Question about external hard drives ...

Michael Dene · Post by **Michael Dene** » 27 Jan 2009 5:07 pm

I've never had any experience with external hard drives (the kind that plug into a USB port), and am wondering ...

1.Are they only for backing up data files etc? ...or ..

2.Can Programs be installed on them and run from them?

Michael

Ken Lang · Post by **Ken Lang** » 27 Jan 2009 5:14 pm

I have 3 external drives. I use two for backup.
The third is where I keep most of my active files on. It is possible to run programs from it, tho it's better to keep them on the C drive.

Michael Dene · Post by **Michael Dene** » 27 Jan 2009 5:19 pm

thanks Ken,

it's better to keep them on the C drive.

why? .... are they slower? less reliable ? or what?

the problem is that I often have to work on a project on several computers, not always mine, and not always with the relevant software installed.

Michael

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 27 Jan 2009 10:32 pm

Michael;
If I understand your question correctly, you want to know if you can "install" programs onto an external USB drive and run them across more than one computer.

The answer is a qualified YES, but only if the following actions are also taken.

The drive letter assigned to this drive must be the same on each computer. To achieve this you should manually assign a higher drive letter than any computer in your network would normally assign. A good choice might be drive X, for eXternal.
These programs should be installed from the same source drive letter, if they came on CD or DVD disk. Thus, if you install it from a CD in drive D, all computers should have the same drive letter for at least one CD/DVD drive.
The programs must be installed onto each computer you intend to run them from, even though their files will be placed on an external drive. The USB drive must be connected and assigned the same drive letter, as mentioned in point #1. This will install any required %System% files and Registry entries, need to run the programs.
If it is necessary to license the program to use it you must apply a valid license code to each computer it is installed on. If the number of licenses allowed is less than the number of computers to run a program you must acquire more licenses from the supplier of that program.
You will probably have to decide where the various programs should store their "scratchpad data." This is the working data and setting/preferences. Normally, those things are saved in your logged in identity's %AppData% folder. You may want to change the storage location for files modified by the applications on the external drive to that very drive, possibly to a holding folder you create inside the program folder it created when installed onto that drive.

Once you meet all of the above conditions you should be able to "run" programs from a removable, external USB drive, unless a particular program won't allow you to.

Michael Dene · Post by **Michael Dene** » 27 Jan 2009 11:58 pm

Thanks Wiz,

you're a most amazing resource for all of on this forum!!!

The idea will probably go into the "too hard basket" for the moment, but now at least I know what's invoved.

Michael

John Cipriano · Post by **John Cipriano** » 28 Jan 2009 12:21 am

Michael, check out this site:
http://portableapps.com/

On the applications page there are some good ones...Firefox, Thunderbird, AbiWord, Sumatra PDF, Pidgin (for AIM) are a few of the more useful ones.

It really depends on the app. That site has ones that store their configuration files and libraries locally. What Wiz described is what you should assume a normal app does (store libraries in the system folder and settings in the registry).

Michael Dene · Post by **Michael Dene** » 28 Jan 2009 12:51 am

Thanks John,

I'll check it out.