U3 flash drives rendered useless on some PCs
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By
Virginia Culler
Readers are adding more weight to our less-than-glowing reviews of U3 flash software. Many corporate IT administrators block U3 use completely, so if you use USB flash drives at work, you may want to avoid this platform. |
Locked networks make U3 a bad fit
Associate editor Scott Dunn on Oct. 18 reviewed free, downloadable suites of "portable software" that you can run directly from flash drives. In a related, Oct. 11 review of flash drives themselves, he wrote, "Don't base your drive choice on U3," recommending non-U3 drives that are faster and have greater capacity at a lower price.
Several readers wrote to inform us that, at their corporate workplaces, U3 drives are unworkable or banned due to certain behaviors in the software. Derek Douglas says:
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"One drawback of U3 drives is that they try to install their software on the PC they're connected to. Our company's network is locked down to stop unauthorised software being installed onto PCs on the network. This therefore renders U3 drives useless and prevents you from displaying your big presentation, unless you saved a backup copy somewhere other than your U3 drive."
If you do wish to use a U3 drive (or you've already bought one), reader Melvin Lewis suggests a free utility called Package Factory that can convert some regular programs to the .u3p format that's used by U3 drives. The documentation for this utility gives the disclaimer that it works best with simple applications that don't have many support files.
Comcast readers receive bounce notices
Most of our subscribers who use Comcast.net e-mail addresses saw bounce messages last week. Some users of this Internet service provider, however, received the newsletter with no problem. We're working with Comcast and our e-mail broadcast service to prevent the ISP from bouncing our newsletters again.
In the meantime, please remember that you can always access the free version of the newsletter on the Web. Paid subscribers can read all paid content on our Web site by logging in with their e-mail address and reader number, which is shown at the top and bottom of every newsletter. We apologize for any inconvenience the Comcast bounces caused.
Readers Douglas, Lucas, and Lewis will each receive a gift certificate for a book, CD, or DVD of their choice for sending tips we printed. Send us your tips via the Windows Secrets contact page.
The Known Issues column brings you readers' comments on our recent articles. Virginia Culler is managing editor of WindowsSecrets.com.
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