Anyone know of a program launcher that can do this?

[eprimetime]

I am looking for a program launcher with a very specific purpose in mind. I am wanting to create a "games" USB stick, as I have managed to buy a few 128MB sticks for cheap.

What I am wanting is the ability to load it, and be presented with a menu of all the games (or other apps) on the stick. This does NOT have to be autmatic, and actually I would prefer that it not be.

When I go to launch a program, I want the program to be copied to the hard drive, unzipped to a temp folder, and then rezipped ad copied back when I quit the program. The reason that I need this is because space will be severly limited on the stick, so I will need them to be as small as possible.

Any ideas on how to go about this?

thanks,

eprimetime

[Andrew Lee]

Have you considered using an EXE compressor like UPX to shrink the EXE directly?

[Fluffy]

Considering he's intending it mostly for games, an exe compressor really isn't feasible since the majority of space is taken up by the game's data files, not the EXE itself (in general). On top of that, UPX-compressing a game EXE can hurt performance as well.

I know that there's some NSIS scripts that can do what you're looking for: Opera Portable does this. However, be warned that larger game files will take a VERY long time to decompress and compress and I can't recommend using such a method for gaming.

[usdcs]

At the very least, I think one could write some batch files to do this. Something to the effect of:

(Disclaimer: Completely fabricated code. Not necessarily usable...)

mkdir c:\gamefldr ; create a temporary folder
unzip somegame.zip c:\gamefldr ; unzip the game here
cd c: ; change to the c: drive
cd \gamefldr ; change to the game folder
call somegame ; call the game so that control is passed back to the batch file afterward
zip -u somegame.zip highscores.dat ; only update the archive with the files that changed
erase c:\gamfldr ; clean up

You would only need a command-line version of a zip/unzip program to make this work, I believe. And some patience, while testing, etc. This is reminiscent of the old menu.txt files I used to use back in the DOS days.

Comments?

[Erind]

That would work, but I think your syntax is a bit off.

md c:\gamefldr ; create a temporary folder
unzip somegame.zip c:\gamefldr ; unzip the game here
c: ; change to the c: drive
cd \gamefldr ; change to the game folder
call somegame ; call the game so that control is passed back to the batch file afterward
zip -u somegame.zip highscores.dat ; only update the archive with the files that changed
erase /Q /F c:\gamfldr ; clean up

[henrik]

I just saw
AppZip http://www.geocities.com/casablanca2000in/msp/ that may do what you want to do.