SWITCH TO PORTABLE APPS
Why let programs take more resources than they need? Instead of installing a program on your PC — letting it scatter itself all over your hard drive and take up valuable space in the Registry — look to see if a portable alternative is available. Portable apps are programs that restrict themselves to a single folder — everything they need to run can be found inside that folder, so not only do you keep them in check (delete the folder, remove the program — completely), you get to choose where they reside too.
Portable apps are a particularly good choice where you have Windows installed on a small system drive. such as a 64GB or even a 32GB SSD. You can store the apps on another drive, and leave enough space for Windows to run smoothly. Not only that, if you have to reinstall Windows from scratch, the portable app (and your settings) survive intact. You can even store portable apps on a USB thumb drive, allowing you to port them — and your preferences — to another computer.
A great place to start for building your own portable app collection is www.portableapps.com. Install the PortableApps Platform tool, which provides a custom Start menu for easy access to your portable app collection, and makes it easy to install and update apps from its own extensive collection. You can add other portable apps — including those portable tools we’ve covered in this feature — manually by extracting them into folders inside the main PortableApps folder and choosing ‘Apps > Refresh App Icons’.