How To Make Windows Live Writer A Portable USB App

If you’re a blogger that uses Windows Live Writer and Portable Apps, you’ll be pleased to know that you can have the best of both worlds!  Scott Kingery at TechLifeWeb put together a nice tool to make Windows Live Writer portable!

You will first need to install Windows Live Writer to obtain all of the program files (if you don’t have it installed already).

After you’ve installed Windows Live Writer, download WLWPortable3.zip and extract the contents to your USB drive.  Finally, copy all of the files and directories from C:\Program Files\Windows Live\Writer to the WindowsLiveWriterPortable\App\WindowsLiveWriter directory on your USB drive.   To run Windows Live Writer Portable, just launch WindowsLiveWriterPortable.exe from your portable drive.

windows live writer portable

For instructions, visit the Windows Live Writer Portable project page.

Did it work for you? If not, leave a comment here and perhaps we can help you.

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Jorge Sierra

I'm a fairly typical geek that spends hours in front of a computer monitor at work as well as at home. I also enjoy putting together nifty tools and gadgets. I aspire to some day be able to make a living as a geek, perhaps blogging, consulting, or both. Although I've been blogging in some form or another since the turn of the millennium, I really didn't "take it seriously" until I created WealthBoy late in 2007. Recently I decided that blogging about technology and the geeky stuff I enjoy might suit me better, so I created GeekLad. Developing both blogs has been a great learning experience in search engine optimization, and I hope to some day become an SEO expert.

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  • http://www.rickscheibner.net Rick

    I just installed it, and it works like a charm.

  • http://computersservicing.blogspot.com/ venkat

    thanks its working for me ,very helpful while traveling no installation required as no update of Windows Live writer required ,the only thing is recent entries are not accessible in Live writer Portable as in case of installed windows live writer we can save as local drafts in live writer directory makes it easy to access recent posts and recent saved drafts can we access recent posts , local drafts.like that.

  • http://www.troublefixers.com abhishek

    well, yes it is that much simple but you will need to have the .net framework installed on the computer where you use your portable windows live writer.

  • http://blog.freshfocus.info Kris @ Fresh Focus

    This doesn’t do a person any good if they are in IT lockdown hell. You can’t install WLW at all if you are. You have to be an admin on your PC to install.

    • http://geeklad.com Jorge Sierra

      Kris,

      Even so, you should still be able to install WLW on a different desktop machine (at home perhaps) and then copy it to your USB drive. As long as the locked-down machine isn’t locked out of accepting USB drives and it has the .NET installed as abhishek stated, it should still work fine.

  • http://freshfocus.info/blog Kris @ Fresh Focus

    Jorge,

    I’ve investigated this before. You have to install it on the local machine. There are DLL and registry entries that are required for it to run, that’s why it has to be installed first. Check Scott’s original post here:

    http://www.techlifeweb.com/2007/09/08/windows-live-writer-portable-20-now-with-u3/#caveats

    • http://geeklad.com Jorge Sierra

      I had no issues installing it on a different machine. I installed it on my machine at home, copied it to the launcher directory on my USB stick, popped it into my work laptop, and it worked fine. My work laptop is an XP machine however, not Vista. From what Scott says, those running on Vista may indeed encounter issues with UAC.

  • http://www.techlifeweb.com/2008/11/08/windows-live-writer-portable-version-3/ Scott Kingery

    Just posted Version 3 of WLW Portable. Now no Administrator level needed. Works better with Vista! http://www.techlifeweb.com/2008/11/08/windows-live-writer-portable-version-3/

    • http://geeklad.com Jorge Sierra

      Excellent! Thanks for the update Scott.

  • http://www.ampercent.com Amit

    Installed WLWPortable on My USB as you said in this article.But when i popped it in another machine it is showing registry errors !

  • http://geeklad.com Jorge Sierra

    I’m not sure if the latest version of Windows Live Writer works with it. What sort of registry errors did you get?

  • http://www.ampercent.com Amit

    I have the latest WLW installed in My Notebook.I installed WLW portable (ver 3) on My USB.When I plugged in my USB on my college Internet lab it showed “Failed to Start WLW Installer”.

    Then I found that the System didn’t had .Net 3.0.I Installed .Net back and then I tried again.Then i received the following error ”

    “The Installation Failed to Initialize Properly (0 X C0000135).Click ok to Terminate the application”

    Another problem : I can’t See my Current Blog Theme in WLW Ever Since i installed Portable WLW.I tried refreshing the theme but Didnt worked.

  • http://www.ampercent.com Amit

    Jorge……Nothing Working for me….

    Installed ver 2 of live Writer on another System ( keeping the latest live writer on my system)….Works fine but The portable version is showing the same errors.I also tried Portable version 2 but the same error Persists

    “The Installation Failed to Initialize Properly (0 X C0000135).Click ok to Terminate the application”

    Does it have anything to do with shared Dlls ?? and why isn’t my current theme not showing ?

    I badly Need WLW on my USB as i Use multiple Computers and its not possible for me to Install WLW on Every computer I use

    • http://geeklad.com Jorge Sierra

      Did you try downloading Windows Live Writer 2008 from the link above (not older versions of WLW portable)? I don’t know if WLW portable supports Windows Live Writer 2009, so you may need to use Windows Live Writer 2008.

      • http://www.ampercent.com Amit

        Voila ! used your Link and its Working .I previously used the official link.Can’t Figure out why ver 3 is not working for me…may be Scott can help

        A million thanks to you Jorge.You are in my geek list !

        • http://geeklad.com Jorge Sierra

          Glad to help. Yeah, I’d recommend reaching out to Scott to see if he can update it to include support for WLW 2009.