Newbie Questions about Registry entries

[grannyGeek]

I am new to the concept of Portable Apps, and would appreciate a bit of clarification, if you would be so kind....

I've been loading and trying out various apps from various sites that are touted to be "Portable". A number of them, though they do not write to the Registry when unzipped or when installed with their own launcher installer, do write to the Registry in HKCU when I actually open and use them.
In particular, a *lot* from the WinPenPack suites, but a couple from this site too. And some from the application's home page with "download Portable Edition" buttons.
(the one that broke my heart was Foxit PDF Reader. )


Is this something to just be expected, or are they being called "portable" when they really are not?
(Maybe it's Buyer Beware and I must learn to lower my expectations.)


Is there any other way to test without actually loading and using the software and then examining the Registry?

I hope my questions made sense, and I hope there aren't already a dozen existing posts that I missed when I searched.

Thanks in advance for any input.

[Jainendra]

Hi Geek,
Please try this. http://www.snapfiles.com/get/testrun.html
It will solve your problem pretty nicely.
Hope it helps.

Keep smiling !!!


Jainendra

[calm_observer]

...A number of them...do write to the Registry in HKCU when I actually open and use them...

this is nomal for many apps.

...Is this something to just be expected...

yes, but not to worry.

...Is there any other way to test without actually loading and using the software and then examining the Registry?...

yes. one way is to use a disassembler on the executable, and perhaps associated dlls, and look for api calls to any registry functions. perhaps there is an easier method.

[Fluffy]

Regshot is our favorite little tool for testing this out. Simply take a snapshot of the registry before you run the program, change plenty of options in the program when you run it, close the program and then take another snapshot. The program then compares the two and generates a list of altered registry entries.

Note that this is much easier than monitoring registry output via Regmon and many of the unimportant registry reads and writes are usually filtered out for you.

[calm_observer]

Regshot is our favorite little tool for testing this out...

he wants to determine if the program uses the registry before running it. windows use to come with a program called Quick View that would list the dependencies for an executable - that would have done the job. there must be something out there that would work besides using something like this!

[usdcs]

There is such a program, Dependency Walker, that shows you the dependencies. Alas, it isn't portable. But, then again, for testing purposes it may not need to be.

[calm_observer]

There is such a program..

bingo -

[grannyGeek]

Guys, THANKS to all of you for the tips and tools.
I will be doing some learning and experimenting and see if I can get a handle on how all these work.

Even though I mostly claim *out loud* to want things to "just work", I do find a secret pleasure in tweaking and twiddling and finding work-arounds.

Whatever would we do without all this computer-playtime to occupy our minds?


thanks again -
granny