My first try with portable apps was a disaster because I had no idea that a group of such small programs would take so long to install. There was no way to stop when I needed to leave for class and doing so unfortunately broke the flash drive. On my second try I went to install a smaller list, and it still takes forever and now I today I was again in a situation where I had to let it finish or take it. I had to risk letting it get stolen and there was nothing I could do about it.
As it stands, using the app installer is very risky if I have even a few hours. Furthermore, the license agreements don't appear at the beginning so I can't even let it run alone. I have to babysit the installer which completely defeats the purpose of a bath install. And of course, while this is going on portable apps itself often freezes up and shows as "not responding" so I can't always open new apps while this is doing on.
What I would like to see is this: When installing multiple apps at once have the option to suspend the download or install. It could then just finish the one it's on and then keep track of what other ones it still has to do to be resumed later. That way I can safely remove the flash drive if I ever need to without messing anything up. I would also like to see the license agreements for all the apps moved to the beginning of the install operation where I can read and agree to each one before anything is installed.
1. Are you on a very slow connection or in a country or other situation where your bandwidth is limited?
2. If you install the platform first and then use that to choose your apps you can see the amount of data that will need to be xferred. Also bear in mind that some apps need to get more from the outside world to complete an installation.
3. PA can't break a flash drive, pulling it out of a machine might.
4. you can force PA to close and / or shut down the system, you might be left with an incomplete download but PA is actually much better behaved by default than Win in this regard.
5. are you sure your app selection was small? a number involve many hundreds of megabytes getting on for gigs in some uncommon cases.
6. if you are really short of time, just stop it, no harm will occur
Wm