End of U3?

Chipp Walters chipp at chipp.com
Tue May 15 14:53:02 EDT 2007


>From a private email I sent to Lynn,

While I know that question wasn't directed at me, I thought I'd chime in
with an answer. I actually found the U3 spec, device and organization
difficult to work with. I started a dialog with them which never finished,
even after repeated requests to them.

As Richard says, Rev is already out of the box more capable than most in
creating portable apps. In fact, all my apps I release for clients and
Altuit are now 'portablized.' This means they can run and update themselves
including self-healing, all from a standard USB drive.

There are a number of difficulties with standard apps trying to become
'portable.'

1) They may have frequent disk access which can wear on a USB drive. Rev
doesn't typically have this problem as it is RAM based.

2) They require sophisticated installs including registry edits and special
files placed in special folders all over the place (Program Files, My
Documents, App folder, etc.). While Rev can access these file & folder
locations, it's not necessary for Rev to work. Rev has full support for
registry entry and removal.

3) They may require specific "Dynamic Linked Libraries" (DLLs) to run. This
is the case for VB, .NET, Flash and other RAD tools, but not necessary for
Rev.

The job over at portableapps.com is to remove many of these dependencies.
It's really not necessary to do so with Rev-- just a bit of smart thinking
up front.

best,
Chipp



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