Changing Program Files Drive?

I'll be getting a new laptop soonish, depending on when a Haswell machine worth my money finally comes to market. I'd like to set up a system partition and a separate partition for everything else, as is a fairly commonplace practice, but there's one question I've never seen answered about this kind of setup:

Is there any way to get the Program Files folders on a non-system partition? Essentially, the question is about having programs install to the D: by default instead of having to change the path every time something gets installed. I know a ton of people who are mostly computer-illiterate who have a small system partition (set up by a tech-savvy friend) and a larger storage partition, but the system partition is almost always overloaded with programs because the owner is neither savvy enough to install to the D: nor to clean up old unused programs. My girlfriend will also be using my new computer, and she's definitely one of those people (AskJeeves.com toolbars and all, but 5x worse because Chinese software comes with so much more bloat), so I'd love to set up the system in a way that she can't screw up by overloading the system drive.

And question #2: The storage partition is often advertised as a good way to save your files across Windows reinstalls. However, reinstalling the system would mean wiping the registry as well, wouldn't it? Is there a way to make those programs installed on the D: work persistently across Windows installs?

 

I looked into redirecting the 2 program file folders for win 7 in a cursory fashion and could not find a good way. I guess some installers that do not have the ability to change the default install directory could pose an issue.
I always run quarterly full backups of both drives in my Asus to an external USB drive.

 

Q1: You might want to look at something like this, it is how both of mine are setup: User Profiles - Create and Move During Windows 7 Installation - Windows 7 Help Forums

Q2: No, that won't be possible. You need to really think about your expectations and needs before doing this. That secondary partition is considered part of the system image.
There are advantages and disadvantages that should be weighed. It wouldn't be advantageous on a two drive system if you wanted to remove the second one for example and have the machine be able to boot up.

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uh, over there use the PDF download to view the instructions.

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Incidentally, you said Program Files. You don't want to do that. There isn't anything to be gained from it and Microsoft recommends against it.

 

Thinking about my expectations and needs is exactly what led me to ask these questions. My basis for asking was: "If so many people are using dedicated system partitions designed to accommodate only the OS, wouldn't it make sense for Microsoft to allow users to easily and consistently install programs onto the secondary partition in order to make OS reinstalls easier and less risky (in terms of losing software and its licenses)?" The answer is apparently, "No," and I'm fine with that. What I typically do on a multi-partition or multi-drive system is set up my primary folder for each library on the secondary. Knowing that I can move the entire Users and ProgramData folders will make that even easier and more thorough, so that's definitely of use.

My hope was that I could get both Program Files folders setup on the secondary and avoid the headache of changing install paths for everything. My deepest hope was that Windows would store their registry entries on that secondary so that the system could still run them upon a reinstall. My realistic expectation was that I'd be lucky if either of those things were possible.

What I'll probably end up doing if the drive is large enough is keeping a decent-sized C: for system and program use and moving the Users and ProgramData folders to a secondary storage partition. If the Chinese market forces me to get a system with a smaller drive (128-160GB since I'll definitely be sticking with SSD), I'll probably just run it as a single partition.

 

I think what they were trying to do was give users with SSD's some alternative way to relocate the programdata and users folders to store the data (instead of the manual way, but seamlessly) and put it onto a HDD.
It also works fine putting it on another partition. I say expectations because if you've haven't done it then once you do you start to see that your original goal starts to have some limitations and serviceability problems. I'm lucky enough that it turns out to work perfect for me but I saw the limitations fairly quickly.

The other thing kind of neat about this is the answer file can be reran in sysprep and the folders relocated again to somewhere else.

I think I see what you're saying regarding the registry but we're crossing paths. ProgramData gets moved along because some programs store various types of data there. So in effect it has important data that one wouldn't want to lose. But again with this setup it's part of the image. It's not really separate, it behaves like a mounted drive so anything you do to it you have to consider what can break. I don't think the registry entries are stored anywhere else besides the main registry.

I think in the end there are to many individual registry entries for me to say, if your comfortable then sure give it a try. I'd definitely like to know.

How you want to manage space is also sort of tricky, too much too little then that has to be re-arranged.
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Edit this was an error: Example, Photoshop has all it's presets to be stored there globally by default. (It does not.)

I keep seeing: moving two program file folders??? There is only one of those.
We need to find the same page before going further. I'm lost again.

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I took the link out because it was the wrong one.

 

One the x64 OS', there should be two Program Files folders. One Programs Files for x86 and one for x64.

 

Oh I need sleep desperately. You're correct.

At any rate those don't want to be moved. MS recommends against.

Is this what you want?

You can try to do anything you want.

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Put Program Files and Program Files (x86) into the answer file and see what happens.
You should be able to move them.

Load some programs on and make a copy of your registry.

Reinstall Windows and the Registry and see if it works.

Then if it does, also make sure to use Windows update and see that it works.

If you strangle your OS too tightly (which is what you want to do to begin with) your going to run into space shortages as the OS needs some room.

It seems to me you're going to end up cancelling out that benefit that you wanted to gain.

I see why MS doesn't recommend it.

When I first started about this I wanted the same thing.

If you take an image of the drive with the folders relocated, the partition that is mounted is included in the image (it has to be) because ProgramData and Users are system folders on it.
If your secondary partition is say "D" you can do a simple data backup of that partition separately.

Goodnight

 

Change the default installation folder (C: \ Program Files)

answer to your second question is no unless you install portable versions of the apps you want, then it can be persistent.

 

It is possible to do this (despite the fact that Microsoft clearly says that such configurations are not supported), but it is not straightforward at all, and there's a number of hidden gotchas there that make it highly inadvisable. This was fine and easy to do up until Windows XP, but with Vista and higher Microsoft has introduced some file system constructs and security policies that make this extremely difficult to do. I have run a number of machines in such configurations over the years (including Vista machines, but not Windows 7), but I have by now abandoned that strategy. In the end I found that it is near-impossible to construct such configurations in a way that does not break a number of features of Windows. What is most problematic about this is that you may not figure out that this was a bad idea for a very long time, by which point your only way to go is a complete reinstall. And of course, since I have no interest in it, I can't guess what will happen in Windows 8; in that case I'd say that all bets are off. In short: Don't go there... Oh, and the answer to your second question is: "No."

 

Moving Users and ProgramData folders to another drive or partition is supported for the OS that's installed; not for OS upgrades.
Moving Users and ProgramData folders, once done, is seamless, never have to remember to setup redirects for any user folder. User's files are kept separate from the OS, a benefit even on a single drive.
For a OS reinstall - both Users and PogramData that exist are still accessible and can be renamed to avoid collision when setup needs to re-create them. It can be done during the install.
System images are taken with both partitions/drives included. Restoring an image is seamless - single or dual drive.

Any program that "supports" an install location to a "non-OS" partition isn't upset by this setup. Installer programs run fine from a relocation partition.

One of the things I think gets confusing is the notion that for example, Office can be installed to a non-OS partition, thereby negating the need to reinstall it when reinstalling the OS. I don't think MS supports Office being installed to a non-OS partition. Even if the Program Files folders were relocated they are still on a non-OS partition.

I'm not familiar with this licensing thing being described. If you can give me more detail of how it works maybe I can check into it and find a way to make that process of restoring them easier.

Hope this clears some things up. I have gotten "some" rest.