Adobe Air App EXE on a USB Stick

Question

EDIT: As it turns out, the issues described here were caused by an outdated version of the Adobe Air runtime. The Air app I had written was compiled for Air 2, but the computers were running Air 1.5. Updating the computers to Air 2.7 (the current version at the time of writing) fixed the problem. Unfortunately, running a newer Air app in an older runtime generates a misleading error. Beware!

ORIGINAL POST:

I'm building an Air app for internal use at my company. I need to install the app to a USB data stick, so that the installed app may be quickly moved from one computer to another. This works just fine on Macs, with the .air generated .app program running just fine on whatever Mac it is moved to.

When I do this on Windows, however, it only works on the computer that performed the initial installation of the .air file. Moving the stick to a different computer and running the program .exe results in an error message: "The installation of this application is damaged. Try reinstalling or contacting the publisher for assistance".

Is this the expected behaviour? Is there any way to run an AIR .exe on a USB data stick regardless of the computer that generated the EXE?

Just to be clear: I'm not looking to move the installer between computers, but the .exe that results from running the installer. I want to run the .air installer once, take the .exe result, put it on a data stick, and then run that .exe on any computer.

Answer 1

Simple recipe to make a portable Adobe AIR app

Ingredients:

1. A whole ziplock of Adobe AIR SDK, recently harvested from Adobe's server farm.
2. One .air package, fresh.
3. Command-line to taste.

Steps:

1. Extract the .air package with a 7-Zip blender.
2. In this folder bowl, whisk in the bin/adl.exe and runtimes/air/win from the SDK.
3. Take the META-INF/AIR/application.xml yolk and set aside.
4. Make sure to have adl.exe, win/ and application.xml in the folder casserole.
5. Add a pinch of adl -runtime win application.xml and let it simmer.

     

Optional: if you want shortcut sauce, just take note of the folder's location in your filesystem kitchen and re-write the parameters above so they have full paths to the win runtime and application.xml.

Finally, most .air will come with a baker's dozen .pngs in the icons directory. You can use an icon oven to grill these into a golden crispy icon.ico to be used in the shortcut sauce.

Bon appétit.

Answer 2

Compile the app to a native exe: http://www.beautifycode.com/compile-air-to-native-dmg-or-exe-files-with-ant. That should do the trick!

and http://help.adobe.com/en_US/air/build/WS789ea67d3e73a8b22388411123785d839c-8000.html

Update: for full stand alone operation look into shu-player, or http://dmartin.org/weblog/how-run-adobe-air-apps-windows-without-admin-rights

Answer 3

There's an easy method I always use (and I have never met the cases it hadn't worked).

Compile ".air" package, install it on your computer. After that, copy the following files from the app folder (keeping the directory structure intact) and run on any Windows machine which has the AIR framework installed.

Minimum set of files to copy:

\META-INF\AIR\application.xml
YourApp.exe
YourApp.swf

Once again, the limitation - your app can only be run on Windows.

Answer 4

In AIR 3 (in Beta right now), you can package an app as a "captive runtime bundle." On Windows this produces a folder that includes your app and the runtime itself. You can run the app from this folder without installation. Of course, some features won't work without installation. For example, registering file types for your app requires registry entries on Windows, so you would need an installer for that (or a utility program that set the required registry values would work, too)