moving the windows default location of the Program directory?

hortus

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 22, 2004
Messages
192
have been playing around with a new build for the last couple of weeks and as a lark I installed the OS on an Iram 3gb card to see how things went. The install is lighting quick, and I have been trying to install the program software onto my second drive, a 150gb WD Raptor. The problem is, some software, like Fuji's hyper Utility for example, will not allow for changing the location fo the install. There are no options to do so. I am wondering if there is a way to relocate the program files folder and it's current contents to the Raptor?

And on this train of thought, is there any thing else I can do to make the OS stay streamlined to keep it on the 3gb drive. As it is right now, this machine is the fastest computer I have ever used (by a large margin), and I would like to keep it that way. So any tips you might have on the OS would be welcome.

This machine is slated to run primarily Photoshop, Vegas Video, Nikon Capture, Fuji Hyper Utility RAW converter, VDub, and other applications such as this. No gaming for now, though it might well get a Flight Simulator on it at a later time. It is a work system for my photography business.

If the specs make a differance on this:
Asus P5W 64 Pro MB
E6600 gently overclocked to 2700ghz
2gb pc6400
Saphire 1950xt 256mb video
3gb IRAM card
1 WD RAptor drive (150gb)
Areca Raid card w/ 2 250gb Seagate drives (not yet setup).

I will most likely do one more complete clean wipe of the setup and install the Areca RAID setup and possible add two more drives, 2 in raid1 for backup, and two in raid0 for speed when transferring and working video and for the swap disks.

Right now I have the windows virtual memory located on the front of the Raptor, as well as the Photoshop scratch disk. I was thinking that I would move the scratch disk to the RAID0 when I did the final setup.

Thanks for your time.

Hortus
 
The problem you are likely to have is that \Program Files is usually locked. You are going to have to start your PC in command line mode where you can do the work.

1 - start your PC in command line mode
2 - delete or rename your existing program files
3 - create a symbolic link to the directory on your raptor
4 - reboot

commands to type:

ren "c:\program files" "c:\program files old"
mklink /D "C:\Program Files" "D:\Program Files"
exit
 
Huh?

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

Alter the value of ProgramFilesDir to the location you want to use.
 
I'm not sure what the exact commands are, but I'll throw out this general caution when changing default directories.

Lazy programmers hard code shit like c:\program files\blah blah blah.

There are a lot of lazy programmers.

I'll see if I can turn something up after a few quick searches.

edit: Looks like Catweazle is correct. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933700 (note, this is not supported)
 
Wouldn't have posted it if it wasn't right :D

Always use 'custom' install, and visually check the install directory offered. Those programs which don't play fair and still try to force a non-default can be edited to go where you want them ;)
 
The symbolic link will solve the problem of applications having hard coded defaults. Given that you have to restart to create one according to a previous poster, you might find that it's not worth the effort.
 
Wouldn't have posted it if it wasn't right :D

Always use 'custom' install, and visually check the install directory offered. Those programs which don't play fair and still try to force a non-default can be edited to go where you want them ;)
Pfft, if everything posted here was right... :p

I actually see this on patches more than installs.
 
The symbolic link will solve the problem of applications having hard coded defaults. Given that you have to restart to create one according to a previous poster, you might find that it's not worth the effort.
Thanks for the explanation. That's certainly a better solution than mine.

I must say, though, that despite the MS disclaimer I've not encountered any problems from the registry edit technique, either in my own experience or in reports from others.
 
The only problem I had using the regedit method was it broke a few links that used that variable. But I changed them and that was that. I may have ended up with a few redundant directories, but again nothing major. I even changed it back to default after installing said uncooperative program (Dreamfall for me) without any issues.
 
I used the registry key mod method as described in the MS doc. Still have a few furballs to untangle but for the most part it worked pretty well. Right now I don't have alot loaded on this machine, just PS and HU_V2. So I might reinstall and try the symbolic link in a week and see which method gives me the least trouble and most fluid workflow. For the most part I just want to keep the IRAM free of anything other than just the core OS and driver info. So far it is blisteringly fast. Faster than anything I have seen before, and I have a raptor in another machine with an overclocked e6300 on an Asus P5W DH and it goes like stink. But this thing takes the cake for me, and I am just astounded with how fast work in PS gets accomplished. HU is still a pig, but that is just a matter of bad code I think.

Anyway, thanks to all for the enlightenment. You have helped me a great deal to get to where I want to go. I will strip the text out of this post and build an info sheet for my workfiles for later installs.

Here's a virtual beer to you all (under 21 need not apply).:D
 
Thanks for the explanation. That's certainly a better solution than mine.

I must say, though, that despite the MS disclaimer I've not encountered any problems from the registry edit technique, either in my own experience or in reports from others.
Yeah to be honest I've only ever used the registry edit and that seemed to work just fine. I always do a custom install just so that I can see what options I have, so it's never a big problem to correct the path.
 
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