Forgotten How to

[Wombat]

Change the install directory from c: (default) to another drive,,say D: running XP pro


My mind just went FFFLLLAAAATTT -- brain fry


Paul

[John Prophet]

I used to know how to do it, but I went to Total Recall once and now I have no clue.

Seriously, I would think if you had the second drive or partition there already that it would see it and ask where you wanted it installed

JP

[Jeordiewhite]

Yeah basically that is it, if you have another hard disk drive or partition, ou are able to install windows onto another drive, as windows will ask you where to install. I'm not sure if it skips the partitioning part if you only have one drive as I alway have several drives/partitions.
However I do believe you are able to choose where to install after you get to the license agreement when your booting off of the cd and installing, can't miss it as it will ask where to install it, it happens right after loading up drivers to install then the license agreement.
If you are running the install from windows, then you wont choose the upgrade option to install a fresh install instead. In which case during one of the option screens there will be a button for advanced options or similar, basically if you are doing this install like that, you will hit a check box choosing to pick the drive you want to install to during the setup, not sure where exactly they are in the install while in windows, mainly because I don't usually install windows like that.
Good look with it, it's pretty simple to figure out.

[Wombat]

I know what you guys are saying , but it's not for the install of windows. I know there is a way to change the default allocation. I hate having everything install to C:/prog files --- I normally change it manually to D: or E: or so one depending on which system I am on (have multiple at home), but I know the is a way and it's somewhere in the reg, I just can't remember where.


Paul

[John Prophet]

ahhhh, I dunno on that one...but I need to know sort of, lol..I have 2 drives in one XP Pro system and I have no clue how but somehow the C: and D: are reversed from what I planned them to be.

[bailey]

xp does that.
did it to me too.
what used to be my d drive with xp on it is now I drive and can't change it back

LOL

[davidamarkley]

While it won't help with already installed software, you can change the default installation directory for new packages. If the software installer uses the registry to decide where to find the 'Program Files' (and not all do), you can change it in this directory in your Registry Editor:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \

The value of the ProgramFilesDir and CommonFilesDir can be changed to suit your needs.

HTH,

David

EDIT: As always, be very careful in making registry changes - you can massively hose your system - YMMV

[Wombat]

Thanks Dave,

That's it..

I figured someone would know.


Paul

[Jeordiewhite]

Ahh I knew how to do that as I have both of my machines setup like that.
I however didn't quite understand what you were asking, I thought it was with windows installation itself.
I've honestly ran into several problems moving the commonfilesdir, that one is one I would suggest not even touching, I kept getting problems with the windows installer, reason being it would install to the windows drive and the other one wouldn't get updated etc, you can try it, but if you run into any problems you can't usually just switch back and hope everything is ok, however I copied the windows installer to the other drive and it worked as it had became corrupted, however this was only a temporary fix, so be careful.
After all the problems I had recieved I quickly came to the conclusion of not even touching it except for the programs, windows drive usually stays fine for size as long as it's above 5gb, I install lots of things that uses it so it starts to get big, like MS office, vs studio and other MS programs usually install lots of stuff there. that's where most of my problems came into play because microsoft apps like to install things to the original commonfiles directory.

[davidamarkley]

For some reason, the "email notification of thread replies" isn't working, so I just was browsing around and saw this...

Just wanted to make sure I didn't seem like a snob or anything!

Your welcome...

David