I'll start by pointing out that I am primarily a Linux user at home. I study full time and the idea Portable Apps has been a god send for being able to use Open Source apps at school instead of being locked in to the propriety junk they have installed there, and being unable to install alternatives due to the admin. The concept of having all my favourite stuff launchable from a USB is fantastic.
That being said, I am at my wits end with these Windows computers. I have reinstalled the platform to several different USB sticks several times over the past few months. I even recently purchased a 16Gb USB 3.0 specifically for using Portable Apps, hoping to see some improvement. I have tried Fat32, NTFS, enabling write caching for the 3.0. I never just pull out the stick, and ALWAYS 'safely remove drive'.
I use possibly 2 to 3 different computers throughout the day with the USB. I try to get on the same computer for each class, but the other students rotate where they sit often, so I'm logged in at different terminals all the time.
And often, the software is miserably slow... infuriatingly so. After a fresh install it all seems zippy and awesome, but after logging off of this one and logging in to that one - it becomes tiresome waiting for apps to launch or for Firefox OR Chromium to load a single page. I have tried installing Chromium on a seperate USB without the Portable Apps platform and it works fine.
So what am I doing wrong? Should I not enable write caching (Something I tried because it was slow before)? Do I have too many Apps installed (FF,Chromium,Gimp,Blender,Audacity,CMD,Explorer+ etc. [Not even simultaneously but 1 at a time])? I'll add that also often, putting in the USB causes Windows to pop up the dreaded 'check disk for errors' window. For the amount of times I've seen that pop up...
The one other factor I have considered is that I am also using the USB in Linux to back up files. I never get any errors in Linux, even if Windows wants to run a check and I don't and test it in Linux, there's no problem. Could there be some cross chatter when mounting the drive that Windows doesn't like? This is frustrating the hell out of me. I hate Windows! All these popups and write/read problems make me want to throw the damn PC out the Door. I'm very close to doing a Collumbine but shooting all the computers not the people.