Is there an easy way to put my entire installation of Intellij on a USB stick?

In addition to the answer of CrazyCoder:

To copy the "system" folder of IntelliJ / PHPStorm to the usb memory stick is required if you want that IntelliJ / PHPStorm behave like a portable app.

To get the desired folders install IntelliJ / PHPStorm to your HDD and run it at least one time.

On Windows 7 the path is (copy the folders to your usb memory stick):

• %USERNAME%\.WebIde10\config\ => usb:/IDEA_HOME/config
• %USERNAME%\.WebIde10\system\ => usb:/IDEA_HOME/user-plugins

Note that user-plugins is not created at first start of IntelliJ / PHPStorm, so create it on your usb memory stick.

Edit the idea.properties as CrazyCoder told you and change all 3 values:

• idea.config.path
• idea.plugins.path
• idea.system.path

Yes, it's possible, just copy the installation directory to the flash drive, then edit IDEA_HOME\bin\idea.properties file, change the values of idea.config.path and idea.plugins.path to the relative location, like: ../config and ../user-plugins (locations are relative to IDEA bin directory).

Now copy your original settings and third-party plug-ins (if any):

• ${user.home}/.IntelliJIdea10/config => usb:/IDEA_HOME/config
• ${user.home}/.IntelliJIdea10/config/plugins => usb:/IDEA_HOME/user-plugins

Note that it's not recommended to change idea.system.path variable, so that it remains on the fast local drive, otherwise it could affect IDEA performance and occupy a lot of USB drive space.

One thing you could also do is to use the ${idea.home} path variable. I described in an article how you can create a portable version of IntelliJ IDEA including a version of the JDK.

https://leolabs.org/blog/making-intellij-portable/

I hope it can help you, as this is my first article in English ;)

Regards leolabs

open c:\Program Files\JetBrains\IntelliJ IDEA 14.1.3\bin\idea.properties

• change # idea.config.path=${user.home}/.IntelliJIdea/config to idea.config.path=../PortableSetting/config
• change # idea.system.path=${user.home}/.IntelliJIdea/system to idea.system.path=../PortableSetting/system
• change # idea.plugins.path=${idea.config.path}/plugins to idea.plugins.path=../PortableSetting/config/plugins
• change # idea.log.path=${idea.system.path}/log to idea.log.path=../PortableSetting/system/log

make PortableSetting folder in c:\Program Files\JetBrains\IntelliJ IDEA 14.1.3\

copy content of C:\Documents and Settings\User\.IntelliJIdea14\ to c:\Program Files\JetBrains\IntelliJ IDEA 14.1.3\PortableSetting\

copy c:\Program Files\JetBrains\IntelliJ IDEA 14.1.3 to USB and enjoy!

I wrote this answer for windows XP default directory.

for more information about default directory look at here.

I read other people answers and made an step by step answer.