With many applications, utilities etc. that I use, I seem to prefer running their portable version instead of an installed version - if available, because there's less of a footprint of files and registry entries peppered through Windows.

There's also the 'PortableApps' range of free programs available.

Re. VST's - In the old days (1990~2000's) I used to un-pack VST installers, to extract the *.dll , *.fxb-fxp, user-manual files only.
But more complex installers these days :-(

What do you other folk think /feel about this?

 

Mainly because of..

For instance, I really spend too much money on e.g. NI (and affiliate) Kontakt libraries. But I always test them before on Portable! (I know im getting a tad off topic into cracked SW land here..). Hence, "Maschine Portable" would be my dream come true..

Some devs probably don't want to let me test their libs, guess because they suck.. but, the truth is, I wont buy it if I can't test it. Period! Hear me SF! Love your libs, own a lot of them.. but it didn't crossed my mind buying any of those w/ proprietary sampler.

 

You seem to have misunderstood; you don't need a portable version of Kontakt to "test" shared libraries.
Spitfire Audio or otherwise.
You just need a 'cured' version of Kontakt.
A team just happened to have coded a cracked Kontakt to be "portable" for Windows.

 

No, you have.
I have a "legit" NI ecosystem. I don't want it any other way. I want to install/update everything through Native Access, daily, if need be. And I can test libraries on a same system w K portable without ANY "interference".

I know, a couple of days ago a polished revision 2 was released.

 

No, because you can still run a non-portable cracked Kontakt alongside legit Kontakt.
God knows why someone would want to either, but hey.
So I have misunderstood nothing.
Good day to you.

No, I didn't mean the word "just" in that way; I meant for the last 13 years or whatever since portable Kontakt on Windows became a thing!

 

This! I was wondering how difficult this would be to achieve given that a portable Kontakt already exists.

Echoing OP's sentiment, I too use portable software where possible (and within reason).

This is out of pure habit, though; I have no real need for my software to be portable, but I'd prefer it that way (I'd take my pendrive with REAPER and a couple of VSTs to college and churn out some tunes in the lab computers some years ago). I also try to keep my hard drive as tidy as possible, but I'm not too anal about it.

I swore by portable software (especially Adobe software) because, on my old computer, anything portable (if containerized properly, of course) was almost guaranteed to work versus installing it and finding out later that it wouldn't even run. Nowadays, this isn't much the case, but - again - habits.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Aug 25, 2021

Well, if that is not enough of a reason.. but evetually you'll get it too.

IMO sarcasm works best at the end of the post, just before one decides to stfu.

On a serious note,

Same here. I'm convinced the guy behind K. Portable (which I deeply respect ) and others could make Maschine Portable. But I don't think it's a matter of simple "copy & paste". Especially if we are talking the high quality, user friendliness, installation, lib management etc. of the Kontakt Portable, as it is. Short, Maschine (extensions vs libs) is a different beast and it would take time and effort. IIRC @Xupito wrote a post about the challenges of making a "portable", so maybe he can chime in..

 

I use portable versions whenever I can because it's easy to uninstall (and sometimes uninstaller exe does not work properly). One can see the list of portable files right away and select and delete at once everything that he doesn't need (language files, 32 bit compatibility files, links, pdf, txt, chm files, presets, possible shellext dlls, etc.). That way you also avoid some useless registry entries being inserted. It is also the simplest way to migrate to another folder, another drive or another computer.

 

As you said, it got more and more complicated to install things without installer.
In some cases it's enough to copy an .exe or .dll but in most cases not.
Therefore one needs an installer to do more complicated stuff.

When we use portable software most of the time it is a software that is readily intalled in a kind of sandbox and can be used out of the box.
BUT
The more complicated the installation process is, the more difficult it is to create a perfectly working portable app.
In most cases, the portable app practically creates its own system within a so-called sandbox. A backup of the operating system is created, then the app is installed and a new backup is created. After that, the difference between the backups is written to the sandbox, which maps the operating system (or parts of it) including paths, special directories and the registry.
The process is error-prone, especially if there is other software installed on the system used to create it.

Therefore, my experience with portable apps has not been all good.
- In some cases I have lost licensed software and had to restore the entire system from a backup (Adobe Apps)
- sometimes the overhead leads to slower start of the apps
- sometimes portable App have been less robust
- a lot of redundencies in my filesystem becaus of one sandbox per App


Overall, I think I have more control over my system when I use installers (but that's a question of taste and personal habits)
Thus, my decision most of the time would be installer and not portable (unless its a plain Xcopy install. I do love Xcopy installations whre possible)

Now whats better, installer or poartable?
Like most of the time: It depends.

 

Well, the main problem with portable apps is that they're not official, so a third person makes them using some light-virtualization program.
I try to use no-install versions or make my own, they have a bit of the good things of both versions. DAW and plugins are usually easy for doing no-install versions, mainly because a great deal is designed to be multi-platform (Win/Apple).
Not always is possible or worth it though. Trying to make no-install (or even portable) versions of Office or "Visual Studio 2017/2019" is the shortest path to a painful big time break-down

So I use quite a bit of portable versions for the bloatware complex mammoths and other programs. Adobe guys, you suck so badly...

 

Dada, in 2013?
Good day. (No sarcasm, as before.)
So, you imply you want to be able to download new libs via NA, and also run shared libs, right?
What you don't get, is I've been through all this since the 00's.
So your attempt at being condescending is pointless.
If you yourself can't think of what your other options are, that's on you.
You don't need to do it like that, is all I'm saying.
Thanks for starting off being rude with me again, for no reason.