A program may not work if it requires drivers, installs or utilizes services, or integrates with the operating system. There is also good reason to use Windows XP for packaging applications, which I explain why later on. Any virtual machine software and guest OS should work just fine, but the guide is tailored specifically to these two. Rather, this guide contains some tips for configuring your virtual machine, but you are expected to know how to setup and configure a virtual machine yourself.įor this guide, I used VirtualBox for a virtual machine, and I used Windows XP x86 as the guest OS. This is not a typical step-by-step guide. If you don't, I suggest doing some research first before attempting to follow this guide. Check with the program vendor as many developers make portable versions of their software available, and also check websites such as PortableApps and winPenPack which provide portable versions of several programs.įor this guide, you will be expected to have some experience with virtual machines. Portable software does not need to be installed, you simply launch the EXE to start the program.īefore trying to make a program portable yourself, first you should check to see if a portable version already exists. This means that you can store the program on a flash drive or any other portable storage and run it from any computer, complete with all of your settings. Portable software works by storing all of its settings and other files in the program directory.

This guide will show you how to make portable versions of applications by yourself using one of two freeware programs, Cameyo and Evalazer.

Make portable program