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Use PStart to access your portable devices

PStart is a nice handy application that makes it easy to start applications or open folders on your portable devices. One of the main disadvantages of Windows is that it uses absolute paths in its shortcuts which becomes a big problem if a drive letter changes. A click on the shortcut to the portable version of Firefox would return a not found error message if the driver letter of the USB device changed after the creation of the shortcut.

The free software PStart is using relative paths instead of absolute ones which means that it can execute any applications on the device even if the driver letter changes. You can basically create a start menu for your portable applications using PStart that lists applications, sorted in groups like Internet, Games if you like, folders and other files such as documents.

All of this elements can be added by either creating a menu manually or scanning an folder or device for applications. Other features such as a search function and the ability to take notes are also included in the release. It should be noted that you can add all files, applications and folders to the menu which is an excellent way to handle CDs and DVDs as well.

I personally think that PStart is a useful application if you work regularly with removable devices. It does not make that much sense if you use them only occasionally.

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About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.

Author: , Friday June 15, 2007 -
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Responses so far:

  1. Tobey says:

    Am already using this nifty app on my USB flashdisc. It works very fine with Autorun.inf set to launch it after connecting the device.

  2. Rupert says:

    Another amazing feature or PStart is that it allows you to easily autostart a load of apps when you plug in your USB drive. So, for mine, I have it:
    - load the PortableApps menu,
    - mount a Truecrypt volume (on entry of password)
    - load MojoPac

    All automatically, it truly is very cool.

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