Portable Apps & Local Disk (C:) & Program Files

[Daveski17]

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to this forum. I have been extolling the virtues of Maxthon as a browser of late. I was originally only running the Portable Apps version & needed a really fast browser, with some functionality, primarily for our work laptops. Now, the last time I used Maxthon was some years ago & I really liked it except for its lack of decent adblocking. This has now been drastically improved & it even has an 'Opera style' content blocker.

I decided to download the regular Maxthon browser so I could spend more time to get familiar with it without turning my thumbdrives into toast due to excessive use. Everything was fine on the first day, the second day I ran the portable to change some settings I had learned & after removing it from the computer I started the standard Maxthon. It opened to be basically the vanilla uncustomised version, all of my bookmarks & settings had gone. After re-booting the PC & re-installing Maxthon from its installer, with no success, I decided to uninstall it. At first I thought it may be something to do with the portable being run. Although I have a feeling this happened to me with Maxthon once before, a long time ago, & also before I ever used portable apps. The portable versions still run perfectly fine.

I had a thought that I may be more successful copying one of my portable versions of Maxthon to my Local Disk (C Drive) in the program files.

Anyway, to cut a long story slightly shorter, does anyone run any kind of portable application (especially Portable Apps) on their C-Drive? Is it possible & if so, which ones do you use?

[Daveski17]

John Haller of PortableApps has kindly informed me that this is possible as long as you make a new folder on your C-Drive for the portable versions. Apparently there are some difficulties in running them from Program Files.

I have tried this & the portable Maxthon on the C-Drive is working fine. It just has to be the fastest browser ever used on my C-Drive.

Yep. I went a step further and made a new partition to put them.

[Daveski17]

Originally Posted by guest

Yep. I went a step further and made a new partition to put them.

Sounds interesting, what are the advantages to that, if you don't mind me asking? Plus, which portables are you running?

More organization and control.

Also, if I need, I can also reinstall Windows in C: without having to restore backup of the data from the other partition. But this is hardly necessary, because I make system images of everything (using Macrium Reflect) and save them in external HDD.

[Daveski17]

Originally Posted by guest

More organization and control.

Also, if I need, I can also reinstall Windows in C: without having to restore backup of the data from the other partition. But this is hardly necessary, because I make system images of everything (using Macrium Reflect) and save them in external HDD.

That's a good idea. Have you tried the Maxthon portable?

Originally Posted by Daveski17

Plus, which portables are you running?

These:

Portable apps from PortableApps.com (+ PortableApps.com Platform)


Other portable apps:


Some of them (Seconfig XP, for example) are for Windows XP x86 (the OS in one of my latops, the old one), others (Process Lasso x64, for example) are meant to be used with Windows 7 x64 (the OS in my main laptop).

I have lots of portable installations of games as well.

Originally Posted by Daveski17

That's a good idea. Have you tried the Maxthon portable?

A very long time ago. Almost forgot the experience.

[Daveski17]

@guest,

Wow! that's a fair few portables . I take it Maxthon was a bit forgettable. I tried the standard Maxthon 3 almost exactly a year ago I think. I believe I uninstalled it because it 'blanked' itself then as well. I think I can remember other people telling me about similar experiences. So far the portables (on any drive) are working really well. I just wish it had a British English spellchecker!

[Woody777]

I have operated a secondary partition for years using portable apps. You are absolutely correct if you need to reinstall windows everything will be there waiting for you when you use the reinstalled operating system for the first time. I have never noticed any difference between running from a flash drive or a secondary partition except for the fact that all your poortables work a little faster when they are on the secondary partition. I thought that a lot of people operated portables this way.

My secondary partition is in fact another internal HDD. My laptop came with 2 HDDs.