Making the NX Client portable

NX is great. I’m deeply in love with it. Sometimes it’s acting like a real jerk, though. The NX Web Companion is installing a lot of crap into the active user’s profile. The NX client writes stuff in the active user’s profile. Both isn’t really convenient for me.

I prefer to have all my settings with me on a USB thumbdrive. So, in the spirit of PortableApps I’ll show you how to simply turn NX into a portable application.

First thing to do is installing NX client on a machine, if you have installed already – that’s fine. Copy the entire program folder to a new directory structure like NxClientPortable\App (I’ll follow the PortableApps schema here). In NxClientPortable create a new directory named “Data” and a batch file with the following contents:

@echo off
set USERPROFILE=%CD%\Data

App\nxclient.exe %*

reg delete /f /va "HKCU\Software\Cygnus Solutions"
reg delete /f /va "HKLM\Software\Cygnus Solutions"

That’s it. Start the batch file and you’ll be fine. No need for installations, no files in some stranger’s profile. Everything goes back to your thumbdrive neatly.

This example also demonstrates why batch still isn’t dead: The USERPROFILE variable will be changed just within the scope of our batch file, all other applications will still use the path specified in the “global” instance of the variable.

Published by

tsukasa

The fool's herald.

11 thoughts on “Making the NX Client portable”

  1. Well done! That’s a very good tip.

    [quote comment=””][…] public links >> portableapps

    Making the NX Client portable Saved by Meskarune on Sat 27-9-2008

    PortableApps.com – portable freeware apps set Saved by […][/quote]

  2. Don’t make the mistake I did and add a space at the end of the “\Data”. Nxclient will happily try to create files such as
    “..\Data \Xauthority” and fail.

  3. [quote comment=””][…] public links >> portableapps

    Making the NX Client portable Saved by Meskarune on Sat 27-9-2008

    PortableApps.com – portable freeware apps set Saved by […][/quote]

  4. [quote comment=””][…] public links >> portableapps Making the NX Client portable Saved by Meskarune on Sat 27-9-2008 PortableApps.com – portable freeware apps set Saved by […][/quote]

  5. Nice, just tested it. How can I add a menu entry to portableapps, too?
    cu,
    Ralf
    [quote comment=””][…] public links >> portableapps Making the NX Client portable Saved by Meskarune on Sat 27-9-2008 PortableApps.com – portable freeware apps set Saved by […][/quote]

  6. I normally never write replies on these websites but I was so happy with how this worked I just had to reply. Thank you. A lot.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.