thin and virtual software

Has anybody here tried portable programs (also known as 'thin', or 'virtual', software)?

Several years ago a company released a program called Thinstall. You use it to create portable versions of existing software. You install Thinstall and it scans your system, you then install the program you want to turn into a portable app, and finally, you run Thinstall again and it detects the differences in the registry settings etc. and then it proceeds to create a folder in which it places any needed DLLs, Registry links, etc. as well as your new 'portable' program. You can then store the portable version on a thumb-drive.

Among the programs available in portable format are WindowsXP 2006 Crystal, WindowsXP, WindowsXP Lite, Microsoft Office 2007, the entire Adobe CS3 Creative Suite of programs, IE7, Firefox, and Opera browsers, and just about every sort of app you can name from music ripping apps to notepad type utilities to anti-virus products. Among them are:

dBpowerAmp 11.5
DiskState.v.3.3
eMulePlus
Irfanview
LimeWire Pro 4.13.2
MSN Messenger 7.5
TMPGEnc MPEG Editor 1.0.1.59
WinRAR Corporate

There is even a portable version of Media Player Classic and codec pack. So, has anyone else here tried portables? Which ones do you prefer? Which ones do you dislike?

I use Firefox Portable Browser on my usb stick. It works, but it is slow.

For file management i use Total Commander unregistered (works fine)

And i use Portable NVU for creating websites (a little bit slow).

So far the best implementation of portable software comes from U3 drives http://www.u3.com/

There is a nice suite of free apps at this site:

http://portableapps.com