I'm sure that I must not be the only one that is having this trouble -
I've had a USB flash drive for only a couple of months now but have had
troubles with shortcuts on it. I've structured the flash drive in such
a way that apps are in one folder, templates in another and docts. in
another, etc., etc. I access certain of the files and folders via
shortcuts in one of the folders that I use sort of like a folder "start
menu". The difficulty is that, so far, the USB flash drive shows up as
3 drives on different computers: E, F or G. The shortcuts have a hard
time dealing with the switching drive letters.

Is there a launcher out there that can act like a start menu for the
flash drive but that has the path from the root on, or something? Or
does anyone have a solution to the changing drives so that we can click
on things without having this problem. Half the time the shortcuts
won't work because of this.

thanx

mitchellwma1@yahoo.com wrote:

/ ...

I know this is not what you expected to hear, but ... the solution is to run
Linux, where there are no drive letters.

Drive letters are a throwback to the earliest days of computing, where
symbolic naming and filesystems were in a primitive state. Drive letters
are nothing more than a number in base 26, bluntly and inflexibly
representing a physical storage device. They expose the dark basement of
computing, normally hidden from view, long since replaced by symbolic names
in more modern operating systems.

The reason you cannot run Windows on any drive you please, is because of
Windows' dependence on drive letters. There are ways to jump through hoops
to make Windows boot from a drive other than what it thinks is "c:", but
these methods basically trick windows into believing that it is, in fact,
on "c:", regardless of the facts.

The reason you cannot reliably run your applications from USB devices is
because you cannot name that device with anything but a drive letter, and
drive letters are utterly unreliable ways to identify the location of a
resource, both on a single platform from one day to the next, or upon
moving to a different machine.

None of this is true in Linux.

Windows represents a desperate effort to build a vast empire around a core
of primitive code and assumptions.

Microsoft will either bite the bullet and eliminate drive letters from
Windows (with vast legacy consequences), or they will lose the OS battle to
Linux and other up-to-date operating systems. It's as simple as that.

The short answer is ... upgrade your operating system, or forget about
reliably running applications on USB devices.

--
Paul Lutus
http://www.arachnoid.com

Thanks, I didn't know all of that, but knowing Windows as well as I do
now from all the stuff I've had to do over the last 7 years at home, it
all makes sense. Just this past weekend, I ran defrag about 3 times
through all the drives [which took forever due to my USB v1.1 speed and
the external USB drive!!!] before it got to the point that is "scrolled
through". That signals to me that the system has truly been defragged,
not like just running it through once <g>. Just out of curiousity,
after working for only a couple of hours, I ran the drives through
defrag and it had already slowed down to have to defrag more deeply
once again. And just in so short a time. I thought at the time
longingly of what I'd heard re the Mac. It doesn't need reformatting
and scandisking and reformatting and all that time-wasting effort!
Sounds like Linux is similar. I've been very curious about Linux but
haven't yet made the plunge due to my heavy dependence on a whole host
of programs that are Windows-based that unfortunately aren't
cross-platform (does Linux support cross-platform apps that are, for
example, java-based?)

Also, I'd heard that, paradoxically, unlike Windows, the average person
might Linux difficult to work with as it has a learning curve that is
quite steep. I don't know the truth of that but do know that one of
these days and despite that, I'll give it a try (when I have more money
and time, most likely <g>)!

I'm still hoping that someone has a solution to this problem, though.
The thing that I've seen working Windows 2000 at home is how the drive
letters are replaced with something like %root% or whatever, to get
around the profiles issues, etc. (one big reason why I hate anything
other than the more straightforward Win98SE; plus a whole host of other
reasons). An app that has that sort of flexibility, I'm hoping, will
allow me to work with apps on the USB flash drive. I'm becoming more
and more dependent on it to run things directly from, but those darn
shortcuts don't always work as Windows doesn't always find the path
again!

Thanks. The education re Linux was great.

mitchellwma1@yahoo.com wrote:
LetterAssigner will let you assign whatever letter you wish to a drive
(not for WinXP). You'd have to have it on all computers and assign
the same letter on each computer.
http://www.v72735.f2s.com/LetAssig/



--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

Am 11 Sep 2006 10:30:46 -0700 schrieb mitchellwma1@yahoo.com:

Pstart:
http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/pstart
http://www.pegtop.de/start/

Eric Huebner <nospam23@gmx.de> wrote in news:1smilyymxtqtg.47dgtmha3npe
$.dlg@40tude.net:

I like PStart as well. If you use it in association with APO Usb Autorun
then a few seconds after you plug your flash drive in, Pstart will
automatically start-

http://www.download.com/APO-Usb-Auto...-10477457.html

Home page seems to be down, so this is the best I can do at the moment.


--
It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and say
the opposite.

I was looking at Snapfiles and found some things that might help (I
haven't tried any of them though).

PStart is a portable start menu that can be installed on a USB drive or
your local PC and provides quick access to programs and documents. You
can organize your applications into custom groups and launch them by
clicking on the associated icon. The program supports advanced launch
parameters, scheduled runs and custom icons, and also offers an option
to generate a autorun.inf file for use with CDs. PStart also includes a
small notes organizer, a search feature and displays information about
the hard drive space on your drive. Other features include
backup/restore, customizable interface and an option to hide the
launcher on the edge of your screen.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/PStart.html

ubSpawn is a small and simple application launcher that is primarily
designed to act as a launchpad for programs on a USB drive. You can add
a list of application and folder shortcuts to a simple list display,
assign a custom title for each, and also set execution parameters. The
program stores all settings in an XML file on the USB drive. Other
features include system tray support and an option to autorun a
specified program whenever ubSpawn is launched. Very basic
functionality, with lots of room for improvements.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/ubspawn.html

APO USB Autorun enables you to add autorun functionality to your USB
drive. It automatically searches for the standard autorun.inf (as used
with CDs) and executes it. This simple, but very handy functionality
allows you to create an autorun menus in the same way you would for a
CD and use it with your USB drive, or launch playlists, html pages and
any other type of file as soon as the USB drive is inserted. In
addition to the autorun functionality, the program also allows you to
quickly access the files on the USB drive(s) from the tray icon menu.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/usbautorun.html

mitchellwma1@yahoo.com wrote:

/ ...

Yes, absolutely. I know because I've written a slew of them over the years.

Also true, and likely to remain so for some time.

No, that doesn't get around the drive letter problem, which is as bad in W2k
as the other Windows versions. Remember that W2k was the original code base
for XP.

--
Paul Lutus
http://www.arachnoid.com

mitchellwma1@yahoo.com wrote:
permanent hard disks.
Or: Use USB Drive Letter Manager for Windows XP at
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html I haven't tried it myself, but
it look promessing.

--

Thanks to everyone who responded. Great info here.

I dl & am trying PStart out but this seems to be really great. It's
just the sort of thing I was looking for & it seems incredibly
versatile. The test will be once I get home and open it there of
course. If the apps & files I dropped into it show up there, then I'm
set. That's usu. when apps don't work once I switch computers. I've
tried over half a dozen that get the settings & such corrupted from the
different drive letters. Or they simply only work from the drive I set
it up with first. What concerns me is that it required installing but
it might just be an unzipping type of install and not a real install at
all, if that makes sense.

Lastly - the trouble I was having re the shortcuts - I figured out that
it's on any shortcuts not residing in the root folder. Each time I
change computers the shortcuts have to search out the source executable
but the shortcuts so far find them each new day if they're in the root.
Not so with any that I put in nested folders. Makes sense now that I
think about it. If the shortcuts are in the root, each time the path
changes, the OS has knowledge enough on hwo to search out through
subsequent nested folders starting from the root but not on
backtracking from outside the root. So live and learn.

If PStart works no matter from where, this is great. It's like having
a portable Start Menu for the drive which is just what I was looking
for. It seems to have an added bonus of a ToDo list with reminders.
What more could one ask for??!

PStart works perfectly. And working with it last night at home, I saw
why. It doesn't deal with drive letters, it substitutes this type of
thing "..\..\" wherever needed. Mind you, it'll take driver letters
but then one might run into trouble. It's when one clicks on the
BROWSE button rather than manually pasting in a path. But when one
uses the browse, it right away removes drive letters.

It's totally awesome and has the option to make an autorun file. As
soon as I get home and plug in the flash drive, the icon is in my
systray. Not here at work because I turned that feature off here.

Anyway, thanks for this. I completely rearranged everything on the
flash drive and only have one shortcut now in the root for PStart
itself. The rest I run using this smart little app.

Using this every day. It's excellent!

Just a question, is there a way to open files via a PStart entry with
the app of our choice?

i.e., I tried this on a shortcut on my desktop as this is the way to do
this on a shortcut. So Notepad doesn't open this text file below,
Metapad does:

"C:\Documents and Settings\MyFldr\APPS\Metapad v3.5\metapad.exe"
E:\0-MISC~1\AMERIC~2.TXT

Can we do something similar in PStart where we not only do we set which
file to open in PStart's panel as per normal, but we choose which app
it will be opened with so we can use a portable app on the flash drive
rather than the computer's default for that file type??

tx