What is a portable app? (2)

I know that probably the concept of carrying one's favored applications, utilities, and files on a portable drive for use on any computer is one which has evolved considerably since years ago. What I'll share then probably you are already very familiar..

According to, again, Aunt Wiki to be considered truly portable, a software program must:

1. Not require any form of formal installation to be carried out on any computer before it can be used, with the release package only needing to be decompressed directly to removable media before use. If it has to be installed first, and requires its files to be manually copied to removable media, it is not designed to be portable. For example, software which is supplied as an InstallShield package should not be considered portable, though a ZIP archive containing an executable would be.
2. Settings are stored with, and can be carried around with, the software (i.e., they are written to the USB drive). If the registry is used to store settings, the application's configuration isn't portable, and must be set up on every PC it is used on
3. Leaves a zero (or near-zero) "footprint" on any PC it's run on after being used. i.e., All temporary files/registry settings should be removed once the program has exited, and files created by the user can be saved directly to the same removable media as the application is stored on.

In regard to this, while so many applications have been built portably and easily gotten in the Net, people should be aware when choosing this kind of application. Unfortunately unsafe portables prevails the portable world at this time. They are working good, one can use them exactly the same way as they were safe ones. But if there's any local installation of the software, these portables would modify or destroy them so they won't work after you've run them. I think creating unsafe portables instead of safe ones is the biggest mistake the creator can make. If you create a portable app and share them with others, you'll come across angry users who are complaining that your portables destroyed the locally installed softwares on their computer. You really should avoid this.


If you use an unsafe portable you should be aware that some unwanted files and/or directories (in Application Data, Documents and other directories) and/or some registry keys will be left on your computer. If you use many unsafe portables, your computer may become slower and slower. But this is the smallest problem. Unsafe portables may overwrite (or even delete) some important system files or registry keys, which may cause undesirable results, such as some installed programs won't run, your system may become unstable, you'll get strange error messages and so on, provided if your computer is able to boot up. I think it's unnecessary to say that we should avoid all these things.

There are cases when you cannot create a safe portable but only unsafe version of the software. If you are about to share them, notify the users that it may destroy the local install of the same software. For whom are not able to create portable app yet, don't worry we'll learn together. Next I'll post how to create a portable app.