Is there a way run Emacs from a USB drive? I am a Windows user and I would like to be able use it on any PC without an Emacs install.
+16
A:
Yes, the "normal" Emacs distribution for Windows is precompiled and just runs without having to do any install. Just get one of the *.zip files from the usual place, unpack it onto a USB disk, and you can use it directly. (The actual binary is inside the "bin/" directory.)
The only thing you may want to do is set it up to look for ".emacs" always on the USB disk instead of on your hard drive; see
(info "(emacs) Windows HOME")
on how to do that.
ShreevatsaR
2008-12-08 18:21:01
-1: You don't address how to deal with changing drive letters.
SamB
2010-09-27 18:52:50
@SamB: It is covered under "the only thing you may want to do" (where the "may" indicates it's also something one may not really care about), but feel free to add that information in an answer.
ShreevatsaR
2010-09-28 03:47:40
@ShreevatsaR: I guess I meant you should have mentioned `%~d0` and/or `%~dp0`, which expand to the drive and directory which the containing batch file is on/in, respectively, as documented on [MS's website](http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/percent.mspx) (and partly in the output of `help call` under `cmd.exe`) and more explicitly at http://ss64.com/nt/syntax-args.html.
SamB
2010-09-29 19:50:35
(info "(emacs) Windows HOME") did not help me too much (http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Windows-HOME.html). Do you have more info about how to tell emacs to start with a specified .emacs file? This did not help either: http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Initial-Options.html . I understand you can write a batch and change HOME before running. What if I don't want to change HOME?
Gauthier
2010-10-25 09:53:22
+6
A:
You can read Emacs-related pages at PortableApps.com, and if they have not yet ported Emacs to their set of portable applications, then please ask them kindly to add Emacs to the list of text editors. With enough requests they will do this eventually.
link0ff
2008-12-08 22:21:07
A:
I have ported emacs to portable apps format.