I had a habit of installing utilities from GitHub, popular download sites, and official pages, only to use them once or twice. Not all of them worked as I expected, and my system drive became cluttered with unnecessary files and app directories that I would never use again. So, I shifted my focus and began using portable apps instead of the usual app installs.

It doesn’t apply to every popular tool, but slowly, I built a single folder of portable apps that come in handy on my system and other Windows systems in my home and office. It's a small but useful collection of utilities that every PC user needs at some point.

Portable apps solve a huge problem

No more cluttered app files

When you install an application on Windows, it stores the core files in the Program Files folder and app data in separate folders. Along with that, it creates background services that help the app run at startup or become available when needed, adds entries to the system PATH and Start menu, and makes other system changes. The design works for software that you use frequently, but for rarely used apps, it invites unnecessary system clutter.

Portable apps adopt a different approach from the traditional EXE or MSIX package installation. Rather than using multiple folders for core files and other things and making new system entries, they keep everything in one folder. You don’t need to install a portable app on your system; it’ll still work because all the files it needs are already there.

Another perk is that a portable edition of an app (unless it's corrupted) will work on any system. You only need to download the portable package once, and then you can run it on any PC directly from its folder. It saves you the hassle of installation and the additional pop-ups from promoted apps. With that in mind, I now have a folder containing numerous useful portable tools.

Rufus

Creating and modifying bootable USB drives

I'm a longtime user of Rufus for a few reasons. The biggest reason is simplicity, and the second reason is that it offers slightly more than a basic bootable USB creation tool. It's available in a portable edition, which means I can use it on another Windows PC to create a bootable USB if the official media creation tool isn't working properly. Rufus offers the option to customize the Windows 11 ISO.

I can bypass the official system requirements for old systems, skip the Microsoft account demand, and turn off data collection. There's also an option to install Windows 11 on a USB drive, creating a portable Windows workstation. Rufus can even download the latest ISOs for Windows and a few Linux distros and write them to a USB drive.

Sysinternals Suite

A package of handy utilities

SysInternals is a collection of advanced tools that can help you with Windows problems. It has several tools, but I mostly use Process Explorer and Autoruns. Think of it as the task manager for pro users, showing more than the process view in the native Task Manager. I can find all related sub-processes, check a sketchy process directly on VirusTotal, and kill processes when I want.

I use Autoruns to manage startup entries because Task Manager is only useful for turning off apps. Autoruns can list all the services, drivers, scheduled tasks, and other entries that start when Windows boots, and let me manage each one. I can even inspect the installed drivers and disable the ones I no longer need. Windows Device Manager can display installed drivers, but the default view shows very limited information compared to Autoruns.

HWiNFO

Monitor hardware health

HWiNFO is a reliable utility to check system hardware information, system performance, and temperatures. It is incredibly useful for checking peak temperatures and stats and finding any glaring signs. The tool shows temperature information for all components, including the CPU and GPU, and lists the available sensors on the system.

It supports both monitoring and logging and can track how the system behaves under heavy load. HWiNFO creates a CSV file containing all the logs, which I can use to examine hidden problems such as thermal throttling. On my main system, I integrate HWiNFO with MSI Afterburner for detailed CPU monitoring because MSI had a hard time tracking AMD CPUs.

WinDirStat

Examine storage space

Windows lacks a folder size view; the best it can do is display the size when you open the folder properties. WinDirStat can examine all your storage disks and help you find what's taking up the most space on your hard drive. For me, it's usually the Local AppData folder and the Program Files folder, and I inspect both with WinDirStat.

The portable tools don't resemble the modern Windows design, but they still include a list view and a treemap to show disk usage. WinDirStat makes it easy to find the biggest storage space encroachers, and I can delete them from the app directly. So, I don't need to copy the path and then visit the folder location via File Explorer to purge it.

Everything

Blazing-fast file search

Windows Search is good enough for the average Joe, but lackluster for power users. I've never been a fan of Windows search, and the integration of web results and promoted content in Windows search makes it obnoxiously slow. Everything is a befitting alternative that can find files much faster because it indexes the NTFS Master File Table.

You'll notice a stark difference in the search responsiveness when you switch to everything. On top of that, Everything is extremely customizable, supports numerous search filters, and can maintain a record of your previous searches. I've integrated it with PowerToys Command Palette on my main PC, and it comes in handy while troubleshooting other systems.

Never skip these portable utilities

I keep my portable utilities folder on a USB drive and on the system drive of my main PC, as well as in a few virtual machines. Using the portable version skips the hassle of installing each tool, and you can instantly launch the tools you need. Rufus and Sysinternals are my favorites, but if I had to add a few more, I would keep Notepad++ for modifying configuration and other system files, and GIMP for editing images when the system lacks a photo editor.