacts. Like other Freeware Photoshop broad range of codecs and formats. options here, the application can The GIMP Unlike the popular and portable Media import and export industry-standard http://portableapps.com/apps/photos_design/image_ Player Classic (MPC) app, VLC does- iCalendar files. Most impressively, it editors/portable_gimp n’t rely on system-installed codecs to will find and import your existing Disk space: 16.3MB interpret files. Instead, support for Outlook or Outlook Express data, Adobe Photoshop may be the 800- everything from .MPEG and .WMV to including contact, schedule and other information. Rating: 5 USB keys U3 Eases Portability Hassles The portable applications reviewed here will run from almost any media—portable hard disks, flash memory- iCalendar Eye Candy based USB keys, even CD/DVD optical discs and network drives. Alas, few mainstream vendors are likely to pub- lish portable applications because they can be so easily copied and pirated. Also, the lack of a standard www.ipi.fi/~rainy/index.php?pn=projects&project= installer to do things like place a shortcut in a Start menu or other launcher can make these apps a bit difficult rainlendar for consumers to use. The luscious looking Rainlendar - U3 aims to change that. Founded by leading flash storage device makers SanDisk and M-Systems, U3 pro- endar program keeps your schedule in vides a framework for enabling portable applications tied to flash memory-based storage. U3-enabled USB style. This freely available app storage keys use a special controller that uniquely identifies the device, so software makers have a way to employs nifty transparency effects and tie each copy of their product to a specific piece of hardware. A hidden partition lets Windows AutoRun fire features an active community of skin up the U3 Launcher interface, a sort of Start menu for U3-smart devices, while encryption prevents a lost and plug-in writers to deliver some USB key from creating an embarrassing data spill. great-looking for your desk- Users can buy U3-smart devices today from SanDisk, including devices with pre-loaded applications. Adding top. The software can read and output applications is a simple matter of downloading the software to the U3-enabled drive. standard iCalendar (.ICS) format files U3 has some merits, but it’s not clear if the standard will get off the ground. The two companies leading the and offers a plug-in for displaying charge have yet to rope in other portable storage firms, and no major ISVs have released U3-smart versions of Outlook calendar data. While you can their software. Still, if successful, the effort could help make portable apps more commonplace. set up recurring appointments and — M.D. task lists, the software falls short as a

Redmondmag.com Productivity on the Go

Dvix and XviD-encoded files are con- graphic (and even many video) file tained within the (rather hefty) 35MB formats in a familiar Explorer-like download. The volume and scrubber split screen interface. Powerful, rules- controls can be a bit unrefined, but oth- based batch conversions let you erwise, VLC is an extremely full-fea- rename, resize, compress, adjust and tured program for playing back audio even transform images to new for- and video files of every stripe. mats. Create slide shows, output con- Rating: 5 USB keys tact sheets and produce attractive Web pages of your photos. A ridicu- Music to My Ears lously complete, yet intuitive, image- XM Player management program. Figure 4. Despite its compact size, uTor- rent gives you helpful information about www.un4seen.com/xmplay.html Rating: 5 USB keys the status of your file transfers. Disk space: 1.4MB XM Player could make you forget all IT Tools es and technical documentation to about WinAmp. While it falls short as Able Uploader outright media piracy, BitTorrent uses a true music library application—for FileZilla an innovative distributed access instance, it won’t nest titles within http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/ftp/portable_filezilla scheme to speed file transfers. While artist and album entries—the software Disk space: 3.29MB there are plenty of BitTorrent clients, is slick and stupid fast, loading If you need to upload and download uTorrent is smaller and more portable instantly on my desktop PC. By con- files from a remote server, the popular than the rest. trast, WinAmp often needs 10 seconds FileZilla open source FTP app has Rating: 5 USB keys or more to do the same thing. The been the ticket. The portable version interface can be a tad quirky, with its of this client keeps the fast and well- Heads up Display right- and left-click aware buttons, designed UI, so you can carry your Statbar but a broad selection of skins helps numerous server pre-sets anywhere. www.statbar.nl make XM Player easier to use. Unlike other FTP apps, which have Disk space: 330KB Rating: 4 USB keys gone on to embrace bloat, FileZilla To diagnose an intermittent system or does one thing very well—move files connectivity problem, you need situa- Pixel Perfect across networks. A must have. tional awareness. Few utilities do a bet- XnView Rating: 5 USB keys ter job of providing heads-up system www.xnview.com intelligence than Statbar, a compact Disk space: 14.4MB Password Manager dashboard that displays everything Whether you manage gigabytes of KeePass Password Safe from CPU and memory usage to net- digital photos or need to retouch http://keepass.sourceforge.net/index.php work throughput, system uptime and screen shots and graphics, the free Disk space: 750KB battery charge levels. Handy volume XnView application can do the job Password confusion is a growing mal- and system on/off/lock controls offer better. Much better. Fast and intu- ady. Rather than keep passwords in an one-touch access to oft-used functions. itive, XnView displays virtually any easy-to-snoop text file or on sticky Rating: 5 USB keys notes, store them in KeePass and pro- tect them with a universal password. Diagnostic and Because the app is portable, you can Troubleshooting Tools run this secure storage utility from Document and Overcome any Windows PC. A killer app for the WinAudit portable set. www.pxserver.com/WinAudit.htm Rating: 5 USB keys Disk space: 620KB Take stock of your entire system Itty Bitty BitTorrent hardware and software configuration, uTorrent from BIOS, OS and application- www.utorrent.com version information to the status of Disk space: 155KB open ports and services. You can select This tiny app lets you tap into the vast which areas of the system to audit, and BitTorrent distributed file sharing can print, e-mail or save the results as a Figure 3. Rich batch conversion tools let you transform entire collections in a sin- network. Used to enable everything report, including to a .CSV file. gle step—a huge time saver. from the download of software patch- Rating: 4 USB keys

Redmondmag.com Productivity on the Go

Scan and Deliver Angry IP Scanner Why Go Portable? www.angryziber.com/ipscan They’re Portable: Place portable apps on a USB key or remote drive, and you can plug into many PCs and Disk space: 108KB immediately begin using your programs—and their established settings—without missing a beat. Use those When I need to reach out and ping a same apps on your main PC, and you’ll have a consistent user environment in the office and on the road. bunch of systems, I reach for Angry IP They’re Free: Because open source licensing allows developers to adapt the code, many portable apps hail Scanner. This bitty utility launches in from the open source movement. OpenOffice, Firefox and Thunderbird are just a few examples. a flash and lets me ping and resolve They’re Straightforward: To install a portable app, just copy a folder containing its files to a folder on your hundreds of local and Web-based IP hard disk. To remove that app, just delete the folder you created. No messy installs and unreliable uninstalls. addresses in a single go. I can discern The one wrinkle: You’ll want to create a Start menu shortcut that points to the app’s .EXE file. IP addresses from URLs and perform They’re Lightweight: An overburdened Registry can significantly slow system performance and cause a host tasks like traceroute and geolocation. of operability problems. Most portable apps never touch the Registry, which means a PC configured using this A Favorites list keeps frequently software will remain much closer to its optimal, pristine state. pinged addresses handy and the pro- They’re a Snap to Restore: Ever spend days restoring all your last application settings on a reformatted PC? gram can write out scan results to a Run portable apps from folders under a single directory on the hard drive, and you can preserve all your set- variety of formats. tings—including FTP passwords, browser bookmarks, and e-mail accounts and message stores. Just copy the Rating: 4.5 USB keys umbrella directory to another drive or media and all your settings go with you. Finally, a note about installing portable software: Many of these programs also come in installable versions. To ensure you download the portable flavor, look for links that point to a .ZIP (or sometimes, .RAR) compressed file, or that bears text indicating that it leads to the program files. In some cases, a packaged .EXE may be used to expand files into a single directory. — M.D.

that autoload. Just be careful—users based PC, Microsoft includes have hosed their boot routines by axing the text-based netstat utility. the wrong bits. Sysinternals’ TCPView does pretty Rating: 5 USB keys much the same thing, but offers a sensible Windows interface that Task Manager on Steroids makes the resulting output much Sysinternals Process Explorer easier to process. You can sort Figure 5. Ping and resolve hostnames for www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html results so it’s easy to find specific a range of IP addresses—just the thing to Disk space 1.4MB processes, or save a snapshot to a see who is awake on your LAN. The Task Manager’s Processes tab is .TXT file for review offline. the first place IT-savvy folks go to Rating: 4 USB keys False Start Finder search for a runaway process or locked Sysinternals Autoruns up application. Sysinternals’ Process Disk Drive Scanner www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Autoruns.html Explorer is a much more functional— Scanner Disk space: 333KB if cluttered—utility that offers exhaus- www.steffengerlach.de/freeware/index.html Autoruns plumbs your Registry tive detail and fine control. For Disk space: 156KB and system settings to find every instance, I can display the CPU histo- Windows Explorer makes it mad- executable, DLL and component ry of each running item, so I can track deningly tough to figure out how invoked between the moment you hit down apps that intermittently hog much disk space is being consumed the power button and when Windows resources. The program also lets you by a folder. finishes loading. promote or demote process priorities, Steffen Gerlach’s freeware Scanner Each entry offers a Google link, kill or suspend processes, and even application displays a concentric pie which launches a Web browser with perform system events like shutdown chart that reveals the size of every Google search results for the selected or restart of the PC. folder and file on a disk—all at once. file name—great for sleuthing mystery Rating: 4.5 USB keys Great for assessing what might be entries (and you will find a few). Use filling up your PC’s hard disks. the tabbed interface to explore items by Connect More Rating: 4 USB keys — category, while the Hide Signed Sysinternals TCPview Microsoft Entries setting spots third- www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/TcpView.html Michael Desmond is Redmond party components that can be the Disk space: 104KB magazine’s editor at large. You can send source of trouble. A simple checkbox If you need to sniff out active net- your questions and comments to him at interface lets you disable components work connections on a Windows- [email protected].

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