U3 USB flash drives
 

So I now have local admin rights to my work laptop but there are some limitations. To wit, I can't permanently install unapproved software. Well I *can* but I shouldn't because the network has an auditing system and might pick up on new stuff installed on the machine. I say "permanently install" because I have the same status as developers and so am permitted to install software for evaluation, code snippets etc. But anything that's going to stay for good has to be vetted by the tools group and IT.

I haven't kept up with USB flash drives other than to see that now 4gb drives are so mainstream that they are available at Sam's Club. A buddy was telling me that flash drives marked with U3 can actually have applications loaded on them and you can run the software from the USB drive...no traces left on the computer itself. Is this the case? Any applications or just ones written for the U3 drives? So far I've seen Firebird and a few other apps that run on U3 drives but if any software (that fits) will work then I have a solution to my situation :D

Check out www.portableapps.com, there's a whole suite of free applications, including an MS Office clone (OpenOffice), that you can install on USB drives. (NOTE: you do NOT need a U3 drive to install these, they'll run comfortably on a 512MB USB drive.)

U3 is basically just a special way of packaging a program up so that it stores all of its prefs on the USB drive, and responds to shutdown events (ie disk removal) properly.

I've got a Memorex 1GB U3, and I've got some U3 apps and some stuff from PortableApps. U3 also automatically adds its own programs to its launcher menu, which is really just a convenience thing.

The most useful thing I've found was that my Memorex drive came with Migo, a rather nice little sync program, so I can basically keep my "My Documents" folder and a subset of the network shares I use at the office all synced up.

What I'm curious about is if I can migrate a U3 app from one drive to another. I'd like to go to a 2GB Sandisk, but want to take Migo with me.

Are there any (many?) compatibility problems with U3 drives? One of the great things with 'standard' USB drives is that they work with pretty much any post-Win98 machine. Are the U3 drives the same?

I'm looking for a new 2-4GB drive.

Thanks,

Dr. PITUK

Thanks for the info! portableapps.com is just what I was looking for! In fact, I've found some additional uses that I hadn't thought of. That Migo tool sounds pretty cool, I'll have to look into it more.

BTW I see that Sam's Club is selling a 4gb U3 drive for about $85!

I got a Lexar 4GB Firefly JumpDrive at Office Depot yesterday for $59.99. The newspaper insert said it was $129.99 minus a $50 mail-in rebate. When I got to the store, there was an additional $20 in-store instant rebate. Not bad.

U3 is software you can run from the drive, which is an entirely different issue. All post-Win98 machines will have the necessary drivers on them to read the USB drive.