Copy entire operating system to portable hard drive?

[mBernhardt]

Yes it isnt impossilbe. But i stay away from suggesting anything with the registry cause the consequences of messing up even just 1 entry in there are more severe than just uninstalling teh applications and installing them to the USB drive.

While reckless editing of the registry can brick a computer, there is a lot in the registry that can be edited that will only effect non-essential functions. (As in, the application it relates to) Especially when dealing with application related keys.

Before doing anything registry related I strongly suggest creating an Emergency Repair Disk (or whatever its called) and/or a backup of your registry so you can recover if you do happen to mess with a Keyset that will do damage.

Once that's done most of what you are looking for is probably in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software then find the application you are trying to move. (if it even has registry information)

As I said before, it all depends on the appilcation. Some will work from any directory and its just a matter of pointing the shortcuts to the right place. Others you'll have to edit a config file or something. It really depends on how the developers wanted it to work and whether or not they thought the registry was the correct place to store that information.

I did something similar a few years ago when I migrated some applications between hard drive partitions. Everything worked fine afterwards.

But, it really depends on your own level of comfort...

 

[KSoD]

While what you say is true i still dont recommend it to people. Only because you ahve to be really good with PC's to know which Registry entries you can mess with and which ones you cant.

The registry is just the one place ona Windows box that a average user shouldnt be in. As for the rest of us we have bricked enough PC's to know how to manage the registry. But for a average PC user, the registry is teh one place they should stay out of.