1.5 KiB
How I came up with U3Helper
Well, I was a Windows user for years and thus knew the registry inside out. I also knew that I could transfer any software from A to B if I only knew where it stores all settings (i.e. where in the registry or on the disk).
I bought my first U3 stick when there were about 10 applications for it and since I always carried a lot "stick" software with me, which didn't need any configuration, I learned how to get these apps into the U3 format.
And then came some apps which I carried with me (in a non U3-way) and which needed some set-up before you were able to run them on another computer. I managed this by some batch scripts which imported registry settings and exported them after use. Since I already knew a bit about how U3 works, I started building U3Helper.
The first version started as U3Assistant and never came to life because I tried to do some things (managing registry) the hard way and got stuck.
After some thinking I came up with the idea to use some of the Windows tools I already used in my batch scripts. And thus U3Helper was born. I added more and more features and now it can do the most things needed for portability. :-)
I always planned to re-write the whole thing in a more higher programming language because the AutoHotkey code is very messy. But since I'm now running Linux on all of my PCs, I don't think this will happen in the near future.
Also SanDisk announced a successor of the U3 principle which should be released this year... so we'll see what happens...