If you’re up for paying the hefty amounts those commercial solutions require, no one is stopping you. The same goes for VMware ThinApp, which only offers a free trial. Others, such as Cameyo, are now only available as a paid service. Unfortunately you’ll find that most have not been updated in almost a decade.

There used to be quite a few portable app makers that would quickly convert your Windows apps into portable versions. The virtual machine will use whatever internet connection the host offers, but from the app’s point of view it’s still on the same “computer” it was installed on.

Using a portable virtual machine may be the only way to get these to work this way. The same thing goes for cloud-connected subscription apps. Especially if it turns out that a critical Windows app doesn’t work after being converted to portable.

It might even be worth buying another copy of Windows, depending on your use case. If you have an old license or extra license key laying around, this might be a great alternative. The main catch here is that you need a separate license for the copy of Windows in your virtual machine.

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