Dynamic file system restriction for portable storage devices

A method comprising:nat a host system that is operatively coupled to a portable storage device, performing:nreceiving a plurality of file system commands issued by an installer application at the host system;hiding a drive identifier associated with a first file system located at a fixed storage memory device of the host system;removing a directory of the first file system from a list of available directories;preventing write access to the first file system during a copy operation, wherein the plurality of file system commands includes a plurality of application programming interface (API) commands, wherein during installation of a portable application to the portable storage device, at least one of the plurality of API commands is selectively intercepted and modified such that the installer application has write access to a second file system but does not have write access to the first file system, and wherein a set of rules is used to determine whether to selectively intercept and modify parameters of the API commands before the API commands are executed with respect to a destination file system; andselectively intercepting and modifying at least one file system command of the plurality of file system commands before the at least one file system command is executed with respect to the destination file system when the destination file system is the first file system, such that access is directed to the second file system located at the portable storage device.

A method comprising:nat a host system that is operatively coupled to a portable storage device, performing:nreceiving a request to install an application on the portable storage device;executing an installer program at the host system, the installer program issuing a file system command to write one or more executable files for the application to a first file system at a first storage device;removing a directory of the first file system from a list of available directories;preventing write access to the first file system during a copy operation, wherein the file system command includes an application programming interface (API) command, wherein during installation of a portable application to the portable storage device, the API command is selectively intercepted and modified such that the installer application has write access to a second file system but does not have write access to the first file system, and wherein a set of rules is used to determine whether to selectively intercept and modify parameters of the API command before the API command is executed with respect to a destination file system; andintercepting the file system command and modifying the file system command to write the one or more executable files for the application to the second file system at the portable storage device.

A host system comprising:nan interface configured to communicate with a removable data storage device;an installer application configured to issue a plurality of file system commands;a fixed data storage device; anda processor,wherein, with the processor, the host system is configured to selectively intercept and modify parameters of a file system command of the plurality of file system commands issued by the installer application before the file system command is executed with respect to a target file system on the fixed data storage device;wherein the host system is further configured to selectively remove a directory of a first file system from a list of available directories located on the fixed data storage device;wherein the host system is further configured to selectively direct access to a second file system to enable the installer application to access the second file system; andwherein the host system is further configured to prevent write access to the first file system during a copy operation, wherein the plurality of file system commands includes a plurality of application programming interface (API) commands, wherein during installation of a portable application to the removable data storage device, at least one of the plurality of API commands is selectively intercepted and modified such that the installer application has write access to the second file system but does not have write access to the first file system, and wherein a set of rules is used to determine whether to selectively intercept and modify parameters of the API commands before the API commands are executed with respect to a destination file system.

A portable data storage device comprising:nan interface for connection to a host device;a storage area that includes a stored application installation redirection component, the application installation redirection component configured to:nselectively modify parameters of at least one file system command during execution of an application installer before the at least one file system command is executed by an operating system;selectively direct access to a second file system associated with the portable data storage device;remove a directory of a first file system from a list of available directories, wherein the first file system is located at a fixed storage memory device of the host device; andprevent write access to the first file system in a copy operation, wherein the at least one file system command is an application programming interface (API) command, wherein during installation of a portable application to the portable storage device, the API command is selectively intercepted and modified such that the installer application has write access to the second file system but does not have write access to the first file system, and wherein a set of rules is used to determine whether to selectively intercept and modify parameters of the API command before the API command is executed with respect to a destination file system.