Could I install Delphi and my libraries on a USB key in such a way as to allow debugging of my app on a customers PC?

Question

Back in the days of Delphi 7, remote debugging was mostly ok. You set up a TCP/IP connection, tweaked a few things in the linker and you could (just about) step through code running on another PC whilst keeping your Delphi IDE and its libraries on your development PC.

Today, with Delphi XE2,3,4 you have paserver which, at least at the moment can be flaky and slow. It is essential for iOS (cross platform) development, but here at Applied Relay Testing we often have to debug on embedded PC's that run recent Windows. To do this we have employed a number of strategies but the hardest situation of all is to visit a customer site and wish that one could 'drop in' a Delphi IDE + libraries and roll up ones sleeves to step through and set breakpoints in source code.

It is quite likely - hopefully - that the paserver remote debugging workflow and its incarnations will improve over time but for now I got to wondering how it might be possible to install Delphi + libraries + our source code on a USB key so that with only a minimal, perhaps automated setup, one could plug that key into a PC and be compiling, running and debugging fairly quickly.

I can see that the registry is one of the possible issues however I do remember that Embarcadero once talked about being able to run their apps from a USB key. Knowing how much of a pain it is to install my 20-odd libraries into Delphi though, it is not trivial and needs thinking about.

Has anyone done anything like this or have any ideas of how it might be done?

Answer 1

Delphi does not support what you are asking for. But what you could do is create a virtual machine with your OS, IDE, libraries etc installed in it, then copy the VM onto a USB drive, install the VM software on the customer system, and run your VM as-is. There are plenty of VM systems to choose from.

Answer 2

First, I need to get this out of the way: embedded PCs running Windows?? Sob.

Ok, now for a suggestion: if a full virtual machine isn't an option for this task, application-level virtualization may be. This intercepts registry calls and other application-level information and maps them to a local copy, allowing essentially any application to be turned into a portable version. The good news is that there are free versions of several programs that can turn Windows programs into virtualized apps.

The only one I've personally used is MojoPac, and found it delivered as promised although was very slow running off of a (old, very slow) flash drive. http://lifehacker.com/309233/make-any-application-portable-with-mojopac-freedom

I haven't used this newer "freedom" version though.

Two other programs I've seen that appear to be popular are Cameyo: http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/create-your-own-portable-virtual-version-any-windows-program.htm

and P-Apps, http://dottech.org/26404/create-a-portable-version-of-any-software-with-p-apps/

but I can't vouch for the quality of either of these two.

Hope this helps.