windows - How can I have a portable Emacs?

Question

Is there a way run Emacs from a USB drive? I am a Windows user and I would like to be able use it on any PC without an Emacs install.

Answer 1

Yes, the "normal" Emacs distribution for Windows is precompiled and just runs without having to do any install. Just get one of the *.zip files from the usual place, unpack it onto a USB disk, and you can use it directly. (The actual binary is inside the "bin/" directory.)

The only thing you may want to do is set it up to look for ".emacs" always on the USB disk instead of on your hard drive; see

 (info "(emacs) Windows HOME")

on how to do that.