When Sysinternals' "Process Explorer" runs, it uses the registry to store its settings.
So when it is run on a PC that already has been set up to use Process Explorer (i.e. columns selected, colours chosen, font chosen, etc), these settings get irretrievably lost by the version of Process Explorer run from a PortableApps thumb drive.
"A portable app doesn't leave registry entries behind except those automatically generated by Windows"
https://portableapps.com/about/what_is_a_portable_app#guidelines
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Have you actually checked whether the registry entries made by Process Explorer are actually there after the application is properly shut down?
Many PortableApps conversions write to the registry, but should remove the entries when they are closed. That is one of the key requirements.
If this app doesn't do that then it should be reported as a 'bug', preferably with details of the actual entries being left.
MJA
It's also worth exploring whether it was properly exited. If you shut down Windows without closing it, Windows will kill it so it can't restore the local registry entries on exit. That's one reason the PortableApps.com Platform has the ability built-in to properly close your apps and let you know which it can't safely close so you can before exit / eject / shutdown.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thanks mjashby and John T. Haller.
I just repeated what I did before, and exported the "Process Explorer" key from my Registry at various stages so that I could check how it was affected.
I could not repeat the problem that I saw before.
All my Registry exports were identical, apart from the one exported while the portable version was running - that one contained much less information, probably the default settings.
But, as soon as the portable version was exited, the registry was updated and reverted back to the settings that I use for my non-Portable version.
So I believe Mr Haller is right - I must have done something wrong the first time I tried the portable version, and probably not shut it down correctly. I may even had had the non-portable version running at the same time, but haven't tested what effect that would have on the registry.
So, thanks again for your posts - very much appreciated.
Addendum:
My reason for trying to get the column set in the portable version the same as the set in the non-portable version that runs on my desktop PC (which I have taken a lot of time to configure), is so that I can run Process Explorer on other peoples' PCs and help with whatever problem they are having.
So first I had the problem of my own PC's column settings being "erased" by the portable version which, it is clear, was because I didn't shut the portable version down properly.
But then I still had the problem of getting my configuration from the non-portable version into the portable version.
The view command has a "Save column set" command for saving these sets of columns. But this is of no use as the data is saved in the registry which is overwritten by the portable version.
But I just found the registry settings that the portable version uses when it starts. These are in:
drive:\PortableApps\ProcessExplorerPortable\Data\settings\ProcessExplorerPortable.reg
So I replaced that .reg file with one exported from my non-portable version and the portable version now looks and behaves as I want.
I hope this information may be of use to others.