Can I put Applications into Dropbox? If not, is there anywhere else I can?

Question

I am wondering if I can use Dropbox to put applications in, or if there is another 'cloud' that I can use. This would make transferring applications from computer to computer much easier.

Solution 1

If it exists, you could use the portable version of an app, used usually for usb key. There are a lof of them here

You could also install the app on both end, and then make a symlink in dropbox, pointing to the configuration folder, if all you want is to keep them in sync.

however, this may or may not sit well for dropbox if you have a lot of read and write on your config files or databases. Also, using the app on two computers on the same dropbox at the same time will most likely result in havoc.

Solution 2

Depends on the application. Some will function well, many will not. The listing at http://portableapps.com/apps may be of interest in selecting and setting up apps in a Dropbox.

Solution 3

You can put any files you like into Dropbox, provided you follow the ToS.

Solution 4

I use Liberkey inside my dropbox, which gives me all the apps I need, and keeps them updated!

This is what it looks like:

It keeps apps updated, which is a really neat feature:

It also has file association options, so that you can set windows to use liberkey apps by default rather than it's regular ones. This means you don't really need to install any additional apps on your system apart from some anti virus (Microsoft Security essentials is what I use). Although the image below shows how detailed you can be - there is also just a simply file associations on/off button!

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Comments

[Tomin Jacob]

You can put applications in Google Drive.

[Fattie]

Dear Manu, is that relevant to to my question here? superuser.com/questions/870205/…

[Chris Nava]

Many windows apps do not run without being "installed". To get around this you may need to install the app on the second (or later) machines into the dropbox folder while dropbox is not running. Then delete the files on that machine and allow dropbox to sync it from the master.