Asked By
andra2091
10 points
N/A
Posted on - 09/26/2011
Can someone tell me the differences between portable software and FULL software?
From what I see, Â portable software with its small-sized program can do the exact same thing that the full software can (e.g Adobe Audition or Photoshop).
So what is the advantage of choosing the full software instead of the portable one?
Thank you.
Portable and Full Software differences
First of all portable software don’t take a time to be installed, we can just copy/paste them. They do not write to the system registry to store settings; instead, settings are stored in a program itself. So you can take it anywhere, and you can use your program with your own customized settings anywhere.
You do not need to install that certain software again and then customize it manually. Additionally, some of the portable applications do ask for a preference folder. Some applications add very small number of keys in the registry, which doesn’t really matter if portable software is time saving.
Portable and Full Software differences
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Portal Software is a stripped version just like files you are carrying in your flash drive. One, of the main advantage of that is you can run that program on multiple systems just like your files. But, this might not work on every system as some of them require writing files in registries etc. Portable software only has the basics of a program just like Adobe Photoshop with a size of 60MB but in full version it is more than 500MB.
On the other hand, Full version contains all set of files which should be copied on disk in order to run the specific program. Full version always put entries into the registry and this type of software run much faster than the portable one.
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In a nutshell, both versions are useful it only depends on the needs of a user. Professional users mostly use full version of software to get all the features of a program.
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Hope this helps you in understanding the difference 🙂  Â
Portable and Full Software differences
You’re right. Whatever a full application can do, can also be done by its portable counterpart. The portable version is actually the full application converted into portable. That’s the reason they work very much the same. One of their differences is the way the operating system treats them. In full application, it should be installed on the computer before it can be used.
In portable, installation is not required. Once you copy it on your hard drive, it can be started and used out of the box. In full application, the program cannot be copied to another location or storage device and launch it. It cannot be used in this manner.
But in portable, the program can be copied to any location on your hard drive or to any storage device, run it, and use it. In full application, the size of the entire program is huge after it was installed. But in portable, the size of the program is so small. There are programs designed to convert full applications into portable versions.
But before you convert, try doing a little research about the program if it can be converted successfully to portable. Not all programs can be converted. Some becomes unstable after it was made portable. You might experience frequent crashes or sudden freezing. If you’re looking for portable applications, you might want to pay a visit to PortableApps.com.
