Workaround for running certain games from external drives?

[GonnaHaveMeSumFun]

What I meant is for some games you could just copy or cut the entire folder of a game already installed on your computer and paste it onto an external drive such as a USB thumb drive and you would still be able to run them since they don't have restrictions such as requiring necessary system settings such as Registry entries.

This is specifically pertaining to Windows PC games as DOS doesn't have a registry thus none of the DOS games ever need them to run and can all be made portable with no problems via DOSBox. You could install DOSBox or some similar DOS emulation or VirtualMachine program onto a USB drive and run all of those game without any real complications.

Games that are known to have this portable possibility are:


Aliens versus Predator 1999/Gold Edition/Classic 2000
Anarchy Online
Call of Duty 2
Deus Ex 1
All the Classic Doom games (Doom/The Ultimate Doom/Doom II: Hell On Earth/Final Doom, etc. since you only need the main IWAD files and any modern source port or use the official Windows frontend launcher Doom95.exe)
Doom 3
Empire Earth 2
Far Cry
GTA 3
GTA Vice City
GTA San Andreas
Halo
Just Cause
Manhunt
Painkiller
Prey
Quake
Quake 2
Quake 3
Quake 4
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
STALKER
Starcraft
Supreme Commander
The Suffering
Unreal
Unreal 2
Unreal Tournament (not 2004)


However I have not figured out any real solutions on how to make it possible for any of the following games since they all require Registry information, etc. :

Aliens versus Predator 2
any Command & Conquer game
Riddick
Earth 2160
Unreal Tournament 2004

Anyone have any idea on a workaround if possible? Was it Thinstall or some other program that could create a workaround for this?

I would love to be able to run AvP2 on a thumb drive without having to re-install the game each time. Copying/Moving the already installed game from my PC on the USB drive doesn't allow me to play AvP2 on any other computer without re-installing first

[basetta]

Haven't tried it on any of the listed games but Sandboxie? It stores registry and files in a "local" area that I think is movable. Useful when dealing with possible trojans or license files.

[oldman]

maybe put a bat file that will run the reg entries and then start the game afterwards.