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Portable programs & partitioning for reinstall-proofing

FWT
Dec 17th, 2022 (edited)
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  1. ==============PORTABLE PROGRAMS================
  2.  
  3. Hate losing all your browser shortcuts, tabs, bookmarks, settings, etc after a reinstall?
  4. Just use a portable browser and install it to your secondary partition/drive.
  5. The browser will be entirely self contained and can be updated in its own folder, so all your settings, tabs, bookmarks, etc will be safe from reinstalls.
  6. You could even install it to an SSD with a USB-SATA adapter and take it wherever you go.
  7.  
  8. https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable
  9. https://portapps.io/app/ungoogled-chromium-portable
  10. https://portapps.io/app/brave-portable
  11. https://vivaldi.com/download (installer allows installing in portable mode)
  12. Other browsers:
  13. https://portableapps.com/apps/internet
  14.  
  15.  
  16. Most programs and games that require installation don't actually need to be reinstalled (if you installed them to a separate partition). They only need their runtimes:
  17. >All-in-One Visual C++ runtimes installer
  18. https://github.com/abbodi1406/vcredist
  19. >DirectX
  20. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35
  21.  
  22.  
  23. Other useful portable apps:
  24.  
  25. >fast windows file search (Everything)
  26. https://www.voidtools.com
  27.  
  28. >youtube video and playlist downloader
  29. https://github.com/ErrorFlynn/ytdlp-interface
  30.  
  31. >torrent client
  32. https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/qbittorrent_portable
  33. https://portapps.io/app/qbittorrent-portable
  34.  
  35. >bulk file renamer
  36. https://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Downloads/BRU_NoInstall.zip
  37.  
  38. >batch MKV audio language stream stripper
  39. https://www.videohelp.com/software/MKV-Optimizer
  40.  
  41. >fast image viewer
  42. https://portableapps.com/apps/graphics_pictures/xnview_portable
  43. https://portableapps.com/apps/graphics_pictures/jpegview_portable
  44. https://portableapps.com/apps/graphics_pictures/faststone-image-viewer-portable
  45. https://portableapps.com/apps/graphics_pictures/irfanview_portable
  46. https://nomacs.org/docs/getting-started/installation
  47.  
  48. >simple video player
  49. https://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/mpc-hc-portable
  50.  
  51. >e-mail client
  52. https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/thunderbird_portable
  53.  
  54.  
  55.  
  56. ==============PARTITIONING================
  57.  
  58. By default, your user folder is stored in C:\Users\username, the problem with this is that if your install gets corrupted and you need to reinstall, all of your documents get wiped unless you have a spare computer to plug your C:\ drive into to backup the files first. Moving your user folders to a 2nd partition/drive avoids this problem altogether.
  59.  
  60. For a 256GB+ SSD, a 100GB Windows partition should be plenty of space for Windows itself and whatever programs you need. Games and large suites such as Adobe CC can be installed to a separate partition/SSD.
  61.  
  62. For a 128GB or smaller SSD, you'll want to have a 2nd storage drive for user folders.
  63. But really it's 2023+, a 512GB is <$20 now.
  64.  
  65.  
  66. Partitioning:
  67. Right click Start and select Disk Management.
  68. Right click the [Windows (C:)] partition and select Shrink Volume, then enter in the amount to shrink in MB.
  69. If you have a 256 GB SSD, you would want to shrink about 150GB, or 150000MB, then click Shrink.
  70. If you have OCD and must have a nice round number, use a calculator to calculate 1024MB for each 1GB. So "Total size after shrink" for the Windows partition would be about 102410MB. (The extra 10MB will bump it up to display 100GB in Explorer instead of 99.99GB)
  71. To get the amount you need to shrink, take your total partition size, subtract 102410, and you'll have your "amount to shrink" number.
  72.  
  73. After it's done, right click the new Unallocated space and select New Simple Volume.
  74. Change whatever settings here as needed, but the default settings are fine. Click through and select Finish.
  75. You should now have a 100GB Windows partition on C:\ and an empty data partition on D:\ (or whatever letter you assigned it).
  76.  
  77. Moving user folders to second partition or 2nd drive:
  78. There are multiple ways to do this, cutting and pasting the user folders to their new location, manually though folder properties, or through Registry Editor. All methods make the exact same registry changes. The more complicated methods were necessary in older versions of Windows but are no longer necessary on current versions of Windows 10 and newer as it will automatically update the folder's registry settings.
  79.  
  80. Go into C:\Users\username.
  81. Ctrl+click to select the folders you want to relocate (Documents/Pictures/Videos/etc), then cut and paste them to D:\ or whichever partition you want.
  82. Windows will automatically update the system registry values to reflect the new locations where you moved these folders.
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