Application Carriers
Flash drives are used to carry applications that run on the host computer without requiring installation. While any standalone application can in principle be used this way, many programs store data, configuration information, etc. on the hard drive and registry of the host computer.
The U3 company works with drive makers (parent company SanDisk as well as others) to deliver custom versions of applications designed for Microsoft Windows from a special flash drive; U3-compatible devices are designed to autoload a menu when plugged into a computer running Windows. Applications must be modified for the U3 platform not to leave any data on the host machine. U3 also provides a software framework for independent software vendors interested in their platform.
Ceedo is an alternative product, with the key difference that it does not require Windows applications to be modified in order for them to be carried and run on the drive.
Similarly, other application virtualization solutions and portable application creators, such as VMware ThinApp (for Windows) or RUNZ (for Linux) can be used to run software from a flash drive without installation.
In October 2010, Apple Inc. released their newest iteration of the MacBook Air, which had the system's restore files contained on a USB card drive rather than the traditional install CDs, due to the Air not coming with an optical drive.
A wide range of portable applications which are all free of charge, and able to run off a computer running Windows without storing anything on the host computer's drives or registry, can be found in the list of portable software.
Read more about this topic: San Disk Cruzer, Uses
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