Comments on: How to change the default location for installing applications in Windows

By: Matty

Matty — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 22:22:31 +0000

Thank you for the computer tips, computer guy!

By: TheMystical

TheMystical — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 07:33:53 +0000

I used to follow this scheme back in the days of win98 and very small HDDs and honestly I didn’t see any increase of speed.
Since computer’s hardware got Harder/Better/Faster/ Stronger since XP came along I can’t really see a good reason to do this. Now I have a quad processor with 8GB of ram, 10k rpm drives and I’m a happy camper

By: anakngtinapa

anakngtinapa — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:23:47 +0000

there is one good reason to install the apps to the other partition using this scheme. it saves a big amount of ghost backup size

By: Haree | ഹരീ

Haree | ഹരീ — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 04:43:08 +0000

I too used to do the same; edit the registry and change the Program Files directory. In XP it worked fine, BUT in Vista:
> Some programs are not working including the default picture viewer is NOT working after changing the Program Files location.
> IE, Media Player etc. are working fine. (The icons will not appear, but once you run it the icons will be restored.)

Is there anyway to change the Program Files location without troubling the Windows Vista default programs?
–

By: Marc Sheffner

Marc Sheffner — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 14:25:43 +0000

I want to change the default drive for my user files in Windows Vista. Can you tell me how to do that?

By: Bene

Bene — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:57:17 +0000

na instalação do vista business é possivel eu mudar o diretório de DADOS onde o padrão é no C:\Users para outra partição , por Exemplo: D: ? ou seja eu gostaria que os aplicativos ficassem no C: e os dados no D:
é possivel.

By: thomas

thomas — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 05:57:52 +0000

useful tip!

By: Ajay Pathak @ readerszone

Ajay Pathak @ readerszone — Fri, 30 May 2008 07:10:46 +0000

when we take backup all installed programs are also added in the backup if i use this method?

By: Shankar Ganesh

Shankar Ganesh — Thu, 29 May 2008 07:35:02 +0000

I’m planning to implement this when I do a Windows reinstall/install it on a new computer.

Thanks for the tip, Aseem

By: Shankar Ganesh

Shankar Ganesh — Thu, 29 May 2008 07:33:47 +0000

I’m guessing this: [By default] The more programs you install, the more the files on the partition where the OS is present in. This causes ‘fragmentation’ and should eventually slow down your PC.

Changing the Program Files location to some other location might keep the primary partition much less fragmented, and this could aid in a speed boost.

Right?

By: akishore

akishore — Thu, 29 May 2008 03:42:10 +0000

Abhishek – Can you clarify why you think installing applications on a different drive other than the OS is not good? I know that most programs will still put files on the system partition anyway, but if a majority are moved to a secondary hard disk, it could help with the speed of the computer.

I agree that if both partitions are on the same physical hard drive, it may not make a difference, but definitely if you have a second hard drive in your computer, the OS running on one and the programs running on another will increase system performance.

By: abhishek

abhishek — Wed, 28 May 2008 10:06:33 +0000

I also used to think like that, it is better to install applications some where else other than the os drive…as it may increase the system speed and decrease the space on the os drive.

as far as space saving is considered its good…but if we are installing apps somewhere else for the sake of system speed i would say it is nothing but illusion.

Let me know if you want to discuss abt this…