If your system is suffering with performance issues or is simply cluttered with old applications then Revo Uninstaller could save you time vs. a full Windows reinstall. Revo Uninstaller shows you all applications and components installed on your PC and allows you to remove unwanted apps. It does a scan before and after the uninstall to find files, folders and registry keys that may have been missed during the uninstall process. In Hunter Mode, you can uninstall programs with one click or by simply dragging application shortcuts on your desktop or quick launch bar to the Revo Uninstaller system tray icon. A portable app version is now available so you can now run it from a USB drive without installing it.

In addition, Revo Uninstaller also comes bundled with other useful utilities like the Autorun Manager which let’s you enable or disable programs that autostart at Windows startup and the Junk Files Cleaner which scans and deletes temporary files that should have been deleted.

Revo Uninstaller is portable, free and with no spyware or tricks - a great productivity tool just the way we like it.

Revo Uninstaller (Look for the Portable version download link)

Most people know that I am a portable app fan and that I would almost exclusively try to use portable applications or Web applications rather than “installs”. The problem with regular, non-portable applications is that they rely on the Windows registry and that they are typically distributed in many folders. So when you need to reinstall Window all your settings are lost and you need to completely reinstall the applications. In this post I would like to describe the reasons why I prefer portable apps and how you can manage them better. (more…)

Crazypack contains a number of useful portable applications and in particular Google Talk and Opera Browser. Doing a search on Google for “Google Talk Portable” doesn’t bring back many promising solutions so I was quite happy to find this one (and it works). I preferred to not use the pstart that comes bundled with Crazypack, so I only copied the individual portable apps that I wanted to my USB drive.

WinSnap is a great little application that can replace regular Windows screen captures. Previously mentioned FastStone Capture is great for scrolling screen captures like Web pages in browsers, but WinSnap is great for regular CTRL+Prnt Scrn replacement. It can be configured to automatically modify the image border to rounded corners or PhotoShop-style shadows.  This is particularly useful for us bloggers who like to capture images and post them to our blogs. Older versions are free (for personal, educational and non-commercial use) and as a bonus they have a portable version, so this application needs to be added to my list of essential portable applications. The free version is available here.

PC Magazine has an interesting article on making a bootable USB key using BartPE. There are obvious benefits for having a Windows liveCD or rescue disk, but if you are hooked onto your USB drive then you’ll know the value of having everything you need on one little portable drive rather than a bunch of CDs: USB drives are readily rewritable and small. Most new computers can boot from USB drives, but you should make sure to check your hardware. I am hoping for a portable VMware Player to solve these kinds of needs, but until then a bootable BartPE USB key is cool. B.t.w. Flashboot costs around $27, so use this solution if you want it free.

Portable applications are becoming very popular and with good reason. Portable apps refer to applications that do not rely on registry settings and can run from USB memory sticks. That makes these applications easy to copy between computers and are therefore normally freeware. Another advantage is that they don’t need to be installed because they simply run from the folder where you downloaded and unzipped the files to. A beneficial side effect is that they don’t slow your computer down by adding registry settings and DLLs that are loaded into memory when the system starts up. The perfect application, in my opinion, is one that is free, portable, doesn’t require administrator priviledges and, of course, is useful. Here’s my list of essential portable apps and combined they take less than 512MB space. (more…)