The Portable Freeware Collection Forums

This should be a trivial question for those familiar.

Sometimes the download (from this site) is not a ZIP or RAR file but a setup or installer. Example: 1Time, claimed to be portable and stealth:
http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=1567

The instructions ask to extract it to a folder. But there's no facility to extract it, only to install it. Double clicking produces a standard installation popup that wants to install the program and even strongly recommends that I close all other apps. This doesn't look like a portable process.

So how do I go about it? If I create a folder and install it in that will it be portable and stealth? If so, why should I close all other apps during the process?

Click on the word "extract" (from description) for instructions.

tomcat wrote:This should be a trivial question for those familiar.

Sometimes the download (from this site) is not a ZIP or RAR file but a setup or installer. Example: 1Time, claimed to be portable and stealth:
http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=1567

The instructions ask to extract it to a folder. But there's no facility to extract it, only to install it. Double clicking produces a standard installation popup that wants to install the program and even strongly recommends that I close all other apps. This doesn't look like a portable process.

So how do I go about it? If I create a folder and install it in that will it be portable and stealth? If so, why should I close all other apps during the process?

if you follow that link on "extract" it should give you the instructions to use the program called Universal Extractor or UniExtract to do the job.

edit: oops, too late

Thanks guys, I hadn't realized the black word "extract" was clickable and I now feel like a n00b.

Would it be valid to say that apps made portable thru UniExtract will also be stealth, or not necessarily?

Not necessarily.

Thanks again joby_toss for the above clarification.

But I have mixed feelings about using the Universal Extractor, as it writes to the registry: "it creates some registry entries for itself and for some of the programs embedded".

This seems to defeat the purpose, since registry entries made by portable programs will remain after deleting their folder. And they can thus be worse than installed programs which, if properly written, remove all entries when uninstalled.

Hasn't anybody tried to make the Universal Extractor itself stealth, so that it doesn't write to the registry?

tomcat wrote:Thanks again joby_toss for the above clarification.

But I have mixed feelings about using the Universal Extractor, as it writes to the registry: "it creates some registry entries for itself and for some of the programs embedded".

This seems to defeat the purpose, since registry entries made by portable programs will remain after deleting their folder. And they can thus be worse than installed programs which, if properly written, remove all entries when uninstalled.

Hasn't anybody tried to make the Universal Extractor itself stealth, so that it doesn't write to the registry?

i think you need a "launcher" like JauntePE(?) i think or maybe there is one written specifically for universal extractor?

IIRC, it's not UE that writes to the registry, but some of the included exe's and dll's.

You can use Sandboxie on your home system to extract/install the apps you want to make portable, if you care so much about the stealth aspect of this process.

joby_toss wrote:IIRC, it's not UE that writes to the registry, but some of the included exe's and dll's....

joby_toss,I think PEID is the only one included in UniExtract that writes to the registry.

@tomcat:
you should check out this forum topic:What tools do you use to test Portability?
then start experimenting with yaP - yet another Portablizer

tomcat wrote:Hasn't anybody tried to make the Universal Extractor itself stealth, so that it doesn't write to the registry?

It's one of those programs that utilizes a lot of smaller programs by a variety of developers to do it's bidding. It's certainly possible someone might create a wrapper program to delete registry writes after program close, but it might be hard to prevent them altogether.

webfork wrote:

tomcat wrote:Hasn't anybody tried to make the Universal Extractor itself stealth, so that it doesn't write to the registry?

It's one of those programs that utilizes a lot of smaller programs by a variety of developers to do it's bidding. It's certainly possible someone might create a wrapper program to delete registry writes after program close, but it might be hard to prevent them altogether.

I made these "extractors" with JauntePE along time ago,
but I still use the JPE-UniExtract almost everyday (of course I am still using XP too)
They can all extract things into JauntePE's virtual registry/filesystem.

Sandboxie has a good rep but I never liked it,
I think a virtual machine is the best place to test installers,
but that can be a hassle too.

I am nostalgic so I usually make my home made launchers with either NSIS or AHK.
yAP or Batch files are usually the easiest ways to make wrappers on the fly tho.