Is SL it's own program and platform?

OK a little background -
Another gaming program I run is MAME.
With MAME, the program and all of it's ROMS [games] can be stored on a device like a jump drive and then when this jump drive is plugged into any computer, MAME and the ROMS can run directly off the jump drive...

Would SL run the same way, or does it have to be "installed" into the hard drive and all that?

While I am at it, what causes some programs to run on their own lik I described above and how come some have to be installed in such a way that they can't just run off their own power?

So this is confusing, let me say this - MAME does not reconfigure anything, I wonder if SL does.

Thoughts?

I seem to remember someone running SL from a thumb drive, though that was last year. I suppose it's possible.

You can run it from a flash drive, but it still stores your user files and network cache on your computer's hard drive.

You can relocate the cache to the flash drive through preferences. I'm not sure about the user files, though.

Flash drives are really slow. That's probably not the best place for your network cache.

many programs use the default paths for many things, storage, temp space, registry, etc. some can be configured to use only one location, others can't. SL will run happily from a usb drive, if properly configured; I know I've done it at a library before. not everything will though.

Cool thanks, I will have to look into that, of course I don't know when I would really need to but I was curious

I have run SL from a USB - I woudl be interested though in specific, step by step instructions on how to get all possible SL files to be on thumbdrive also rather than any trace left on what ever computer I wd run it on. Not tremendously comp literate here so baby steps please- Right now I am using a small 2 gb thumb that stores many other files but wd not be opposed to one specifically for SL.