MAKE YOUR SOFTWARE PORTABLE
No installation Store on USB Use anywhere
(all with one free tool)
Websites like Portableapps ( www.portableapps.com) let you install portable versions of certain programs. For software that isn’t available in portable form, your best solution is Cameyo, a free program that creates a portable version of any program you install on your PC. You can then copy and run these programs from a USB stick so they don’t eat into your storage space or slow your PC. Cameyo also has a website that lets you download a number of portable programs. STEP 1
We’ll first show you how to download portable programs from the Cameyo website. Go to https://online.cameyo.com, select one of the four categories 1 , then move your cursor to a portable program of your choice. Click the ‘i’ icon 2 to see a description and click the play icon 3 to run the program in your browser (to test it before downloading). Click the download icon 4 to download it 5 . STEP 2
To download the Cameyo program, go to www.snipca. com/29440 and click the orange Download button 1 . Open the downloaded setup file, select ‘Capture an installation’ 2 , tick ‘Remember my choice’ 3 , then click OK 4 . You’ll now see a ‘Taking initial system snapshot before installation. Please wait’ message in your notification area. Don’t use your PC while this is displayed. That message will then be replaced by ‘Install the software you wish to package…’ (see bottom of screenshot in Step 3). STEP 3 Cameyo takes two snapshots of your PC before and after installing a program, then creates a portable version of it. Now download and install any program, and during installation make any tweaks (for example, to theme, layout, and so on). After the program finishes installing 1 , click ‘Install done’ 2 in the Cameyo notification window .
STEP 4 The notification will now change to ‘Taking post-installation snapshot’. This can take a few minutes because Cameyo captures all the program’s files and registry entries and compresses these into a single portable program. After that’s done, you’ll see another pop-up message saying ‘Package successfully built-in’ with a file path to a new folder in your Documents folder 1 . Click OK 2 . STEP 5 To check the portable program was created without problems, open your Documents folder 1 , then open the ‘Cameyo apps’ folder. For example, if you’d installed Audacity, you’d see an ‘Audacity.cameyo’ file, which is your portable program. Once Cameyo has made its first portable program, you should make it faster next time by creating a desktop shortcut. Open your Downloads folder 2 , then drag and drop the Cameyo setup file to your desktop 3 . In Downloads, you’ll also see any files you downloaded from the Cameyo website in Step 1 (ending in ‘.cameyo’ 4 ). STEP 6
Open Cameyo on your desktop - you’ll see the ‘Taking initial system screenshot’ notification message, which will be followed by the ‘Install the software you wish to package...’notification. Go to the website of the software you want to download, then install it and click ‘Install done’ within Cameyo. The notification will change to ‘Taking post-installation snapshot’ 1 . When this finishes you’ll see a pop-up message saying ‘Package successfully built-in’. Click OK, then open the ‘Cameyo apps’ folder and make sure the portable program is there. Repeat this step to make other programs portable. STEP 7 When you’ve finished, insert a USB stick into your PC, open your Downloads folder, press Ctrl, then copy the portable programs you downloaded in Step 1. Next, open the ‘Cameyo apps’ folder 1 and paste the copied programs here. Now press Ctrl+a to select all the portable programs 2 , right-click your selection, move your cursor to ‘Send to’ 3 , then select your USB stick 4 and wait until all your portable programs have copied over. You can now uninstall these programs from your PC and run them directly from your USB stick. When you launch a portable program for the first time, it can take a while to load because Cameyo needs to unpack your files, but subsequent launches will be instant.