Portable Apps or Fully-Installed Apps?

javierdl

Distinguished
Jun 14, 2012
15
0
18,570
Does any one know if Portable Apps are the same as their counter-parts Fully-Installed Apps? Or if they are not as complete.
I am considering installing "only" portable apps in a separate partition, in an attempt to diminish the impact on fragmentation, namely on the OS partition.

Any advice/recommendations related to this will be more than appreciated.

Thanks in advance guys :)

JDL
 
Solution
That all depends on the application, some may be "lite" versions, some may not. Don't worry about fragmentation, once you install a program it won't be moved around, and you can setup a different partition for all applications anyway. Most will allow you to install them in any location. Drive fragmentation will happen though regular file use, update downloads, temp files from web pages and running programs, user files being added/moved/deleted, etc...
That all depends on the application, some may be "lite" versions, some may not. Don't worry about fragmentation, once you install a program it won't be moved around, and you can setup a different partition for all applications anyway. Most will allow you to install them in any location. Drive fragmentation will happen though regular file use, update downloads, temp files from web pages and running programs, user files being added/moved/deleted, etc...
 
Solution

miguel loureiro

Honorable
May 11, 2013
1
0
10,510
"Most will allow you to install them in any location." Indeed but it's very different from having a "portable app". A portable app doesn't need to be installed - it runs/executes. So let's say you have formated your C: partition and reinstalled the OS again and your Portable Apps folder was in D: partition the only thing you have to do is to double click the program for it to work - it's portable. By the other hand if you had installed a program in another partition by the time you formatted your OS you lost part of the installation (or not) and its registry and therefore wouldn't work.
For instance if I format my system partition I know I'll have all my cookies, log-ins and every browser related thingies untouched in my Firefox from Portable Apps. Gives less the feeling of having formatted my system and it saves a lot of time if you add all the of other settings of all the other programs you use from PA. They keep the same. You can even burn it to a disk if you want to keep it forever and as a backup.
If I reinstall a system (or do an image restore from a fresh install backup) all the programs I use (or the only ones) are there in that other partition ready to work and plus I have a great launcher for them which is Portable Apps.
In my case it works perfectly as I dual boot Linux (as main OS) and Windows XP just for gaming and in XP I never "install" anything except for the drivers, I only "run" games and PA programs and don't have any anti-virus - I do scan drives but either from PA tools or Linux or live usb distros/other system tools whatever. And it could pass months and XP keeps always fast so I chose this way. I believe for many this makes no sense or worth the effort but the thing is is that "effort" is what I do less. Cheers and long live PA.
Crctr