Greetings,

Me and a few friends are looking forward to potentially start a "Retro video game/LAN Club" of sorts at our high school. As it happens to be, many classic, retro games were designed to run DOS, and therefor require a DOS emulator (such as DOSBOX.) GOG, of course happens to be (from my understanding) one of the largest legal distributors of classic, DOSBOX-ready games.
Our problem is with our high school computers is we are required to sign in via our networked, non-administrator accounts. We, therefor do not have access to modify registry files. Is it possible to install, run, and save GOG/DOSBOX games on a USB flash-drive without modifying registry files on the system? If so, could you please walk me throgh the process, step-by-step?
Thanks so much for the advice, and while we're at it, does anyone have suggestions for fun retro games?

I used to install GoG games on my external HDD and ipod plugged in as usb drive without a problem.

It seems like the GOG installer does not allow you to choose a download location?

It does. You just have to push the Options button first.

I've played Heroes of Might & Magic 3 so it was on an USB stick. I just installed it onto my computer normally, and then copy pasted the whole folder into the USB stick, and to my surprise it worked on another computer. My brother said that most games don't seem to mind. Dunno how many and which games he's tried, though.

Yeah as someone has pointed out just click the options button and then you can change the install location from there (see attachment mind you this is from version 2.00 of the installer but the directions are the same)

Alright, I never noticed the options menu there, haha. I'll try it tomorrow at school and get back to you. Thanks for the help!

The older the game, the more likely it will work as a portable install. The newer the game, the more likely it is to have a fixed savegame/config location and/or have registry key requirements that make it non-portable. DOSBox games, for instance, will all work perfectly fine off an external drive, and a lot of older Windows games will too, but anything past 2008 or so isn't likely.