Wireshark · Wireshark-users: Re: [Wireshark-users] Portable Wireshark Settings

[Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Misc wrote:

> Regular (non-U3) portable applications:
> 1. Do not write to Windows Registry. That is a must.

Wireshark doesn't do that (although that's mainly a result of it having 
been written as a UN*X application).

> 2. Do not write to system, AppData, and other folders outside of their
> own program folder, unless the path is configurable by the user.

As per my mail, the standard Wireshark distribution *should* write to 
the AppData folder, so a special portable distribution would be required.

I phrased my question incompletely; what I really wanted to know is 
what's done to take an application not originally designed as a portable 
application, and intended to be able to be run as a non-portable 
application, and arrange that packages be available to run it as a 
portable application while continuing to have packages available to run 
it as a non-portable application.

The page at

	http://portableapps.com/development

that Ulf mentioned discusses this.

> If you have several computers with same software installed,
> synchronizing their settings can be a real nightmare. But if you simply
> use portable applications, it's very, very easy. You just capy the
> folder with portable apps to the new computer, and it just works! No
> installation, no configuration, no headaches... :)

...unless you have multiple users on the machine using the same 
application, in which case their settings are shared, whether they want 
that or not.  (And, yes, that happens even with Windows.)  It's not as 
if portable is all benefits and no costs....

(There's also the question of an app that's fetched from a network file 
server....)