Been looking for a long time on how to do this. A post over at the vandyke forums mentions that they are looking at how to do it, but there’s no other information on it. So, using an old vandyke newsletter article, I set off to figure out how to get SecureCrt U3-capable.
First, if you are unfamiliar with U3, from the website:
Imagine carrying your software on the same flash drive that carries your files. That’s what you can do with a U3 smart drive. You can plug it into any PC and work, play a game, message friends, send email, edit photos and more. A U3 smart drive makes any PC your own PC. And when you unplug it, it leaves no personal data behind.
There are other, free options that do the same thing (like portableapps.com, PStart, etc), but I have a U3 drive, and it works just fine. Using the article above, I already had SecureCRT running on myportable drive, but it wasnt incorporated into the U3 Launcher and required me to open up the drive and manually launch it. Plus, U3 makes sure your apps are all closed before it disengages the drive. And there have been a couple of times where I ejected the drive but had forgotten about SecureCRT.
So, you are going to need a couple of tools in order to do this. Head over to U3.com and grab: U3 Package Prototyper and the Manifest Creator. Makes sure to have your U3 drive already plugged in as both of these apps actually install themselves to the drive. Ok, now, go follow all six steps in the directions from the newsletter I mentioned above. However, at step 1, dont copy your files over to the USB drive. Just copy them to a new location on your hard drive somewhere. We wont actually end up using the bat file you create at step 4, but do it anyway for now.
After you’ve completed all six steps, make sure SecureCRT is working correctly from your temp working area. Now, fire up the prototyper from your U3 Launcher. Use the browse button to select your Main Application Directory (thats the “SecureCRT” folder where you’ve been working in). Then, use the drop down menu to choose SecureCRT.exe as your Main Executable (see the screen shot). Then click the “Build” button. It will ask you where you want to store the U3 package its going to build. Pick somewhere you can get to easily since we have a bit more work to do. Click Save and it should build the package.
Once it finishes building the package, head on over to where you saved it. The package will have a u3p extension. A U3 package is really nothing more than a zip file. Change the extension from *.u3p to *.zip and then open it with your favorite zip application (I would strongly suggest WinRar). Extract the contents of the zip file. You should end up with 3 folders: Device, Host and Manifest. From your U3 Launchpad, start up the U3 Manifest Creator (UMC). In the UMC, go to the File menu, and open. Navigate to where you extracted the files and go into the Manifest folder. Open up the manifest.u3i file. It will warn you about the name having invalid contents. Dont worry about it, and just import anyway.
In the UMC go ahead and fill in the values on the Manifest Entries page tab (see screen shot). The icon file and UUID fields should already be filled out for you. If not, pick an icon you want to use, and click the Generate UUID button.
In the UMC, click on the Required Lifecycle Actions page tab. The important part here is the Action Arguments field. In this field, put in:
/F %U3_DEVICE_EXEC_PATH%\Config
Make sure everything looks like the screen shot.
Now, go to the File menu, and click on Validate Current Entries. Make sure you dont have any problems (for example, it doesnt like parentheses in the Product Description field). Last Save the file. Before proceeding, I would suggest re-opening the manifest file and make sure the Action Arguments line is what we put in. I have had a couple of problems where I would put in the arguments, and it wouldnt save correctly.
Since we no longer need it, go into the Device folder and delete the bat file we created earlier. Now we want to re-zip the three folders (Device, Host and Manifest) back into a zip file. Change the file extension on the resulting file from *.zip back to *.u3p. The last thing to do is to actually install the application on your U3 drive. From your U3 LaunchPad, go to Add Programs, Install from My Computer. Navigate to where your new .u3p file is. Follow the directions, and you should now find SecureCRT in your program listings in your U3 Launchpad.
Launch it and enjoy. 