Why do people prefer portable over setup or app store?

[stax76]

I think a setup is much more user-friendly when it's done correctly (some setups are horror, I've installed GOM Player yesterday and it was hell...). I used to prefer portable downloads but made up my mind and now always choose the x64 setup and always try to use the default settings in the setup routine except for bad things like a x86 option or file associations or anything that changes the system. I also never offer a x86 option because I like simplicity and don't like to support bad choices. I don't see a reason why not using the app store exclusively except for Win 7 compatibility but Win 7 will be dead for good in five years. Sorry about the bad grammar. :)

[Selur]

my 2 cents of thoughts:
Main problems with setups is that they tend to cause problems when they have shared dependencies with other tools and at least one other tool does remove/add/change stuff which other tools might depend on.
So for me the thing for portable is that there are no problems with missing dependencies or dependencies which get modified by other tools (having a global Avisynth plugins folder where multiple programs add and remove stuff is a pain).
Some tools blindly install ffdshow versions and other stuff.

=> On Windows, where dependencies are not handled by the system or a proper version/package management, I prefer portable versions of tools which share dependencies with other tools. (The portability of portable programs for me is only interesting when it comes to video editing tools and a bunch of small tools, which I like to have available on an USB Stick or a cloud share.)
Windows app store: never used it.
On Linux: I clearly prefer using the package management.

[ChaosKing]

For "small tools" I prefer a portable version, also for tools that I just test or use only once.
And I try to use the app store where I can --> f.lux, foobar2000, kodi, Cinebench, shareX.

[manolito]

@stax76

I think your post clearly shows your preference to control the users. The same thinking as Apple and M$ are showing... :mad:

Forcing users to only install apps from the company's app store opens the door to blatant censorship. Apple does it all the time without getting shit storms, and M$ is heading in this direction. As a user who had to pay for his computer I like to make my own decisions which software I want to run instead of being at the mercy of an evil minded corporation.

I also prefer a portable installation over a setup installation whenever I can. I think the majority of setups are lousy if not horror. They modify my Registry, and they alter my OS (replace system DLLs and Drivers with their own versions which they think they are superior). And upon uninstallation I only found very few uninstall routines which remove every thing, i.e. all files and system alterations they have made during the installation. Why are there so many third party uninstall utilities on the market?

I very much prefer a software which just needs to be extracted into its own folder, which stores all settings in this folder using an XML or INI file, which neither touches my Registry nor my Operating System. To uninstall all I have to do is delete the application folder and maybe get rid of a link I created to start the software. AFAIK this is the standard in the Linux world, and a lot of applications which have been ported from Linux to Windows do work this way. And I love such applications.

Also your habit to not offer users setup choices which you consider bad choices is irritating. Users may have different needs from your needs, and having choices is a very important part of living in a free society. Treating users like little kids who are too stupid to make their own decisions is something I despise.

Your own StaxRip software is a good example. At one point you completely abandoned the 32-bit version of StaxRip, solely because you found that nobody should use 32-bit software these days. I still use an older (but very stable) 32-bit version, because I need some 32-bit AVS plugins. And all the improvements (together with the bugs) of the current 64-bit versions are nothing I need and nothing I want to deal with.

Cheers
manolito

[StainlessS]

A 'general' portable folder is a real good idea where on system setup, can copy your general portable
folder to new machine and perhaps have available hundred+ utilities, -- way easier than
running SetUp.exe on each individual one.

[ Can also setup 'general shortcuts folder' to 'general' folder, with hotkeys etc. ]

[videoh]

A 'general' portable folder is a real good idea where on system setup, can copy your general portable
folder to new machine +1 ditto

[mariush]

app stores: why would i purchase from a place which comes with terms and conditions and possibly restrictions (even chance of having licenses removed/disabled - see music and video stores, or no longer being able to play amazon prime movie because they no longer have the rights). Also why give Microsoft or whoever owns the app store a cut, when i can buy directly from author, or it's available as separate download?

portable vs setup :
Unless your application MUST install some runtimes or dependencies or must install some third party libraries depending on what the system has (ex use avx or just sse3 stuff and the libraries are brain dead and don't do auto detect) then I don't see the need of a setup.
There are some exceptions like for example if the target audience demands it ... like let's say you make a game or a software for people that wouldn't know how to unzip a file and you think you'll get too much hassle from people who just launch the executable from a zip without unpacking all the files in the zip first...

If your application is simple enough, you could have portable AND setup version ... for example think uTorrent... you used to (don't know if it's same right now) download the exe and launch it and the application would ask "Do you want to install myself on the computer or just run as a portable?" and if you chose to install it, it would copy itself to your selected folder, set up file associations and all that jazz, launch a 2nd copy from the install folder and kill itself.

oh... and i can understand setups if you must enforce some restrictions like not installing software into locations that require administrator (C:\Program Files) for some reason, or maybe for some reason you must not have SPACES in folder names (and for ex. set default installation folder to C:\Programs\Your_Program_Name for example)

But I hate setups that force install to Program Files or C: drive and don't even give option to select another drive letter or folder ... ex Chrome , Github i think and others ... my 120 GB boot drive SSD wasn't cheap when I bought it...

If you do use setup, don't overdo it and keep it professional ... ex. don't do like lamexp does with sounds and animations and shit all over.

32 vs 64 bit .. again, depends on your audience and what the software does.

An ebook reader doesn't really need 64 bit. I used to have an old IBM Thinkpad T40 (1.2 ghz, 2 gb ddr1, 40gb hdd, windows xp) and used it in bed as an ebook reader - i was happy to have Calibre or SumatraPDF as 32 bit ebook readers. Unless it's really difficult to maintain two versions, don't see why you have to limit to 64 bit.
A small memory game for kids ages 5-10 won't need 64bit, a breakout game or mario clone won't need 64 bit... a text editor/ programming IDE won't necessarily need 32 bit

Please don't take the attitude "Dude, it's 2019, buy new computer and run 64 bit version" - there's loads of reasons someone would want or need a 32 bit version besides monetary reasons.

In the same note... hate people that artificially restrict their software to minimum Windows Vista or Windows 10 when the software could run (with some limitations or some functionality disabled) on Windows 7 for example, or even XP/2003/2000

And Windows 7 is the only windows I actually bought ... retail DVD... I have no reason to stop using it on my FX-8320 PC... Nothing Windows 10 introduced would give me any performance boost or benefits, so why upgrade to it? For constant updates that kill the OS (i have avira antivirus, latest WIndows 10 update would have crashed Windows) ? For all the logging and monitoring and other crap?

[gonca]

A 'general' portable folder is a real good idea where on system setup, can copy your general portable
folder to new machine and perhaps have available hundred+ utilities, -- way easier than
running SetUp.exe on each individual one.

[ Can also setup 'general shortcuts folder' to 'general' folder, with hotkeys etc. ]

Agreed
I have a "Program Files (Portable)" folder and it is easy to back-up, restore or move to a different computer

[Groucho2004]

Nice post mariush, very thorough and to the point. A couple of things I'd like to add:

I still run MSDOS. Yes, MSDOS. It's on my C partition which is only 64 MB (this partition obviously also holds the boot files for Windows). I run the DOS version of Ghost from it, it's way faster than any imaging software I tried on Windows. I can backup/restore 10 GB in < 5 minutes (including booting into DOS and restart).

By the way, with a 64 MB C-partition you really get to see how badly some software is written (insisting to install to C:, hard-coding C:\Program Files in the setup, creating temp directories/files on C: without checking the free space, etc.). Back in the dark ages, those coders would have been put on a stick by Vlad the Impaler.

In my job I have to run XP32 because I have to use a couple of utilities which were written in the 90's that simply won't work properly on anything > XP/2003.

At home I still run XP32/64 (seems like a hard habit to break) and I have W7 in a VM if I need it.

Anyone should be able to run any software he/she wants (including the OS) without the "It's 201X, use Windows 1X" dickheads getting their knickers in a twist when XP (or even Win7 nowadays) is mentioned.

[shae]

For me "portable" software isn't only about the setup procedure but also various aspects of the app design, but that's for another day.

In terms of core install, I prefer:

* To be able to look at program files before installing.
* To be able to repackage it. E.g., get rid of optional stuff I'd never use, or improve compression.
* No system-wide changes.
* As little external dependencies as possible.
* Ability to choose where to store settings.
* Place the app wherever I want.
* If some files must be placed in global directories, have as few of them there as possible, and the rest in the app directory.
* If there are system-wide changes related to user configuration (like shell integration), have the main app be the one doing it, not a separate setup EXE. And with at least some self-healing capabilities.
* If a setup file is really to automate some tedious required steps, and it can't be integrated sensibly into the main EXE, have setup.exe as just another file packed plainly into an archive along with all the other files.

In general I want easy backup, restore, move, deploy, both of the app and settings, and better potential compatibility with future OSes. I want to organize stuff the way I want it. The easier and less restricted, the better.

Too bad Windows never standardized a clean and lightweight install/uninstall script format. INF files don't count. :)

Regarding stores, why? It's just another dependency and limitation. I don't see the benefits. Semi-automatic updating could be nice if you could trust newer versions of apps to always be better and remain compatible, but you can't.

[hubblec4]

I don't like that every small software writes entries in the windows/linux registry.
A 100% portable software should ask the user before in writes to the registry.

And other reason is that most apps writes settings and other stuff to "C:"(in my case)user\local.....
I think a portable app should store all settings within the app-folder.


Installation routines are for the DAU's (Dümmste Anzunehmende Users).

[hubblec4]

Nice post mariush, very thorough and to the point. A couple of things I'd like to add:

I still run MSDOS. Yes, MSDOS. It's on my C partition which is only 64 MB (this partition obviously also holds the boot files for Windows). I run the DOS version of Ghost from it, it's way faster than any imaging software I tried on Windows. I can backup/restore 10 GB in < 5 minutes (including booting into DOS and restart).


So great, I'm not alone. GHOST is the best image tool for hard discs. I use an usb stick with DOS installion.

[StainlessS]

On Un-installation, I've just recently found a few useful utils, one of them "Wise Program Uninstaller", which seems to do a pretty good job of scanning
system looking for remaining refuse, after a system uninstall [run the Wise prog, it calls the sys uninstall, then cleans up stuff that is left behind).
Also amongst other "Wise" free products, "Wise Registry Cleaner", "Wise Disk Cleaner", and "Wise Data Recovery" (always handy to have another one, very fast scan).
These Wise products now have shortcuts on my desktop, right next to CCleaner and some other must haves.

On Privacy Cleaners, PrivaZer (latest v3.0.68) seems very good (slightly weird interface/GUI), and I like that you can set it running and auto closedown on completion.
For PrivaZer, you only get the ShellBags cleaning if you are a Donor, but "ShellBag Analyzer + Cleaner" fills that gap nicely.


EDIT: For EFI [and non EFI] systems, "Macriium Reflect" fills the gap for system imaging where Ghost is no longer of any use[on EFI].
EDIT: I still like Ghost better when it can be used.

[ChaosKing]

After testing many backup tools, yes, Macrium Reflect is one of the best. Backup is fast, mounting images ist super fast. Is is in every aspect better than acronis. The only thing what I'm missing is to exclude files in image backup mode. (I don't need 10gb Lightroom cache files in my backup :D).
BorgBackup (https://github.com/borgbackup/borg) and Wimlib as a file backup is also very good.

I think there is also a portable version of Macrium Reflect available, in some higher edition, maybe Server Edition.

[StainlessS]

Macrium Reflect[free edition] can make USB portable bootable whatsit, and is how I usually use it. (portable version is included on the [in]famous Hiram disks, eg Hiram v15.2 which is I think latest
[well latest that I have anyways], and is now almost complely legit.
[I think he (Hiram, Indian I think) said something about quitting support of his bootable disks because he relocated to the UK and did not wanna be evicted for being naughty].

EDIT:
10gb Lightroom cache files in my backup
Maybe tell Macrium bout your requirment, I'm sure that they would like to add that if they knew that it was an issue for some people.

EDIT: On my Chuwi Hi10 (CherryTrail 64GB SSD, 4GB RAM, x64 EFI, 10.1 inch Tablet+Keyboard 2-In-1, x64 W10 Home + Android Lollipop x64, with 128GB SDCard), I can do complete backup of
all 15 partitions of SSD [lots of weird partitions for Android, and where seem unformatted and so Macrium backs up as entire raw partition where appropriate].
I also use it on my Linx1010B (BayTrail 32GB SSD, 2GB RAM, 32 bit EFI, W10 Home x86, 2-in-1 10.1 inch Tablet + Keyboard, with 64GB SDCard), with only 3 partitions.

EDIT: Macrium has the "Make Portable USB" [bootable] in one of the menus, I think.

[ChaosKing]

I mean reflect portable for windows, not for booting via usb (that is ofc possible in every edition).

[StainlessS]

Yep, I thought you might mean that.
I just tried the Macrium Reflect from Hiren v15.2 in Windows 7, unfortunately,

https://i.postimg.cc/4y60XNFX/Untitled.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

Of course Ghost 11.5 has the Ghost32.Exe which works fine in Windows [but cannot image the current windows partition].

[Sparktank]

Main problems with setups is that they tend to cause problems when they have shared dependencies with other tools and at least one other tool does remove/add/change stuff which other tools might depend on.

I observe this with FFMPEG and ImageMagick if they're both accessible by PATH,etc.
ImageMagick doesn't match the same as Zeranoe's FFMPEG builds.

I can't remember what I was trying to do with a video, but when I went to encode it with FFMPEG, it ended using IM version instead and terminated immediately due to lack of support for my operations.

So IM is in a portable state with nowhere to be seen in PATH and must have the full filepath included in scripts,etc.

Zeranoe FFMPEG is always udpated manually and the only one in PATH.

Any program I install, I try to make sure it isn't calling its own version of FFMPEG when I go do a batch or something.

[Groucho2004]

Of course Ghost 11.5 has the Ghost32.Exe which works fine in Windows [but cannot image the current windows partition].Imaging the Windows and/or boot partition is what 99% of disk image software users need, isn't it?

[ChaosKing]

Yep, I thought you might mean that.
I just tried the Macrium Reflect from Hiren v15.2 in Windows 7, unfortunately,



I mean this https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW7/Technicians+portable+application+support

Applies to Server Edition Technician's License only.
https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/download/attachments/7736796/image2015-1-26%2014%3A24%3A53.png?version=1&modificationDate=1422282292000&api=v2

[StainlessS]

Arh yes, the technicians version, Being tight fisted ... I dont got dat.

Imaging the Windows and/or boot partition is what 99% of disk image software users need, isn't it?

I like to switch to an OS that I'm not gonna image, and run ghost from that. I usually have at least 2 OS on my systems, sometimes three and have on occasion had 4. Otherwise I jump into some bootable USB flash drive eg Hiren 15.2 and use Mini Windows XP and some imager.

I also like SystemRescueCD ISO/USB boot [based on Gentoo, I'de like one day to set up my own Gentoo from scratch, but seems one helluva pain in the buttocks to do that].
Two I've got but dont think I managed to get to like, are... G4L (Ghost for Linux) and CloneZilla.

EDIT: ReactOS recently (last two weeks) updated (v0.411 or something like that), I'm gonna give that a try again,
previous version was most disappointing and I never managed to get it to even boot on at least one system.

EDIT: I used to know someone who had 20+ OS on a single system, used bootIt_NG I think (allowed boot from MBR disk logical partition).

EDIT: Anyone know a better (avoids using word "best" due to inherent fear of moderator reprisal) boot controller, my beloved XOSL dont work where OS greater than 128GB from MBR,
I need ability to 'hide' all Windows bootable partitions from booting OS, so all Win OS think they are on 'C' drive. If also works on GPT would be bonus.
Ideally would work much like XOSL.
EDIT: Dont anybody suggest using MS boot controller, I have never used that. I want totally separate Boot control exclusive of windows or even Linux OS'es.
EDIT: Well I do use MS boot control, but only to boot its very own system, eg can Generalize Win7 so that it moves boot control to the system partition where boot partition no longer used,
can afterwards eg install linux or whatever onto the original boot partition[partition resize required]. I dont as yet know if I can Generalize Win10, and that is the only time I use MS boot
control as I dont as yet know how to avoid (nor do I really have any reason to avoid yet, maybe if I ever get a desktop Win10 system, then I will have reason to avoid).

[qyot27]

I observe this with FFMPEG and ImageMagick if they're both accessible by PATH,etc.
ImageMagick doesn't match the same as Zeranoe's FFMPEG builds.

I can't remember what I was trying to do with a video, but when I went to encode it with FFMPEG, it ended using IM version instead and terminated immediately due to lack of support for my operations.

So IM is in a portable state with nowhere to be seen in PATH and must have the full filepath included in scripts,etc.

Zeranoe FFMPEG is always udpated manually and the only one in PATH.

Any program I install, I try to make sure it isn't calling its own version of FFMPEG when I go do a batch or something.
Why not just out-and-out delete the FFmpeg in ImageMagick's installation if you need both it and FFmpeg on the PATH? There shouldn't be any harm in doing that at all; since IM shipped with ffmpeg.exe, it was invoking ffmpeg.exe and not the APIs in the libs. Unless there's something wonky about them hardcoding a path to the .exe (which can usually be sidestepped by symlinking), it should pick up and use Zeranoe's builds just fine.

My own personal gripe re:IM is that if you don't have the PATH order right, you end up invoking internal Windows functions with the same name (*cough* convert *cough*). At least IM7 introduced a single main application to handle this - which doesn't conflict with the Windows userland - and only keeps the old tools around for compatibility with IM6.

[Ghitulescu]

There were very good points arguing the benefits of NOT using a Setup before, so I won't repeat them in long

* most Install suites use pre-existent setups, which are beyond the control of even the developers - who knows what they do behind the scenes?!
* most install routines are so complicated (why???) that even installing some tools would be problematic at desinstall phase (yes, not everybody MUST like one's software)
* I don't see the reason why one would use Install for simple pieces of software (imagine FixVTS would come with 15MB Setup.exe)
* the links to external tools or libraries, which sometimes must be done manually in the Install routine, could with the same effort be set in the program itself and saved in the accompanying INI file
* generally, since most "suites" essentially reuse CLI tools (like ffmpeg or sox), and since the path to those locations are easily to implement in the main software, many people would become suspicious why the need for an installer annyway, many of them being notoriuos for doing lots of actions, including spying, behind one's back

The only true advanatge of using installers is when a software really needs a particular version of another software, but even there, a user could set up the links to CLI stuff, in the end the user that browse D9 here is not that kind of idiot for which the installers have been created in the first time.

And I prefer local INIs instead of the recommended MS policy of storing them in Windows registry.

[ChaosKing]

And another reason why I avoid setup.exe is bcs sometimes a copy of the installer ist stored on the hdd for "deinstallation purposes". A good solution for "tools" is Chocolatey, a package manager for windows. You can update all apps with a click and it add stuff to Path, like ffmpeg or youtube-dl.

[stax76]

And another reason why I avoid setup.exe is bcs sometimes a copy of the installer ist stored on the hdd for "deinstallation purposes". A good solution for "tools" is Chocolatey, a package manager for windows. You can update all apps with a click and it add stuff to Path, like ffmpeg or youtube-dl.

Chocolatey seem to be nice, I've installed ffmpeg and youtube-dl with it and I decided to use PowerShell exclusively and never again use cmd in order to improve my PowerShell knowledge.

Learning to use mpv/libmpv brought me much closer to the whole command line concept I guess. I tried a few Linux systems lately and Ubuntu was the only system which hadn't broken high DPI support using a high zoom value.

Looking forward for the announced Windows Terminal.

One thing I noticed is Chrome warns heavily about exe downloads, is that why some apps wrap installers in zip files? I'm not sure what I should do with that.

[Emulgator]

For me the daily basis is standalone, only shortly interrupted by suites that demand to be intrusive.

I can easily port these standalones across 5 machines today: 2x Win7U64, 3x WinXPPro32.
_PROG holds 30 Tool group folders containing 429pcs. 32 bit Program folders and exes.
_PROG64 holds 14 group folders containing 41pcs. 64 bit Program folders and exes.
All dependencies reside in respective program folders, fitting down to XP32 compatibility.
So even different machines munch nicely.

Oh, and it's not about paying.
I have bought my stuff and donated many times to freeware and opensource writers
when I saw the huge effort, progress and maintenance they made,
no matter if benefited from that often or just a few times.