Developing Software to run on USB Thumb Drive

It would be a pretty difficult thing to get .NET programs to run from a USB drive as they require OS level support (the .NET Runtime) to be available. If .NET is already installed on the host, then you should be able to run most apps from a thumb drive (most apps won't care).

The trick is to have something if .NET is not installed already, and for this you have a couple options --

1) Include the .NET Framework installer on the USB stick and prompt the user to install it if needed

2) Possibly run it in a Win CE emmulator (http://blogs.msdn.com/smakofsky/archive/2004/12/20/328001.aspx). I'm not sure what the licensing restrictions are, but it might be worth looking into. Conceivably, your app could be written for the .NET CF and run from within the device emmulator.

3) Write it in pure native code, like C++ w/o the CLI. The runtime libraries can be distributed in the same directory as the executable and there is no reliance on the .NET framework.

Regards,
--Oren

Oren Novotny wrote:

It would be a pretty difficult thing to get .NET programs to run from a USB drive as they require OS level support (the .NET Runtime) to be available. If .NET is already installed on the host, then you should be able to run most apps from a thumb drive (most apps won't care). The trick is to have something if .NET is not installed already, and for this you have a couple options -- 1) Include the .NET Framework installer on the USB stick and prompt the user to install it if needed 2) Possibly run it in a Win CE emmulator (http://blogs.msdn.com/smakofsky/archive/2004/12/20/328001.aspx). I'm not sure what the licensing restrictions are, but it might be worth looking into. Conceivably, your app could be written for the .NET CF and run from within the device emmulator. 3) Write it in pure native code, like C++ w/o the CLI. The runtime libraries can be distributed in the same directory as the executable and there is no reliance on the .NET framework. Regards, --Oren

Oren,

There is one thing that you forgot to mention. The framework is most likely going to view the program that is on the thumb drive as being a risk (since it is not on the local machine, or it shouldn't be seen as that). Anyone developing for this type of media would have to take that into consideration.

Hope this helps.

- Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP]
- mvp@spam.guard.caspershouse.com