PortableApps.com – a shell for using portable programs

PortableApps com is a free shell for portable (portable) programs, packaged in one installer, for use from removable media, or directly from a computer disk. The PortableApps.com service provides a PortableApps.com installer to install a wrapper program on any drive connected to the computer (USB flash drive, hard drive, external hard drive, etc.)

The PortableApps.com program is not installed into the operating system (the application itself is portable), but is saved to removable media, to a cloud storage folder, or to a computer (without installation into the system).

All application settings are stored in the program folder and do not clog the registry and computer hard drive. Therefore, such programs are popular because of the convenience of using them anywhere, since the portable program runs on any PC.

Portable programs can be run without installation on the computer directly from a folder, or in a more convenient way, using the Portableapps.com shell. Many popular programs have portable versions (official and unofficial).

There are several resources that specialize in portable software. The PortableApps.com website (the site is in English) contains a large number of portable programs packaged in special installers. From PortableApps.com, portable programs are downloaded separately, or a special shell is downloaded to the computer, into which the necessary programs are then downloaded and installed.

The shell is packaged in a Portableapps Platform file, which must be downloaded from PortableApps.com. The application supports Russian.

Installing PortableApps.com Platform

Run the portableapps com platform setup file on your computer. After launching the portableapps paf file, select the Russian language, and then click on the “Next” button. Accept the terms of the license agreement.

In the “Installation Type” window, select the type of application installation:

• Fresh installation – The PortableApps.com platform will be installed on a USB stick, local PC or cloud.
• Installed software update – update the previously installed PortableApps.com.
• Choose a different location – choose a directory to install PortableApps.com.

The wrapper program can be located anywhere on the computer, in the cloud, on a removable drive.

In the “Installation method” window, select the most preferred platform installation option.

Select the installation location, if necessary, create a folder to place the platform, confirm, and then click on the “Install” button.

After the files are copied, an information window will open. A window will then open to download new applications, and a shell menu will appear in the notification area, reminiscent of the Start menu in the Windows 7 operating system.

If PortableApps.com Platform has been installed on your computer, you can later move the folder to any other location, for example, to a USB flash drive.

Adding apps to the PortableApps.com Platform

Portable programs (portable) in the PortableApps.com Platform, for more convenient use, are sorted into sections, in accordance with the functions performed.

In the Portable App Directory window, more than 300 portable applications are categorized: Security, Graphics & Display, Games, Internet, Music & Video, Education, Office, Development, Accessibility, Utilities. Within each category there are subcategories that suggest the specialization of a particular program.

Pay attention to the fact that the window shows the sizes of the installation files and the size occupied by the program on the disk after installation. Keep this in mind if you install programs on a USB flash drive so that there is enough space for applications on a removable disk.

Check the boxes next to the desired applications, and then click on the “Next” button.

After that, the download and installation of applications in the selected location will begin. This process will take some time. During installation, accept the license agreements, and at the end click on the “Finish” button.

Organization and settings in PortableApps.com

To open the shell menu, click on the PortableApps com Platform icon in the notification area. You will see the Portableapps programs installed (in my case on a USB flash drive). At the bottom of the shell window there is an indicator that displays the space occupied by portable programs on a flash drive or on the disk where the PortableApps.com program is located.

From the menu sections “Documents”, “Music”, “Images”, “Videos” you can enter the corresponding folders on the disk on which the PortableApps.com shell is installed.

In the “View” section, a disk (flash drive) or a folder with PortableApps opens.

Using the “Archive” section, you can create a backup of PortableApps.com with installed portable programs, or restore PortableApps.com Platform from a backup.

From the Applications section, you can check for updates, download a new application, install an application, update icons, show hidden icons.

To change application settings, click on “Settings”. In the “Settings” window, organize the list of applications according to your preferences, select the appropriate theme.

In the lower right corner of the application there are two buttons: to turn off the computer and to turn off the PortableApps Platform.

Launching programs in PortableApps.com

The PortableApps.com Platform icon is displayed in the notification area (tray) if the application is installed on the computer’s hard drive. If the portable platform is installed on a flash drive, then the icon will be displayed after connecting the USB drive to the PC, if autorun from external devices is not disabled on the computer.

For security reasons, autorun from external devices is disabled, so you need to start the shell directly from the USB flash drive by clicking on the “Start” application. Programs can be launched directly from the PortableApps folder by entering the program folder. In this case, the program will run regardless of the shell.

To launch the desired program in PortableApps.com, click on the icon of the corresponding application. Most of the programs work in Russian. Some programs will immediately work in Russian, in other applications, to enable the Russian language, you need to enter the program settings.

Programs are launched after clicking on the icon, or from the context menu of the right mouse button. In this case, you can perform additional actions: run, run as administrator, update, rename, delete, etc.

After clicking on “All portable applications”, the shell will display the categories in which the corresponding programs are located. Click on the desired category to display the programs in that category.

To move programs between categories, right-click on the program icon, select the “Category” context menu item, then select a category from the list, or create a new category.

Software updates in PortableApps.com

Enter the “Applications” section, in the context menu, click on the “Check for updates” item. With default settings, programs are updated only to stable final versions. If necessary, you can enable software updates to beta versions.

This is a very useful feature, since now you do not need to look for new versions of portable programs on the Internet, because the programs are updated from the shell.

Removing a program from the PortableApps.com shell

Any program can be removed from the shell. To do this, right-click on the application, select “Delete” in the context menu.

To remove PortableApps.com Platform with all programs, manually delete the folder with all the contents from the location (from a computer or from a flash drive).

Adding other portable apps to PortableApps.com

Drag and drop another portable program not associated with PortableApps.com into the “PortableApps” folder. Next, in the shell, select any program, and in the context menu, click on the “Update” item.

After the update, a new program will appear in the list of programs, which will be located in the “Other” folder. Move the program to the appropriate category, according to the functions performed.

Some portable programs add two icons to the shell. Leave the colored icon in the platform (it will be clear), and right-click on another icon, select the “Hide” command in the context menu.

Programs can have two identical icons to work separately in 32-bit or 64-bit versions of the Windows operating system. What to do in this case, I will show using the example of the CCleaner Portable program.

Hover your mouse over one of the two identical icons to see the application’s bit depth. You will see that this icon is located along the path to the “CCleaner64.exe” file. This icon can be renamed from the context menu. Give the icon a new name, such as “CCleaner x64”. After that, it will be clear that from this icon you can run the program in the 64-bit version of the Windows operating system.

Article Conclusions

The free PortableApps.com wrapper is designed to easily run portable applications on any computer. The PortableApps shell can be installed on a USB flash drive to run portable programs on any computer, or on a hard drive to run applications on this PC. Programs are categorized, application updates are available, installation of other portable programs is supported.