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Different installation media types and registry conflicts

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phay
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Last seen: 5 years 6 months ago
Joined: 2012-06-05 03:11
Different installation media types and registry conflicts

Hi, I've been using an installation of PortableApps, which is located on an External USB3 Hard Drive. This installation is a 'working installation', which I use to download and evaluate individual apps, with the intention of eventually placing a select subset of apps on a USB Flash Drive.

I also use this External USB3 Drive installation to run apps which I may use only occasionally, and thus prevent unnecessarily clogging up my Windows registry with local application installations.

A while back, I was encountering issues with programs that had been both installed locally on my hard drive (full installation), and also installed as a PortableApp on my External USB3 Hard Drive (i.e., VLC Media Player). These problems involved applications not being able to store their preferences.

After scouring the Windows registry, I discovered that programs installed as PortableApps on my External USB Hard Drive, were also registering themselves in the Windows Registry, thus causing conflicts with their (non-portable) counterparts installed locally on my hard drive.

I also noticed that a PortableApps installation which I'd made directly onto a USB Flash Drive did not conflict in this way, as its registry entries appeared to exist in a separate 'USB section' in the Windows Registry.

Assuming my observations are correct, my question is twofold:

1. Is there any way to run a PortableApps installation on an External USB Hard Drive without it conflicting with Registry entries from 'like applications' installed fully on the local hard drive ?

2. If I install PortableApps onto an SD Card and run it from my computer's SD Card Slot, will it behave (correctly) like a PortableApps installation on a USB Flash Drive, or (incorrectly) like an installation on an External USB Hard Drive ?

Thanks,
phay

ottosykora
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Last seen: 16 hours 3 min ago
Joined: 2007-10-11 17:48
should not be so

The portable apps might need this and that and use also local drive to store something. However when you close the app correctly, then all such things will be deleted again and original data left by non portable apps will be restored.
Mostly it is therefore not possible to run the installed and portable version at the same time.
So far from my experience, there is no real difference running portable apps from external hard drive, usb stick or even local drive.

Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland

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