[Trinidog]

Interesting idea, unfortunatey, my dad is a techy to, so I can't help him, really, we techys are very stubborn.

[trjtrj]

Good article and good tips. For PortableApps, you may want to do the install and then the portable apps adding to the program in a folder on your hard drive. I found my thumb drive a bit to slow and cranky to do this install and build on the USB drive. But, when I first did all of it to a folder on my PC drive and once done and working, transferred all the folder contents to the USB drive, the USB drive then did all the PortableApps works just fine on any PC or laptop it went into.

[Davinator]

One thing not mentioned - and maybe they ameliorated this since I tried PA years ago: They include a portable version of Firefox, yet (surprise!) won't let you use a PROPER version of Adblock Plus, which is possibly the best add-on of all time.

[EdwardMorganis26]

I've always used Ultimate Boot CD for Windows (http://ubcd4win.com/) for my clean environment boot needs. To create a disk, you just need (a) a copy of WinXP, ( a CD/DVD burner and © an Internet connection to update AV definitions. The only app missing from the latest version (3.60) is Malwarebytes, but it's not a deal-breaker for me.

[Lantirn85]

How large of a USB thumb drive do I need for this. Should it be "clean" with only this stuff, or can I put all this into a folder? Do you boot from this thumb drive?

[Dzebruk]

I like KeePass because it works well across Windows and Ubuntu. I have a dual boot computer but can access KeePass from either OS which means there is no need to sync the database since it is the only one in use.

I might also give a thumbs-up to Autoruns. It really bailed me out of a sticky problem a couple of years ago.

Any kind of Linux on a disk can also be a lifesaver. I've used Knoppix in the past to get into my files when a computer wouldn't boot to Windows.

Thank you for the article-I'm definitely going to get some of the things you mentioned that I haven't used before.

[LH74]

Quote

I am very interested but have 2 questions:
1. how big a thumb drive isneeded to hold the apps you mention?
2. How much space will the SystemRescueCD take?
Thanks,
Chuck

[LH74]

Quote

I am very interested but have 2 questions:
1. how big a thumb drive isneeded to hold the apps you mention?
2. How much space will the SystemRescueCD take?
Thanks,
Chuck

The two comments above say 16GB,but you can never get a thumb drive to large. You can keep docs. pics, etc. These things are cheap, so at least 16, maybe even 32GB. To much is better most always.

[brainout]

ACTIONPC, on 18 January 2013 - 08:56 AM, said:

Quote

I am very interested but have 2 questions: 1. how big a thumb drive isneeded to hold the apps you mention? Thanks, Chuck

I'm sure a 2GB USB drive will hold them all...

Don't get 2 GB unless your computer is very old. Better to do 32GB or 64GB, as the per-GB price is much lower, and you might want to put a bunch of files on the drive, too, when rescuing the machine. I don't use Portable Apps, but the ideas in the article are still valid. At minimum you need some kind of booting program (which usually means Linux), Clonezilla (which is a Linux-based program), something like GParted (another Linux program). So in all, it ends up meaning Linux on a stick with those programs. I ended up opting for Mint 13 and Fedora 17, since the other distros I tried all wouldn't have persistence on the stick (Ubuntu being the worst), or were dysfunctional in operation (again, Ubuntu being the worst).

The latest crop of Linux distros all are paranoid about root permissions, and are a pain to use as a result. So unless you are versed in terminal usage so can get around the paranoia, use the earlier distros mentioned.

[exeleon]

Is it possible to partition a flash drive in 2 and install/run SystemRescueCD on partition 1 and run my portableapps from partition 2?