Can I install TurboTax on a removable drive?
We often get this question from customers who wish to install TurboTax on an external or removable drive, such as a flash drive.
While you technically can install TurboTax onto a portable drive, the program will not work properly once that drive is removed.
TurboTax, like most other Windows-based programs, creates registry entries which tell Windows where to find various information. Removing the drive breaks that path, resulting in anything from error messages to strange or missing functionality.
If you install TurboTax onto a portable drive, TurboTax will run properly as long as the portable drive remains attached to the computer, essentially defeating its purpose.
What about security?
Don't confuse your tax data file, which contains your tax return information, with the TurboTax program, which creates the tax data file that contains your information.
You can certainly save your tax data file to a portable drive. For added security, consider password-protecting your tax return by opening it and choosing Password... from the File menu.
While portable drives are convenient devices for storing tax return files, we don't recommend installing your TurboTax program onto them.
