Is there a way to tell whether my Everything installation is portable or regular?

[spooky]

The title is pretty self-explanatory.

[tuska]

Hi,

These are typical installations.
 

2026-03-09_Everything installation -OR- portable.png (54.96 KiB) Viewed 939 times

 

2026-03-09_Bookmark_Everything installation -OR- portable.png (34.1 KiB) Viewed 939 times

 
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/columns [{"name":"Name","width":131},{"name":"Product Version","width":104},{"name":"Target Machine","width":98},{"name":"Path","width":267},{"name":"Extension","width":74},{"name":"Size","width":74},{"name":"Total Size","width":83},{"name":"Digital Signature Timestamp","width":166},{"name":"Date Modified","width":104},{"name":"Date Created","width":104},{"name":"Date Accessed","width":104}]
whole:about:exe|whole:about:ini 
/command 40023  nop: "UI_ID_EDIT_SELECT_ALL | Command IDs - https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14491"
/command 41183  nop: "Copy the selected content of the search result, including column headings, to the clipboard—then click in the empty area below to remove the selection."
/comment - Everything 1.5: return the full path and name of your Everything.exe and Everything.ini
/comment - https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=69088#p69088 Get Everything path via IPC
/comment - If, for example, NOTHING is displayed in the “Product Version” and/or “Target Machine” columns, restart Everything by entering the following in the Everything search box: /restart ... and then press ENTER.

[void]

The Everything.exe is the same for the portable version and installed version.

The installer simply enables the following options:
Tools -> Options -> General -> Store settings and data in %APPDATA%\Everything
Tools -> Options -> General -> Everything Service

The installer also adds uninstall information in your registry under:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Everything

(Everything 1.5a for the alpha version)

[spooky]

If “Store settings and data in %APPDATA%\Everything” can be toggled that easily, then Tuska's method isn't reliable. I must have played around with those settings as I have that one disabled but the service one enabled.

@void, does uninstalling Everything wipe all that uninstall information too? A lot of software tends to leave leftovers in the registry. If that's the case, that could be unreliable too as I might have that from an early installed version of 1.5, while currently using the portable version.

I don't want to cause any bother; I just want to know which method is the most reliable.

[void]

@void, does uninstalling Everything wipe all that uninstall information too?

Yes, uninstalling Everything removes the Everything uninstall registry key.

The installer also writes install information under:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\voidtools\Everything

This key is also removed when uninstalling.

[Herkules97]

If “Store settings and data in %APPDATA%\Everything” can be toggled that easily, then Tuska's method isn't reliable. I must have played around with those settings as I have that one disabled but the service one enabled.

@void, does uninstalling Everything wipe all that uninstall information too? A lot of software tends to leave leftovers in the registry. If that's the case, that could be unreliable too as I might have that from an early installed version of 1.5, while currently using the portable version.

I don't want to cause any bother; I just want to know which method is the most reliable.

Hmm..I wrote a long message and question if I should trim it to only the first gap or not..I use italics to indicate more off-topic/useless info, but is there a point in what I've written..

You could export the entire registry and then go through and find "everything" and "voidtools" and see what remains.
Then find the entries and export each one, modify them and importing those as modifying the entire registry export to remove those entries and importing it either won't work or could break your system if not currently then on a system restart. Though if the entire entries are about the 2 keywords then deleting it outright would work too. But most leftovers would be stuff inside folders that have more than just EBV stuff.

Or just leave it all be, registry stuff doesn't really do much against the system(Unless it's one particular program bloating it, in which case the bloat can cause issues but you can usually find out how big the registry is by exporting. If exports are near 1.6GB it might be time to find what is bloating it, for me the only time bloat has happened is with Internet Download Manager because those geniuses decided to rely almost entirely on the registry for profile data that should have never been in the registry but I don't expect IDM to ever be improved..It's been in maintenance mode for several years). To be really sure you could install a fresh system every few years to wipe it all clean.

I did that for the latest primary system I use. I also took that opportunity to start using what I could portable, even programs that start installed I figured could be portable because all their data was portable like MSI Afterburner and RTSS. Their data is in the folder, so what happens if I move them to my own root folder? Besides an error on first run, they've been running from that folder ever since.
I am going to restart the system after 3 months and 7 days soon and I fully expect something with the system to have broken and a restart will trigger it like how when I first installed the system with my NTLite-modified version a restart caused internet connectivity to fail entirely and maybe right-click context menu too. I "Reset This PC" and everything in my root folder was kept. Very handy. Program Files, its x86 version and ProgramData is not kept so those should be copied off at least if a user-program uses them.

Doing what I've done makes it easy to reset the system if something goes wrong and is a lot less tedious than starting entirely fresh as most of the time the system fails it's from a system-related folder/file and not user-run programs. I will also export the entire registry before restarting. Just in case.
My previous system was from a line of devices and system configurations all the way back to Windows 7 I believe. Then 8, 8.1 and 10..Then Acronis-copied to a different device, then copied again from that, then moved back to the second device. Things had broken quite some. My powershell script to remove windows defender somehow worked when I moved back to the second storage device even though it had failed every start before the third device. I had no Defender, granted viruses aren't really a thing these days so it wasn't an issue. I think more broke when I then Acronis-copied to a fourth device. That had problems booting or whatever it now was after some months or however long, late 2024 bought a new SSD and fresh installed Windows 10, reset PC and has ran it on that fifth device since.

However after learning that Acronis doesn't store the entire timestamps, only down to milliseconds(NTFS goes down to 100 nanoseconds or xx:xx:xx.941xxxx where 941 is the stop for Acronis)..I decided to stop using it for backing up. Now I archive stuff that will be deleted on a system reset, copy other stuff as-is to a temporary destination and rely on system resets or fresh installs to fix any issues. It's only been needed that one time in the beginning, restarts since has worked fine.