Anyone else change their default Program Files path?

[burningrave101]

I noticed the latest version of nLite has the option to change the Program Files path and thought i would check it out tonight when i do a fresh install of XP. I've seen some articles on how to do it manually in the past but never tried it. I usually install all my games and applications to another partition such as D:\Program Files and hopefully this will make it alot easier then changeing the install directory on each game and app. Has anyone tried this before and had any problem with it?

 

[FuSoYa]

That feature has been in there for at least the last few revisions actually. I've used it on all my installs with no problems. I do the same thing for the profiles directory.

 

[oplin]

Do you guys do images or just fresh installs? Because doing that would mess up your program files if you installed programs after the image right? I've never tired it but it seems only logical with windows.

Is there any program that allows a program to install completely off the windows drive? Like having Adobe or Office on a seperate drive and being able to install windows fresh and still use them?

 

[FuSoYa]

I have only used the changed directories for fresh installs. Though I have not tried it, I can pretty much guarantee that at least some of your programs will be screwed up if you try rename the Program Files folder on an already up and running system, just too much stuff gets entered in the registry for the programs that are typically installed in that location.

For me, if I reinstall Windows, then everything else gets reinstalled as well. I'd be very surprised if Office would still run if you did a fresh install of Windows while your Office install was on another drive, as before, I'm sure there is just too much stuff stuck in the registry from it.

 

[djnes]

It's been beaten to death lately on these boards that there is absolutely no benefit of splitting out your programs and games from the C drive. This goes double if it's a partition on the same drive. It's a classic example of someone thinking it's a tweak, and that it makes their configuration special, when in fact, it doesn't. There's nothing wrong at all with having the OS, apps, and games on the same drive/partition. It's definitely not worth the hassle or time of making any changes. Always remember the golden rule in these situations. Just because it's possible, doesn't mean you should.

 

[Ruffy]

It's been beaten to death lately on these boards that there is absolutely no benefit of splitting out your programs and games from the C drive. This goes double if it's a partition on the same drive. It's a classic example of someone thinking it's a tweak, and that it makes their configuration special, when in fact, it doesn't. There's nothing wrong at all with having the OS, apps, and games on the same drive/partition. It's definitely not worth the hassle or time of making any changes. Always remember the golden rule in these situations. Just because it's possible, doesn't mean you should.

I do it, have done it for years using tweakUI(older version)

Why? because I can blast away the install partition and be up in running without having to worry about backing up much data. The only odds and ends are stuff that store themselves in Documents & Settings\%USERNAME%\

And it's alot faster to copy 5 folders off of there and reinstall windows, then to truly go through all my stuff. I have redundant backup schemes going on daily. But that would take more work. I can blast my OS away and be up in running at 85% in about 11 minutes or less without any data loss.

 

[djnes]

I do it, have done it for years using tweakUI(older version)

Why? because I can blast away the install partition and be up in running without having to worry about backing up much data. The only odds and ends are stuff that store themselves in Documents & Settings\%USERNAME%\

And it's alot faster to copy 5 folders off of there and reinstall windows, then to truly go through all my stuff. I have redundant backup schemes going on daily. But that would take more work. I can blast my OS away and be up in running at 85% in about 11 minutes or less without any data loss.

That's why it's good practice to keep your data files on a separate drive or partition. You're making the common mistake here of confusing data and applications. With Ghost and/or sysprep, applications and the OS can be restored within 5 minutes.

You're also missing the entire point of why this makes no sense. If the OS needs to be blown away, then apps need to be re-installed anyway. So again, there's no benefit of having them in separate places. I will always agree that data should be kept separate from the OS volume, but not apps or games. I have a second HDD in my PC that holds my documents, game patches, mp3 files, etc. My Raptor holds XP, my apps, and my games. When I need to reghost that partition, I have nothing to back up.

I just think it's borderline hilarious how many people still argue that you should move your apps and games away from your OS volume, but they never stop to apply any common sense.

In short, keep your OS, apps, and games together. Put your data on another drive or partition, and you're fine.

 

[Phoenix86]

No, but I do redirect my documents for ease of reinstall.

Ruffy, have you ever restored using that method?

What do you do about 3rd party software registry entries in windows that you just nuked?

 

[djnes]

No, but I do redirect my documents for ease of reinstall.

This should also be done in a corporate environment, to keep the noobs from storing data in their "My Documents" folder. Anything with "My" in the name is way too Fisher-Price-like for people on these boards, which only helps to break down the argument of moving the program files directory.

 

[Phoenix86]

This should also be done in a corporate environment, to keep the noobs from storing data in their "My Documents" folder. Anything with "My" in the name is way too Fisher-Price-like for people on these boards, which only helps to break down the argument of moving the program files directory.

Yeah well, people need to stop bucking the trend.

My documents is a system folder used by 3rd party apps. Trying to prevent it's use is about as helpfull as redirecting system32.

Know where BF2 stores your user profile, the only think you need to backup when reinstalling? That's right... My documents, and that's a GAME.

 

[Slartibartfast]

If you guys want some real fun, try deciding you don't want a "program files" folder anymore after you've been running the same install for a year or so. And no uninstalling/reinstalling either

 

[Met-AL]

There is a free utility to do that for you. I can't remember off hand what it was, but you tell it where you want your programs folder and it moves all the programs and sets the path in XP for future installs.

 

[KoolDrew]

Why exactly do you install your games and applications to a separate partition? I cannot think of any advantages to doing this at all, but plenty of disadvantages. One huge disadvantage being a decrease in performance due to increasing your average seeking distance.

You want your applications, pagefile and OS all in the same partition if you have one drive. The only good argument for having a seperate partition would be if you have a lot of files that are not accessed often and are accessed sequentially. If this is the case you can improve seek times by putting those files in their own partition. This way the head will stay in your other partition the majority of the time. Also, you get the added benefit of being able to format the other partition and have all the data still left on this one. On my setup I have all my MP3's, documents etc. in a separate partition.

 

[Met-AL]

It's been beaten to death lately on these boards that there is absolutely no benefit of splitting out your programs and games from the C drive.

There is a HUGE benefit...when it comes time to reinstall windows, you are not sitting there for hours installing games and then patching them and then setting up the configuration of each of them. Sorry, but to me that counts as a benefit.

Why exactly do you install your games and applications to a separate partition? I cannot think of any advantages to doing this at all, but plenty of disadvantages. One disadvantage being a decrease in performance due to increasing our average seeking distance.

If Windows needs a reinstall, you don't have to reinstall all your games. I have a folder with shortcuts to all my games on my D: partition. After reinstalling windows, I just make a toolbar on my taskbar out of it and I'm done.

I am on my same install of SOF2 from 2002. Nothing worse than installing games...cd after cd after cd..and then patching them. I have not had one game not work this way. I also move the My Docs off the OS partition as well. Another thing I like to do is use XXXCopy and set up a scheduled task that copies my profile to another partition.

I rarely ever have a problem with windows that needs a reinstall, but when it does, it sure is nice to have all your stuff on a second partition and be back up and running in a short time.

 

[djnes]

I use a batch file too, to grab my Outlook file and copy it back to my D drive as well, but I'm still not getting why people think this works for games. First off, as Phoenix86 said, many games use the My Docs folder for saved game files. It's not like installing games is really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. I never install them right away on a clean build anyway.

 

[Met-AL]

I use a batch file too, to grab my Outlook file and copy it back to my D drive as well, but I'm still not getting why people think this works for games. First off, as Phoenix86 said, many games use the My Docs folder for saved game files. It's not like installing games is really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. I never install them right away on a clean build anyway.

Sry bud, I was still working on my previous post while you were posting this.

It's all about saving time. I have all my games configured with binds and such and graphics settings. Plus, take for example, I have probably 20 games installed on my PC, some which are getting pretty old and have several large 100MB patches each. A few of them are 4 and 5 CD games or 1 DVD games. We are talking a few hours to just install them, then to start patching them. Then you have to open them and get them all configured for my controllers.

 

[Phoenix86]

There is a HUGE benefit...when it comes time to reinstall windows, you are not sitting there for hours installing games and then patching them and then setting up the configuration of each of them. Sorry, but to me that counts as a benefit.

OK, I'll ask you then...

What do you do about 3rd party software registry entries in windows that you just nuked? Like say Office.

Games *can* be an exception as many of their installs are self-contained. However as noted more games are not using this approach, like BF2. I'd expect more and more to use this setup, it's the "default" user data folder on XP.

edit: but let's not kid ourselves, even a "gaming" rig has a lot more software installed other than games.

Also, if you want to save your programs, and you have to reinstall frequently, why not use an imaging program like ghost? It's not like the alternative solution requires manually installing programs one CD at a time...

 

[Met-AL]

OK, I'll ask you then...

What do you do about 3rd party software registry entries in windows that you just nuked? Like say Office.

Those I dont even bother with. They are too intwined into the registry. Games aren't. What I do there to save some reintalling time is to copy my profile. For example, with Opera, everything is stored in the application\Opera folder in the profile. Most other software is too. So after installing them, I copy their folder back from my backed up profile.

To give you an example, the other night after patch Tuesday, my system tanked with a BAD_SYSTEM_CONFIG_INFO BSOD I just couldn't recover from. 2 hours later, I was back up and running with a fully patched WinXP install, full install of Office, Opera, Mozilla, FireFox, Nero, etc. All my settings were back. All my data was still there since my docs was on a fileserver. All my games were still there.

I don't bother with a ghost image or thngs like that. Just not worth it to me to back up 160GB of drive when only 5GB is the OS and applications when I can split my drive into two partions and keep my games on one and all my apps and OS on the other.

 

[djnes]

I don't bother with a ghost image or thngs like that. Just not worth it to me to back up 160GB of drive when only 5GB is the OS and applications.

And right there, again your missing the point. You don't ghost 160 GB of data. You have a second drive/partition where your data is stored. You only need to ghost your C drive. You say 2 hours until you are restored. It takes me 5 minutes to be completely restored. I keep the Ghost Image file on my second hard drive, and boot to a thumb drive when needed, with the ghost.exe file on it. All your doing is falling in line with the OP in making things more complicated in an effort to make things easier. Scroll up to my line written in yellow. Also, reread KoolDrew's post. So, in a recap, you're not saving any time, nor are you getting any performance benefit out of separating apps and games. So it still begs the question...why bother?

 

[Phoenix86]

Those I dont even bother with. They are too intwined into the registry. Games aren't.

Then what's the point in moving the *default* install directory? Why not redirect known self-contained programs to their own drive/partition/folder?

And really if you don't bother with those, why bother with games? You are back to your installing by CDs anyways...

You really need ghost. 2 hours is painfull compared to what you can do with a simple image. Say 10-20 minutes for the same thing. The way you split things, you can ghost just your OS partition too, that'd only take 2-3 minutes to load.

It's funny too, the differences in our opinions. I think saving GB after GB of static data (like a game) is a waste. I'd rather save the profile so I can reinstall and reapply my settings.

 

[Phoenix86]

And right there, again your missing the point. You don't ghost 160 GB of data. You have a second drive/partition where your data is stored. You only need to ghost your C drive. You say 2 hours until you are restored. It takes me 5 minutes to be completely restored. I keep the Ghost Image file on my second hard drive, and boot to a thumb drive when needed, with the ghost.exe file on it. All your doing is falling in line with the OP in making things more complicated in an effort to make things easier. Scroll up to my line written in yellow. Also, reread KoolDrew's post. So, in a recap, you're not saving any time, nor are you getting any performance benefit out of separating apps and games. So it still begs the question...why bother?

Actualy, he would need to some not all of that 160. He's storing user data+progs on that drive. Remember apps, especially games, can take as much space as user data.

 

[Met-AL]

And right there, again your missing the point. You don't ghost 160 GB of data. You have a second drive/partition where your data is stored. You only need to ghost your C drive. You say 2 hours until you are restored. It takes me 5 minutes to be completely restored. I keep the Ghost Image file on my second hard drive, and boot to a thumb drive when needed, with the ghost.exe file on it. All your doing is falling in line with the OP in making things more complicated in an effort to make things easier. Scroll up to my line written in yellow. Also, reread KoolDrew's post. So, in a recap, you're not saving any time, nor are you getting any performance benefit out of separating apps and games. So it still begs the question...why bother?

Are you blind? Or do you have selective reading? I am not gonna keep repeating myself so you have someone to argue with today.

Seperating the games keeps me from having to reinstall the games and to patch them and to open up the various config files and edit them and to copy map files into the various folders for each of them.

Do you realize that not everything people do is for a performance increase, but may be for convenience?

As far as ghosting my C: Drive...whats the point if I use a image from my last clean install which is over a year old or just build a fresh one. Old image still equals updates for windows and office, driver updates, and virus subscription updates.

 

[Met-AL]

Then what's the point in moving the *default* install directory? Why not redirect known self-contained programs to their own drive/partition/folder?

And really if you don't bother with those, why bother with games? You are back to your installing by CDs anyways...

You really need ghost. 2 hours is painfull compared to what you can do with a simple image. Say 10-20 minutes for the same thing. The way you split things, you can ghost just your OS partition too, that'd only take 2-3 minutes to load.

It's funny too, the differences in our opinions. I think saving GB after GB of static data (like a game) is a waste. I'd rather save the profile so I can reinstall and reapply my settings.

There is no point to changing the "default" install folder. I don't change it. I am trying to make the point for why someone would want to install something in a location different from the default programs folder.

Why bother with games? Because games get customized. Custom maps and levels, edited configs, tweaked settings etc. And the only thing I install off a CD is Office and Nero. Everything else, I download in a few seconds from the publisher's sites such as Opera, Mozilla stuff, TS2, NOD32, XFire, etc.

The saving GB after GB comment... games don't use windows profile so backing that up for that reason is waste.. And besides, I do save my profile. It's huge timesaver for restoring settings and history and links and such.

 

[Phoenix86]

Old image still equals updates for windows and office, driver updates, and virus subscription updates.

So does a fresh install from and "old" CD (even if it's XPSP2 CD).
And what djnes is trying to tell you is, there IS a faster way, but it's a different method.

You guys are arguing over opinions.

edit: I'll admit I have saved game directories so I can move them over to the new install, I just don't nuke my current build until I'm ready with my new build. It does save a lot of time (especially with modded games like UT series which autodownloads the mods)

 

[Met-AL]

So does a fresh install from and "old" CD (even if it's XPSP2 CD).

Exactly my point. Any image you make, is out of date shortly after. Bottom line is you have your ghosting which is a great method of restoring your PC and I have my "I seperate my 100+GB of games from the rest of my crap so I dont have to reinstall them" method which would work either way if I did a fresh install or a image install.

And what djnes is trying to tell you is, there IS a faster way, but it's a different method.

You guys are arguing over opinions.

djnes is a sharp guy. Lots of good info comes from his posting, but he will argue with you even if you do agree with him. Djnes, I am not gonna use ghost even if you pay me. End of story. It's not imprortant enough to me for my once a year of installing windows to spend any time with it. All that is important to me is the 3yr old installs of my favorite games with all their patches settings, and customizations.

 

[djnes]

Are you blind? Or do you have selective reading? I am not gonna keep repeating myself so you have someone to argue with today.

You really should do more reading of this thread.

Seperating the games keeps me from having to reinstall the games and to patch them and to open up the various config files and edit them and to copy map files into the various folders for each of them.

And as Phoenix86 said, not all games work this way. Many need to be re-installed. As I said above, reread the thread.

Do you realize that not everything people do is for a performance increase, but may be for convenience?

If your going to do something for convenience, spend some time making it easier for yourself, by using common sense.

As far as ghosting my C: Drive...whats the point if I use a image from my last clean install which is over a year old or just build a fresh one. Old image still equals updates for windows and office, driver updates, and virus subscription updates.

Wow, it takes 10 whole minutes to ghost a drive. Someone like you above with custom config files for games should be doing it this way anwyay. Like I said, common sense approach instead of getting ignorant with other people. Stop with the attitude and redirect that energy and time into something truly convenient for your situation. We've had a recent rash of people who chose to cop an attitude instead of taking an opportunity to learn something. Each has been awarded a permanent vacation from here...don't be the next.

 

[Phoenix86]

Exactly my point. Any image you make, is out of date shortly after. Bottom line is you have your ghosting which is a great method of restoring your PC and I have my "I seperate my 100+GB of games from the rest of my crap so I dont have to reinstall them" method which would work either way if I did a fresh install or a image install.

I think your missing something, maybe not. You can ADD ghost to your current method seamlessly, and it will reduce your current load time to minutes (not hours), then add for windowsupdates (which you'd have to run if you installed by image or CD).

 

[Met-AL]

You really should do more reading of this thread.

And as Phoenix86 said, not all games work this way. Many need to be re-installed. As I said above, reread the thread.

No, they all do work that way. Not one single game I have does NOT work that way.

 

[djnes]

I think your missing something, maybe not. You can ADD ghost to your current method seamlessly, and it will reduce your current load time to minutes (not hours), then add for windowsupdates (which you'd have to run if you installed by image or CD).

As soon as he started talking about all these custom game configuration files, I immeditaly thought of ghost. This method would even prevent him from pulling an oops and forgetting one file that could take time to re-create. If he has a bootable thumb drive, or a CD or something, it could be quite easy to do once a week or so.

 

[Met-AL]

I think your missing something, maybe not. You can ADD ghost to your current method seamlessly, and it will reduce your current load time to minutes (not hours), then add for windowsupdates (which you'd have to run if you installed by image or CD).

Never said it didn't or wouldn't. It just is not in my list of priorities of things to do or to buy.

I need to go take care of some things out in the plant where I work. I shall check this thread again later to see what you have to say. Been fun debating with ya.

 

[Met-AL]

As soon as he started talking about all these custom game configuration files, I immeditaly thought of ghost. This method would even prevent him from pulling an oops and forgetting one file that could take time to re-create. If he has a bootable thumb drive, or a CD or something, it could be quite easy to do once a week or so.

One more post ..then I go.

I have a 100GB game partition. I will check tonight, but I believe it's got about 60GB usage. Ghosting that would take a heck of alot of CD's or a drive of equal size..correct? I do not have a second drive nor do I think approx 85 CD's is a feasable method, and what would be the point of it does not need to be reinstalled, but just have a shortcut pointint to it. In fact, Steam, the first time you run it rebuilds it's registry settings and checks to see if it is up to date.

 

[djnes]

It just is not in my list of priorities of things to do or to buy.

Go to the next computer show in your area. I've seen Ghost as low as $15, for a real, legal copy.

 

[Phoenix86]

DVDs, not CDs.

Also, Ghost compresses, so roughly 1/2 the size of the original/4.7. So 100GB/2=50gb/4.7=11 DVDs. Not that bad.

However, ghosting your OS partition only (on your setup) what 5GB, would fit on a single disk.

 

[Met-AL]

54.4 GB of games...and some were installed back when Win2K was the OS of choice. Ok, it still is for a few people..

So we are starting to agree here?

Having games on a second partition is not such a dumb idea? Applications on the other hand are a bit more tricky really should be installed the proper way? Imaging your OS is the fastest and most painless way to reinstall your OS?

 

[burningrave101]

The point in having seperate partitions to install things to is so that your default C: drive is kept as small as possible. You only want to install the OS and drivers and possibly your core applications that you run the most on the first partition. The smaller the partition the faster the access time is going to be. The beginning of the hard drive is much faster then the middle and the end of the hard drive because of the short distance the spindle has to travel. When you create one large partition to install your OS and games and applications into then the area the spindle has to travel is also increased. And files will never stay in one place on the hard drive. They will eventually make their way to different areas of the partition. Thats why you want the partition small like 8-10 gigs. Another thing with dividing up your files into different partitions is that you can scan just certain portions of your drive when you want to run anti-virus, defragment, ect.

Oh and BTW, i tried changeing my default Program Files path with the latest version of nLite last night and wound up with just a nicely pooched install. As soon as it loaded to the desktop i was getting missing .dll errors and none of the applications were wanting to run. I probably did something wrong but i just went ahead and re-installed a plain jane XP Pro install with all the defaults and got myself up and running again.

 

[burningrave101]

One more post ..then I go.

I have a 100GB game partition. I will check tonight, but I believe it's got about 60GB usage. Ghosting that would take a heck of alot of CD's or a drive of equal size..correct? I do not have a second drive nor do I think approx 85 CD's is a feasable method, and what would be the point of it does not need to be reinstalled, but just have a shortcut pointint to it. In fact, Steam, the first time you run it rebuilds it's registry settings and checks to see if it is up to date.

Thats what an external hard drive is for. Backing up an image to multiple CD's or DVD's isn't very feasable because if one of them becomes inaccessible then your out of luck.

 

[Met-AL]

........

 

[GreNME]

Cool topic. It's nice to see the topic of Windows environment variables—a feature in Windows that never gets enough attention—finally come to light on this forum. Environment variable enable a versatility in Windows that allows an install to be recovered or enhanced with specific configurations that suit the needs/wants/preferences of the user or a certain environment. Granted, environment variables aren't going to solve all of your problems or wants/needs, but having more understanding of things like the many path variables helps increase the visibility of how some tweaks and tricks and hacks on the OS are done. TweakUI definitely uses a number of path variables to do some of the things it does.

Hell, my own My Documents folder is on a separate drive. It keeps my system partition lower in size and keeps my data backup measures relegated to just data.

As for your Program Files folder, it isn't recommended to do this if you have a wide range of programs installed. However, the chances are fair enough if you are just dealing with games you will be able to safely do this. The way games are written—which isn't poorly, so don't think I'm saying that—you have good chances of having things work fine. They don't normally tie themselves so tightly to Windows APIs or to the registry or to any of the other environment variables. So, if all you install on your system is games and maybe Firefox to browse the net, you're not running too high of a risk of messing anything up.

However, there are other programs where you can run the risk of trouble. Office, for instance, would cause problems if you moved it like that. Also, trying the "install it and and then change the path" trick is likely to not work, and if it does initially then the first time Office calls for something and not using path variables (which is not often), the program will crash. Adobe and Macromedia products are even more troublesome, for some reason (which is kind of weird since they've been developing for Apple as well, where the programs are much more self-contained). Other programs can be a crap shoot.

If you want to try your luck, go ahead. However, the chances are higher that non-games will experience problems. Your choice to try it.

Me, I prefer a route similar to more than one of the views here but somewhere in the middle. I have My Docs separated, as I mentioned, and I'm building images with my preferred programs and settings installed. I want to keep the image small enough to fit on a DVD, while all I'll have to do is move my backup of about 120 GB of data back to the altered My Documents folder. That way I'll be able to keep the settings how I want (mostly) and, when I install a sysprepped version on new hardware, I have to spend less time getting it how I want it (post-install scripts make it easy). It takes a little more work the first time, but once you have it together, recovering from a disaster becomes way easier (actually, I say that in theory, as I've not had to test it).

 

[djnes]

The point in having seperate partitions to install things to is so that your default C: drive is kept as small as possible. You only want to install the OS and drivers and possibly your core applications that you run the most on the first partition. The smaller the partition the faster the access time is going to be. The beginning of the hard drive is much faster then the middle and the end of the hard drive because of the short distance the spindle has to travel. When you create one large partition to install your OS and games and applications into then the area the spindle has to travel is also increased. And files will never stay in one place on the hard drive. They will eventually make their way to different areas of the partition. Thats why you want the partition small like 8-10 gigs. Another thing with dividing up your files into different partitions is that you can scan just certain portions of your drive when you want to run anti-virus, defragment, ect.

This is why debating this topic is useless because of the amount of misinformation people still buy into. You don't want to create a lot of partitions, as the more partitions you have on a drive, the slow the access time can be. It doesn't so much matter the size. Ideally, you want one drive for your OS, apps, and games, and one second physical hard drive for your data. There's no positive reason for having a small OS partition. Also, when you're doing an AV scan, you don't want to just limit it to the OS partition. You want to scan the whole system anyway, so why give it more drive letters to hop through? Do yourself a favor and read KoolDrew's post again. When you get a better understanding of drive partitioning, you'll find the inaccuracies in your post.

 

[Met-AL]

I agree that partitioning does nothing for increasing peformance, but can you link to some testing, reviews, or data that show a performance decrease. I would like to see how much of a decrease there is and if it's even worth arguing about.


Partitioning in my opinion serves only convenience. I would also say it adds a small level of protection for data by seperating your data from your OS & Apps in the event the OS partition is unrecoverable, your data may still be.