The Portable Freeware Collection Forums

Posted: **Sat Jan 02, 2010 5:42 am**

So far I have asked: How do you update your Portable Collection? & What Software do you use for Submissions?, both receiving an interesting incite into unknown applications.

So carrying on with a Portable Freeware Collection theme, What tools do you use to test Portability? What applications, tools or regimes do you use to ensure the effective testing of Portable applications.

How do you test for Registry entries? Dependency issues? or files being created outside of the Application folder?

mySetup
System Explorer + VirtualBox (with the Sandbox feature to revert back to a clean system.)

Posted: **Sat Jan 02, 2010 7:05 am**

I mainly use Sandboxie and SandboxDiff.
Sometimes also Dependency.

Posted: **Sat Jan 02, 2010 7:29 am**

I do low-end-style checking.

Depends.exe to check dependencies quickly.

RegShot or RegFromApp to check registry entries RegFromApp is quicker as it is real-time, but occasionally hangs.

As I find Regshot very slow for doing directories, I use Everything to quickly tell me if there is application data or windows data. I open a window on \cornflower\Application Data\ and another on \Windows\, and then do the install or runt he program. I find out in an instant if there are new or changed files in those directories.

Posted: **Sat Jan 02, 2010 7:53 am**

Total Uninstall with VirtualBox

Posted: **Sat Jan 02, 2010 7:05 pm**

To extract an installer and map where it deposits files and what reg key's it modifies
I use a modifed/JauntePE ized version of the AutoIT ThinLoader script with the jpe logging features enabled.
But its not full proof, it only works on 99% of the installers out there.

To test a finished/existing portable; I use 2 batch files (converted to exe files) to produce before and after shots of the registry and Directory listings;
then compare them with TextDiff.
Its not that fancy but its free and pretty fast on my system

RegistryBatch:

Code: Select all

COLOR f2
CLS
@ECHO OFF

IF EXIST "Data\RegShot2.reg" GOTO EXHAUSTED

IF EXIST "Data\RegShot1.reg" GOTO MAKE2

IF NOT EXIST "Data\RegShot1.reg" GOTO MAKE

:MAKE
ECHO.
ECHO  Creating Registry SnapShot #1...
ECHO.
MD "Data"
REGEDIT /E "Data\RegShot1.reg"
GOTO END

:MAKE2
ECHO.
ECHO  Registry SnapShot #1 already exists :) 
ECHO.
ECHO  Creating Registry SnapShot #2...
REGEDIT /E "Data\RegShot2.reg"
GOTO END

:EXHAUSTED
ECHO.
ECHO  The files already exists!
ECHO.
ECHO  No SnapShot Has Been Made!
ECHO.

PAUSE
GOTO END

:END

EXIT

DirectoryListing (For C:\ only):

Code: Select all

CCOLOR f2
CLS
@ECHO OFF

IF EXIST "Data\FileList2.txt" GOTO EXHAUSTED

IF EXIST "Data\FileList1.txt" GOTO MAKE2

IF NOT EXIST "Data\FileList1.txt" GOTO MAKE

:MAKE
ECHO.
ECHO  Creating FileList #1...
MD "Data"
DIR /S /B /A C:\ > "Data\FileList1.txt"
GOTO END

:MAKE2
ECHO.
ECHO  FileList #1 already exists  :)
ECHO.
ECHO  Creating FileList #2...
DIR /S /B /A C:\ > "Data\FileList2.txt"
GOTO END

:EXHAUSTED
ECHO.
ECHO  The files already exists!
ECHO.
ECHO  No FileLists Have Been Made
ECHO.

PAUSE
GOTO END

:END

EXIT

Posted: **Mon Jan 04, 2010 6:02 am**

Total Uninstall

Posted: **Mon Jan 04, 2010 9:18 am**

Total Uninstall is good, but it is paid software. It used to be freeware up to version 2.35. You can still find it here:
http://www.aplusfreeware.com/categories ... ninst.html

Posted: **Mon Jan 04, 2010 1:00 pm**

You can also monitor any registry changes with MJ Registry Watcher
http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=703

And similar to RegShot, there is SpyMe Tools (freeware, portable).
http://www.lcibrossolutions.com/spyme_tools.htm

Posted: **Mon Jan 04, 2010 1:33 pm**

I use a mixture of Sandboxie Portable, System Explorer & RegFromApp.

But I never even saw SandboxDiff or SandDiff, Thanks joby_toss!
I used a combination of RegistryViewer (never could get the /F commandline to work!) and searching the DefaultBox for unfamiliar files. And now one app can do that all!!

Posted: **Mon Jan 04, 2010 1:42 pm**

Forgot to mention ZSoft Uninstaller (freeware) using the Analyze option.
http://www.zsoft.dk/index/software_details/4

Here is a link to an article describing various registry monitoring freeware:
http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives/200 ... n-windows/

Posted: **Mon Jan 04, 2010 9:18 pm**

I see people suggest Nirsoft RegFromApp. But you guys miss these one as i always use it together with RegFromApp

Nirsoft ProcessActivityView
-to identify file system changes in real-time.

Other tools that i use will be the same as everyone else

Virtualbox
-virtual WinXP & virtual Vista inside so that i can revert back to original state and do the testing again

JauntePE
-identify the registry changes & file system changes by looking at the sandbox folder after the program quit.
-If i want to look into details what the program do, i will turn on Log function or Discovery function. JauntePE will trace what the program do at API level. For example, in SSuite Office Portable v1.0 I can know what actually StartUpMenu.exe did before it launch the program

Posted: **Sun Mar 07, 2010 4:49 am**

Another nice capability of fileinfo.wlx plugin:

Posted: **Wed Jan 12, 2011 10:09 am**

guinness wrote: mySetup
System Explorer

joby_toss wrote:I mainly use Sandboxie and SandboxDiff.

I use also System Explorer'snapshots feature; when I try an app. in Sandboxie I always use the excellent SandboxDiff tool.

BTW, SandboxDiff was updated to version 2.3..

Posted: **Wed Jan 12, 2011 5:32 pm**

I use Sandboxie, Regmon and Filemon.

i save the Regmon and Filemon log files and use a batch file I wrote to parse the log using Logparser: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logparser

This saves text files that only lists the executable, the operation (create, modify, etc) and the file or registry path. My Logparser script filters out the operations that I don't care about: query information, closekey, queryvalue, etc.

Posted: **Thu Jan 13, 2011 5:59 pm**

Get a clean copy of XP up. There are several ways to do this, but I do it with VMware so I can run the OS inside a separate Window and then restore it back to its original state in about 30 seconds.
Start up System Explorer and create a snapshot
Start up RegFromApp so I can watch any live registry changes
Drag the executable into RegFromApp and do a few things, make some settings changes, etc. Close program. Check the RegFromApp window and if a ton of registry crap comes across, I usually just dump the program.
Run another System Explorer image and compare. If settings were saved somewhere other than the application folder, its probably not portable. Try to find a workaround or dump it.
If things so far look good, move it to another folder or drive and run it again to make sure the settings move with it.
No problems? Its portable.

Here's a more visual representation of that process.

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What tools do you use to test Portability?

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