I put portableapps on my flash key but sometimes I need them on my desktop or laptop. I have installed and used this way for a year with no problems. Apparently, it leaves nothing in the registry? Why don't more MS programs work that way?
Is there any danger putting a portable app on a computer?
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It used to be that all Windows programs worked this way, with the exceptions of an .ini file in the windows directory for some applications. Unix, BSD, and Linux still all use that model. But, to beat the 'problem' of people copying programs to use on other computers, and to 'enhance' the publisher's revenue stream, the Registry was introduced to force consumers to buy more copies of the applications for their other machines.
No, there is no danger in using an application portabilized here on a desktop or laptop computer. This is the technique I use to have familiar applications on my client-issued laptop without administrator rights.
A portable app is one that was designed to run on a hard drive and use the resources of the OS for performance and efficiency crippled to run from a USB drive and not use the OS's resources available to it.
If you find a particular app useful and want to have a version on your hard drive install the original version of the app rather than the portable version. Then you will have the best of both worlds.
You will also see difference between a local install and a portable install.
BTW The Registry concept was for performance reasons. It is usually always in memory and faster to access it's contents then reading the hard drive to find and then read an ini file.
Ed