How can I write a portable Windows application?

Question

I want to write a very simple GUI based application that can be run from a flash drive. It will mainly be used for basic file manipulation (copying, moving, deleting, etc.), not much more advanced than that. I saw this question looking for something similar, but it did not receive very informative answers.

The language is not important for me as I have used many in the past and could easily pick up another one.

I know this seems like a fairly stupid question, but on Windows I only know of Visual Studio for developing and it doesn't offer such functionality (at least as far as I am aware).

Answer 1

You'll want to use ATL with WTL. WTL contains some samples to show you how to use it, but it's not terribly well-documented; basically you can create a dialog resource and use the WTL::CDialogImpl class, but getting it right will take some time.

None of the Visual C++ project types are completely suitable; you'll have to modify them or find an extension online that adds new project types for WTL (they exist but aren't too fantastic).

You'll probably want to use static linking to avoid depending on external C++ DLLs.
I recommend using Visual Studio 2008 if you have it.

Answer 2

You can write something in C++. Visual Studio supports C++. If you need a gui lib, search for MFC, WxWidgets, or QT.