Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
Because of the files an installed application usually leaves behind, it's prohibitively difficult move it to another drive.
I have installed a second HD (200Gb). Can I get my apps from one drive to the other without reinstalling all of them? Also, can I leave XP on the primary drive but move the "documents and settings" folder to the new drive without upsetting XP?
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The short, pragmatic answer to both your questions is no.
Let me explain why...
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When an application installs, it leaves pointers to all sorts of files and such that it cares about in various places including the system registry and quite possibly files and locations known only to that application. There's no way to go in and change all those settings and know that you've gotten them all. So the "right" way to move an application is to uninstall and re-install it to the new location.
Be aware that some applications will still install some components to "c:\program files" even if you are installing the full application somewhere else.
As for moving Windows' "c:\documents and settings", technically I believe there is a registry setting that defines its location. However, I would be extremely reluctant to change that. My concern is that I fully expect some applications to ignore that setting and always write to "c:\documents and settings" anyway. My suggestion here is to have your video or other application simply use directories that you create on your new drive, thus ignoring the whole "documents and settings" thing all together.
Article C2225 - November 16, 2004
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
There used to be quite a few programs that would let you move a application INCLUDING ALL links and DLL's etc to another computer and/or Hard Drive.So WJAT happened to them? The original "Uninstaller" program did this but it looks like the Software manufacturers have squashed this type of program! i.e. to get you to buy ANOTHER copy of their product!! IF a software program can move the contents of a complete Hard Drive to another then there HAS to be the ability to move just ONE application? Yes?!!! John H
Posted by: Thomas John Hulligan at March 15, 2010 9:43 AMI keep (save) all my downloaded uninstalled files of applications on my hard drive, this way they can be moved as downloads and installed on another drive. For many applications a USB connection is okay to make this move. It is better however to connect using a Sata or eSata connections for transfers. Using Sata and eSata it is often possible to move installed applications such as utilities directly, but usually only on XP. With Vista or Winidows 7 the problem is more problematic. Transfers of installed applications from one computers hard drive to a hard drive on another computers hard drive even if both are Vista or Windows 7 is not usually sucessful. For reasons stated above Windows OS or apps like Windows Office cannot be moved except by cloning.
Posted by: Jon Van Loon at April 3, 2010 4:55 PMI am just beginning a study on the capabilities for applications transfers using a 32 GB eSata Flash Drive ( also available in 16 and 64 GB capacities). These devices are being sold mainly on their file transfer speed (X4) advantages over USB 2 (USB 3 will negate this), but I feel more attention should be paid to their potential for maintaining file integrity during transfer. In my experience the eSata Flash Drive is recognized as a hard drive (even appearing in the boot menu) if a reboot is done after this hardware is recognized and installed by the computer.
The correct answer is yes.
Move the files, create a junction point at the old location pointing to the new. When it accesses the junction point, the file system will silently redirect the read request to a new path. An application that's not specifically looking for it, won't see a junction point.
See wikipedia: NTFS Junction point.
The hitch is that you have to use NTFS for your filesystem, FAT in its various incarnations have no support for this kind of thing.
There was a number of applications that did move the files and fixed all references (in all the obvious places), but it could still miss something. In particular, there's software that hard codes where it is supposed to be located.
Speaking of path-wise broken-by-design, back in win95 non-english, the actual "program files" folder name was localized on disk (e.g. "programfiler"), and installers created a "program files" right next to it. After all, the programmers must have been thinking, there are no languages out there but english, right?
(Nowadays, the localization of pathnames is a User Interface thing, meaning the programs will show the localized name, while using the english name.)
With so much broken software, there's nothing you can (safely) do outside junction points.
Posted by: mahuja at December 1, 2010 12:50 AM""The short, pragmatic answer to both your questions is no.""
Typical! and the one area that Microsoft have just never "fixed"!! anyone who has ever run a regustry scan from any of the miriad of reg scanners will know all to well - you'v move a folder, or a file from one place to the other, or deleted something and even if there's a new registry entry to show the new location.. you can bet the old one still exists! even the deleted file! Windows needs some serious work to work properly, and perform a registry update when ever something is moved or deleted! even if it stored these up to perform a reg update at shutdown.
The registry is the biggest Pain in the Ass that Microsoft created.
and there Should be a simple way to shift a folder containing an installed app to another location and have it work just as before.
'Course you can't break anything by giving it a try.. Copy the instal folder to the other partition or disk drive, rename the original folder to something else, and point the shortcut to the new location, if it doesnt work you can just rename the original folder back to normal and delete the copied folder from new location.
Posted by: Stu at May 21, 2011 9:56 PMand reset the shortcut back to as it was.
You are wrong. As one person already replied, Application Mover will do the job. I've been using it for years. Asking Leo is obviously a waste of time! But I'm guessing that this won't be published, right?
Posted by: Edam at August 6, 2011 8:54 PM