What is U3? How does it work?

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DaRuSsIaMaN

[H]ard|Gawd
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Apr 22, 2007
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Can anyone explain it to me? I have a SanDisk flash drive, and it always asks me if I want to keep U3 on this drive, and I always click "I'm not sure, please ask me later" because I keep putting off figuring out what it does. So can anyone enlighten me about how it works and what I can do with it? Would be much appreciated. Thanks
 
It's a little proprietary menu they want to load into the system tray, that you can load portable apps into. The apps are approved and packaged by the U3 folks. I don't personally care for the thing, so I usually remove it. If you chose to remove it, be aware that it is probably going to be a permanent removal.
 
Heh I know there's a wikipedia page but it's not very useful... a lot of details but doesn't give a good idea of what it actually does from the user's perspective. That's why I'm asking, perhaps someone who has experience with it can give me a simpler, more relevant summary.
 
Basically what it does is it makes the computer think that the flash drive is a CD so it will autoplay on most computers (which is useful if you use your flash drive across multiple PCs). The autoplay will then enable you to launch portable apps from your flashdrive.

The downside, however, is that many apps that are portable do not have U3 versions. In addition, the U3 software can be pretty slow and very annoying.

I personally removed the U3 software from my flash drive (google it to find the remove software) and added a launcher from here:

http://portableapps.com

This was nice because I would frequently use different computers in different labs around campus, the library, friend's houses etc. so it was nice to have my firefox with all the bookmarks, saved passwords (password protected, of course), my thunderbird with saved emails, OOO with my spellcheck (lots of science papers means lots of squiggly red lines), and so on.
 
U3 (and I own 4 USB sticks with U3 on them - at least when they were new, and promptly got rid of it) is a technology that allows for a small portion of a USB stick's capacity to be set aside and used for more static data with a purpose. It is hardware-based, not software, it's not just some app you install on any USB stick; they have to have the support for it from the factory, and not all of 'em do, obviously.

When you insert a U3-enabled USB stick into a machine, what happens - as long as the AutoPlay or AutoRun feature is still enabled - is a piece of code gets executed from the U3 portion of the stick (aka the U3 Launchpad) which is where the boot loader for U3 resides, and the little application which emulates a "portable Start Menu" of sorts is located (the Launchpad itself).

To the host OS on the machine you just inserted a U3-enabled USB stick on, it'll see two devices: the U3-portion and then the rest of the usable space on the device, so one USB stick suddenly becomes two devices. The U3 portion is almost treated like a CD/DVD optical drive in many respects, as far as the OS is concerned.

It seemed to be a nice idea when it first appeared, but it just hasn't taken off as the U3 people had hoped. With Portable Apps and their suite of portable utilities and applications, the requirement for a U3-enabled USB stick isn't necessary as those portable apps work on any USB stick, period, and it comes with a "Launcher" application too.

It's a nice concept, meaning U3, but it's so irritating to many people (myself included) that when we encounter a U3 device we typically just go get the uninstaller and remove that support from the device (effectively departitioning the drive, more or less) so that U3 code doesn't execute when inserted, kinda like wiping the MBR on a hard drive and bootloader too.

Hope this helps...
 
Add another vote for wiping the U3 crap and installing the PortableApps.com suite instead.
 
Ah, thanks for the help. So, to use the Portable Apps suite, do you have to have special versions of programs also? Like, do you have a Portable Apps version of OOo instead of the ordinary OOo?
 
I think that there are many versions of programs which are slimmed down for portable use, but as long as the program does not need any registry changes during the install you can use it - you know what I mean right?
 
The tool for creating "portable apps" - meaning those that are not just single .exe or similar types of apps - is called Thinstall, and it was created by the virtualization wizards at VMWare. Get more info at:

http://www.thinstall.com/

It's a commercial product so, it does cost some Benjamins... or Rubles... or Rupees... or whatever your currency name is. But it's cool damned stuff to be able to "virtualize" individual applications, which is what happens with a truly "portable app" created with Thinstall.
 
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