Creating a Portable Office on a USB-memory-stick

                        
         

New on the "How To..." page:
How to make your USB-key bootable with BartPE

I've created an executable. Not all below mentioned applications are attached to it, but look for yourself. Click  here or on the "Portable Office Exec" button above.

Nederlandstalige versie klik hier

The idea was to have some kind of portable office with me, with several utilities, which would fit on a USB-memory stick, and would run from this USB memory stick without installing anything on the hard drive of the different computers.
I also wanted to have the ability to scan computers for viruses and  spyware.

To prepare the USB-memory stick, some installation might be required, but ones your USB-stick is ready, they can be removed again from your computer.

The below procedure described, with all applications mentioned, has a total size of approx.140Mb on the USB-memory stick.
All utilities used in this example are freeware.

I composed my USB-stick as follows:

Making preparations & downloading:
First we are going to create a folder on your hard drive and going to download all the necessary programs. You might want to take the same structure for now, to follow this example. (You can download the folder structure, together with the index.html, update.bat (updated 24-03-2006), unzip.exe, wget.exe, Updates.txt and ReadMeFirst.txt. The applications you will have to download yourself, and put them in the correct folder, according to the information provided further down).

To give you an idea of how the index.html looks like have a look here.

First create a folder on your hard drive "Portable_Office"
Also create the following subfolder:

Let's go by utility group:

First_Aid: I created the following sub folders

Disk Cleaner  download "dcsetup.exe" and install on your computer. After installation copy the complete content of the installation folder into the dclean155_all folder. After copying the content, you can uninstall Disk Cleaner from your computer.
Disk Check download "DiskCheck1057.zip" and extract the file into the DiskCheck1057 folder. Also you will have to do an activation. (For more information on the registration look at the download website)
ERUNT download "erunt.zip" and extract the file into the ERUNT folder.
NTREGOPT Download "ntregopt.zip" and also extract the file into the ERUNT folder.
HDCleaner download "HDCleaner.exe" and using winzip or winrar right click with your mouse pointer on the HDCleaner.exe and choose to extract into the HDCleaner folder.
Disktools ImageMaker download "imgmaker.exe" and install on your computer. After installation copy the complete content of the installation folder into the ImageMaker folder. After copying the content, you can uninstall ImageMaker from your computer.
RegSeeker download "RegSeeker.zip" and extract the file into the RegSeeker folder.
Restoration download "REST2514.EXE" and extract the file into the REST2514 folder.

Handy: I created the following sub folders:

Asterix logger download "astlog.zip" and extract into the astlog folder.
AutoBackup-Win download "autobackup-win.exe" and extract into the autobackup-win folder.
DialUpass download "dialupass2.zip" and extract into the dialupass2 folder.
Disktective download "disktec.zip" and extract into the distec folder.
DriverView download "driverview.zip" and extract into the driverview folder.
FreeByte Backup download "fbbackup.zip" and extract into the fbbackup folder.
MyUninstaller download "myuninst.zip" and extract into the myuninst folder.
ProduKey download "produkey.zip" and extract into the produkey folder.

Office: I created the following sub folders:

7-zip download "7z424.exe" and install on your computer. After installation copy the complete content of the installation folder into the 7-zip folder. After copying the content, you can uninstall 7-zip from your computer.
Atlantis Nova Word Processor download "atlant10n_en.exe" and install on your computer. After installation copy the complete content of the installation folder into the Atlantis Nova folder. After copying the content, you can uninstall Atlantis Nova from your computer.
Deep Burner download "DeepBurner1.exe" and using winzip or winrar right click with your mouse pointer on the DeepBurner1.exe and choose to extract into the DeepBurner folder.
FreeByte Zip download "fbzpack.exe" and extract into the fbzpack folder.
FoxIt PDF Reader download "pdfrd.zip" and extract into the Foxit PDF Reader folder.
freeCommander download "fc_setup_.zip" and install on your computer. After installation copy the complete content of the installation folder into the freeCommander folder. After copying the content, you can uninstall freeCommander from your computer.
Irfan View download "iview397.exe" and install on your computer. After installation copy the complete content of the installation folder into the IrfanView folder. After copying the content, you can uninstall IrfanView from your computer.
MetaPad download "mpad35.zip" and extract into the mpad35 folder.
Pablo Commander download "commander.zip" and extract into the Pablo commander folder.
Pablo ftp Wanderer download "ftpwanderer2.zip" and extract into the Pablo ftpwanderer2 folder.
POP3 Preview download "pop3preview.zip" and extract into the pop3preview folder.
Portable Firefox download "portable_firefox.zip" and extract into the PortableFirefox folder.
Portable Thunderbird download "portable_thunderbird.zip" and extract into the PortableThunderbird folder.
TinyHexer download "tinyhexer.cab" and extract into the tinyhexer folder.
VLC Media Player download "vlc-0.8.2-win32.zip" and extract into the VLC media player folder.

Security: I created the following sub folders:

Ad-AwareSE download "aawsepersonal.exe" and install on your computer. After installation copy the complete content of the installation folder into the AdAwareSE folder. After copying the content, you can uninstall Ad-AwareSE from your computer.
Antivir Personal Edition download "avwinsfx.exe" and using winzip or winrar right click with your mouse pointer on the avwinsfx.exe and choose to extract into the AntiVirPE folder.
Avast! Virus cleaner tool download "aswclnr.exe" and copy into the Avast folder.
F-Prot for DOS download "f-prot.zip" and extract into the f-prot folder.
Microworld antivirus & spyware toolkit download "mwav.exe" and copy the file into the mwav folder.
Spybot - Search & Destroy download "spybotsd14.exe" and install on your computer. After installation copy the complete content of the installation folder into the SpybotSD folder. After copying the content, you can uninstall Spybot - Search & Destroy from your computer.
McAfee AVERT Stinger download "stinger.exe" and copy the file into the Stinger folder.

One more folder is on the in the Portable_Office root; Icons.
In here I have put all the icons of the different programs, so I can use them in an "index.html".
The icons where extracted from the programs with a freeware tool called Icons from File. Also no installation is required for this file.

This is how it looks like on the root of the USB-memory stick.

In the "Portable_Office" folder, all of the above folders are located.
(again you can download the folder structure, together with the index.html, update.bat, unzip.exe, wget.exe, Updates.txt and ReadMeFirst.txt).

Next step is modifying the update.bat job for the update of the antivirus and spyware utilities:
Beside the update.bat, we need 2 more utilities: unzip.exe and wget.exe. Both are already in the download the folder structure or can also be found here.
For downloading the updates, the url's (internet addresses) are put in the updates.txt file. Wget.exe will get the information needed, for downloading, from this updates.txt. The unzip.exe will be used to extract zipped update files.
Once everything is in order on the USB-memory stick, the job can run perfectly from the USB-memory stick. Only condition, make sure the USB-stick isn't write protected.

As you might have noticed, when downloading the folder structure, in the folders
security\f-prot you will find a file called "goF-prot.bat" this has to stay there for starting from the index.html
also security\mwav has a file called "mwav.cmd" which is needed to start from the index.html/

Before you can download the updates, you might have to adjust the update.bat for proxy server settings.
This can be done with notepad by either adding or removing REM and adjusting the proxy server IP-Address and port
Example: (change the IP-address and port number to your needs)
set http_proxy=1.12.1.12:80 (this will set the proxy server IP-address to 1.12.1.12 and port 80)
rem set http_proxy=1.12.1.12:80 (this will disable the use of proxy server)

By default the proxy server is disabled.

To do the update you can either start the update.bat or just click on the "Update utility for Antivirus - Virus Removal & Spyware Tools" Icon on the index.html.


This will start the update for Antivir Personal Edition, F-Prot, Microworld Antivirus Tool, Avast! Virus Cleaner Tool, Stinger, Spybot S&D and Ad-AdwareSE.

!!!!! Note !!!!! Users, using Windows XP service pack 2 or some kind of firewall might get a warning when starting an application from the "index.html".
If so make sure you always choose for the option Run to start the application.


At the end of the update the following two executables will start: spybotsd_includes.exe and spybotsd_advcheck.exe
For both of them you will have to browse to the path of the Spybot directory on your USB-key
These executes will update Spybot S&D
Example:
E:\Portable_Office\Security\SpybotSD (if E:\ is your USB-key drive letter)

These are the 2 last jobs for the update. Ones done, the security folder should be updated.

I Haven't find any way yet to autorun or autostart the index.html from the USB-key, the way it works with a CD-rom .
Apparently it doesn't work with an autorun.inf. As soon as I find a way I will update this page.

Any reactions: just let me know.

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