Running Skype from a USB flash drive

You will have to create an account on Skype before you can use it.
  1. Download Skype and install it on your computer. (or, if you have already installed Skype on your computer, continue to step 2)
  2. Find skype.exe file where it was installed. (Normally found at C:\Program Files\Skype\Phone\skype.exe)
  3. On your USB drive create a folder and name it "Skype" and copy skype.exe into this folder
  4. Create another folder in this Skype folder on the USB drive and name it "Data"
  5. Create a new file in Notepad and name it "skype.bat"
  6. Open the "skype.bat" file and add the following text: skype.exe /datapath:"Data" /removable
When you finish, your Skype folder will contain skype.exe, an empty folder called "data" and a command file called "skype.bat".

Just double click skype.bat to run Skype. The first time you run it from this drive, it will ask you to sign in. At that point, it will initialize several other files in the data directory.

When you execute it in the future, it will not have to enter your user name -- it will sign you in and you will be ready to go.

Note that we have created a batch file with a one-line script. That command executes Skype and passes two parameters to the program:

  1. /datapath:"Data"
  2. /removable
The first parameter tells the Skype program that data about the current user is stored in a directory called Data. The second parameter tells the Skype program that the data resides on removable media. (Note that parameters follow the program name and are separated by slashes "/").

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