I’ve been trying Lexar’s PowerToGo for a couple days. This utility lets you store applications, preferences, favorites, etc., on a thumb drive; when you plug that thumb drive into a computer–any computer–your applications become available, of course, but so do your preferences. And when you remove the drive, it’s like you were never there–at least, to the host computer.

So why would you want to use one of these? A few examples:

You travel without a notebook, and you want access to your favorite applications.
Multiple people are using one computer–say, a work-issued laptop.
You want to make like a character in a Patricia Cornwell book and hide your tracks.
When you plug the drive in (after the initial install), you’ll see a start menu at the bottom of your screen that looks much like Windows.’ That window shows you application shortcuts and links to other content on your thumb drive; it has a nice capacity gauge at the bottom.

Lexar says PowerToGo stores no user data on the host computer, but it does install a 180KB program on the host that redirects Windows to use a portable registry on the thumb drive. You do not have to have administrative rights to install the program (unlike you do with U3 products, the Lexar folks just had to point out). It sounds pretty tricky, but I haven’t had any problems with it so far.

You can install anything from an included list of 100 pre-approved applications (as long as you have room on the drive); click something once and it installs. If the apps you want to use are already installed on the host–say, Microsoft Word–a shortcut will appear in PowerToGo’s menu, but your files will be stored on the thumb drive. A separate feature will allow you to install unapproved applications, but it’s not ready yet, and it will cost an extra $30 after an initial 90-day trial.

The list of pre-approved apps seems a little thin–lotsa stuff I’ve never heard of–but it does have Mozilla Firefox, WinAmp, and some games, like Chicken Invader 2. It also includes a stock-ticker app–nice, because you can specify which stocks you want to watch, and they run in a resizable strip across the top of your screen.

In my use, I couldn’t tell any difference running the other applications I tried. I did have to set my preferences manually, though, and import bookmarks in Firefox.

If you already own a Lexar drive, you’ll be able to download a PowerToGo trial starting sometime in early June; to keep it, you’ll have to pay $30. Or, wait until July, when it will be included with all Lexar thumb drives. You can’t use it with a non-Lexar drive; apparently the app reads the drive’s information to limit itself to products within the brand.