Portable Apps

This morning, as I prepared for yet another day of monotonous schooling, I thought, "How can I enjoy myself in my computer class, Computer Apps, when it is so basic that it is probable I, myself, could likely teach it?" Passing through several of the common High School reactions to this situation and determining that none of them would do (as I am a good student and ditching leaves unpleasant consequences), I decided to copy the program directories for several of my favorite programs onto my flash drive. This way I'd be able to enjoy them in that gag inducing class. Ingenious, yes?

No. Naturally by just copying the folder in which these programs were stored did not allow me to run them from my flash drive (with the exception of Starcraft, simply because blizzard is awesome). This led me to thinking, for what reason do programs install over so many contorted and poorly named directories that it is simply impossible to find all of the files needed to run the program anywhere other than on the computer you have installed it on?

Money. Curse the economic incentive for screwing with my computer's innards. By making it difficult to back up games and other programs from your hard drive companies force you, if you like their program and are foolish enough not to make a backup image of your hard drive, to repurchase the program. Were this incentive not there programmers would likely write their software to remain in one directory.

This is my dream. I dream of a world where I can easily Ctrl + C and have my program on any machine I want. What, ye on the receiving end of this post, do you dream?