Dumitrache.net

This tip is for those of you that want to be connected with friends over Yahoo or MSN Messenger while working at a computer that hasn’t got these programs installed and installing them is restricted due to various reasons. This could be the case of your computers at school, work or any other facility where the administrator might choose to set up software such as DeepFreeze to prevent you from installing your own applications.

If you find yourself in one of the situations described above, there is a way you can connect to these messaging networks (not only Yahoo and MSN, but also many others) without needing to install anything. You will just need to copy a “portable” application to your memory stick/portable hard drive or any other storage drive that you usually cary around with you. Of course, you might ask: “Why not install the original Yahoo/MSN Messenger there?”. Well, you could try, but you might experience problems since the installation process of a non-portable application involves writing information to the Windows Registry and therefore, what will be installed on your memory stick will not be the complete software.

The alternative that I found is Pidgin, a free messaging client that can connect to multiple chat networks at the same time.The good news is that a portable version of Pidgin is available and can be downloaded from here. After you download it, run the executable. A setup wizard similar to that of a non-portable application will show up. “Install” the portable app to a folder on your memory stick. The entire messaging application will be copied there and nothing will be written to the registry. There you go! You have a portable chat application on your memory stick. From now on, you will be able to use it from any computer without executing the setup process over again.

Pidgin can connect simultaneously to multiple chat networks (Yahoo/MSN/ICQ). Therefore, it works with “accounts”. The first time you start it, you will be asked to configure your first account (enter your log in information). There you go! A messaging application for Yahoo, MSN and lots of other chat services available anywhere you go.