On what kind of media can portable apps be installed and used?

USB thumb drives, external HD, Ipod, CD/DVD. Basically anything portable.

When planning on using them on read-only media like CD/DVD you need to launch them first from your hard disk as that will allow for a configuration file to be created - if the portable app uses one.

Can you elaborate on this, Andavari?

You need to run the portable app from your HD or a thumb drive and make your settings then. Than burn the portable app to a CD/DVD if you plan on using it from a CD/DVD. If you were to put the portable app on a CD/DVD without doing that first you wouldn't be able to change any settings because you can't write to the CD/DVD you are running the portable app off of.

So, does this mean that you can also install and use a portable app on your HD?

Also, I'm a little embarrassed for not knowing this, but I've never used a portable program before. So, could someone give me a 1-2-3 on how I would go about preparing a CD version. I already have the program downloaded -- now what?

Portable apps run best off a hard drive.

#2- Once you have the program extracted (if it needs to be) run it from your hard drive. Configure every single thing in it to suit your preferences. Close the program. It should now have your options saved to it's configuration file(s). Now you simply burn the programs folder to a CD using your preferred burning method. If you want the program to autorun when it's inserted into the drive, also burn a autorun.inf file to it. It should contain something like
[autorun]
open=progfolder\prog.exe

That's pretty simple. Thanks, Talldog.

Yes. I have probably fifty on my machines. When ever I am looking for an app I always look for a portable version of it and use it if there is one. Makes backing up very simple and maintaining multiple machines less of a hassle. For example I will set up Portable Firefox and get it all configured the way I want and than simply copy it to another machine or two or three. Very simple. Less garbage than installed versions because everything is self contained in one folder. There is no "install" really. If you use the Portable Apps.com format you really are just extracting to a folder. If you use a zip format you are just un zipping to a folder.

Some of the portable apps I use on my machines are

CCleaner
Firefox
Opera
Revo Uninstaller
Notepad++
FastStone Image Viewer
FastStone Capture
Jarte
Pidgin
and many others.

WinPatrol portable:
http://www.winpatrolflash.com

I even have the Flash USB Wristband loaded with CCleaner plus HostMan installer.