PureBasic Forums - English

Hello!

I recently bought a USB stick without knowing it had U3 support and then quite unexpectedly when I inserted the stick into my PC, the cool-looking U3 LaunchPad menu started with some software pre-installed.. I went to the U3 website to download more software, but I was quite surprised that the application variety isn't that big, and most of the programs are already "portabilitized" by PortableApps.com (and they don't require you to have a dumb U3 stick)

I tried to install some U3 software like Firefox for U3, but when running it I get illegal memory access messages and the program itself doesn't open up.. So I wanted to remove the LaunchPad and for that I needed to download a program which removes that bullshit (duh! Why can't I just remove the LaunchPad.exe?).

The PortableApps.com Suite has also a cool-looking menu (but way more cooler than the U3 menu) and they have a very decent variety of very good open-source software like OpenOffice.Org and The GIMP.

All this U3 crap is just some big bullshit. I don't understand why they even started that project.. and the U3 software is Win2k/WinXP exclusive, but the PortableApps.com Suite works wonderfully under Wine in Linux.

I have a U3 stick myself and am quite happy with it though at present I'm not using the U3 capability.

I specifically chose a U3 stick even though I don't need U3 right now. I just wanted the option available should I decide I need it in the future.

In case you missed it, the U3 site also has an app you can download that will remove the U3 software from your stick which will make it a plain old USB stick.

Actually I have been puzzling on this for a while. What exactly does U3 offer that can't be done on a standard stick?

For example, could you boot from it?

U3... isn't that the new Bono CD???

Rook Zimbabwe wrote:U3... isn't that the new Bono CD???

Dare wrote:Actually I have been puzzling on this for a while. What exactly does U3 offer that can't be done on a standard stick?

U3 offers the ability to have portable application that have a minimal to zore footprint on the host system. Such as a virtual registry stored on the stick itself for program settings.

The downside is that you have to specifically write your program as a U3 portable application that uses their SDK (contained in a DLL) to achieve this.

Of course you can achieve this for non U3 sticks by simply storing your program settings in INI files with the program. And store your data with the program as well, that way it's all on the stick and no registry entries needed.

Could not resist the U2 joke...

I had an ish like this at work they appear to have amped the security setting in XP Pro up so high that NONE of my flash drives or thumb drives work. The device shows as connected, but nothing shows up in MY COMPUTER as a drive. I see it install and get that dingdong from the USB manager...

Weird.

Dare wrote:Actually I have been puzzling on this for a while. What exactly does U3 offer that can't be done on a standard stick?

For example, could you boot from it?

It allows you to use U3 Portable software which is a special format and works ONLY on U3 USB sticks.. however the U3 Smart stuff doesn't allow to boot from it so it's quite worthless..

codemaniac wrote:however the U3 Smart stuff doesn't allow to boot from it so it's quite worthless..

Whether its worthless or not really depends on your needs.

If you need a bootable USB device, then yeah, U3 would probably be worthless to you.

But since I have no need to boot from a USB device, U3 devices are not worthless to me.

You really should refraim from making open-ended remarks like that, they are too easy to disproove. It would be better to say

codemaniac wrote:however the U3 Smart stuff doesn't allow to boot from it so it's quite worthless to me.

I think the U3 should have a boot option included
if they want their USB stick to act as indpended unit then it should.

I tried to install linux on my usb and i needed it to boot.

it did not work.

so i had to format my USB stick.

tried with windows ... nothing...

i figured out i needed to update the U3 software
and just then they included an uninstall option...

that is kinda dumb to do this. What? did they not think people would like a normal USB disk with out some kind of operating system on it? :roll: