bring preferences (etc.) with me

I'm looking for a way to bring my customized Max5 interface setup with me as I do work on studio or friend's computers without messing with the way they have their Max installation customized (or usually uncustomized).

I'm hoping there might be a way to have my maxinterface.json and .maxdefaults in some folder with a patch containing a script telling Max to look in this folder for these things instead of the usual locations. This way I don't need to worry about backing up their maxinterface.json, replacing it with mine, doing my work, and then putting their maxinterface.json back where I found it.

In addition it would be nice if somehow at the same time I could bring my other Max preferences with me; such as "segmented patch cords", DSP settings, and maybe even file paths (I realize this probably needs to differ from computer to computer, but it would be nice to have my own preferences file to point things to so that I could mess with things as much as I want and don't need to worry about returning things to default setup).

So what do you think, any (or all) of this possible?

Thanks in advance!