How to set up a duel drive 750-414 pc

[1dave1]

I have a basic novice question - not an operating  problem. I have a new envy 750-414 with a 1-tb hhd and a 128 gig ssd. The os is on the ssd - which is the C drive. When I went to install some new programs they automatically wanted to go the  C drive, so I canceled the installation. I wasn't sure if that was the right place to go to because that's where the OS sits.

Should new programs be on the C or D (1-tb ) drive?

I wanted to know about all programs I want to install anti-virus, word, excel, photoshop, etc? Can and should they work on the D drive ? 

Basically', what is the best way to set up the pc ?

Thank you in advance, 

Dave 

[WAWood]

@1dave1

Nearly all programs install something to the OS partition, which is on the "C:" drive.

Some programs allow you to choose a location for the installation, and if that is the case, you will be able to install most of the components to a different drive, but some stuff is STILL going to go onto the OS partition, regardless of what you do.

I have read that MS does not allow you to install their programs to another drive, so that option is not available.

I also have read that one person created a "Programs" folder on their other (i.e., data) drive and they could use that to install programs, and apart from the MS ones, that worked well for them.

STILL ... with a 128GB SSD, as long as you put your large data and media files on the HDD, you should not have to worry about running out of space.

Good Luck

[1dave1]

Dean - thanks for your response.

Let me ask a couple of related question, if you don't mind. I don't mean to be tedious but I just want to try to make sure I understand what you're saying. I've not had a duel hard drive pc before and don't want to screw things up.

1 - If I took my MS Office 2007 - installed it and it goes to the C: drive (ssd ), all would be normal and operate super fast,  being an ssd - right?

2 - I could then copy the 'programs' file and all its sub-folders from the C drive to the 😧 drive ( hhd ).

At that point, I install the other programs (anti-software, photoshop etc.)  to the 'D:' drive and all programs should install and operate correctly as if they were installed on the C drive. - do I have it right ?

Then, if I want, create a short cut for those programs on my desktop and expect no problems.

3 - All those installed programs should operate normally from the D drive.

The only issue would be that operating from the D drive, pulling up files and program operation would not be as fast as the  programs operating from the C drive - is that right ?

Thanks again

dave

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

@1dave1

Sorry I didn't respond before, but my guess is that what you are doing will not work.

Why?

Because those programs would need to access the Registry, which is a collection of files, natively installed to the "C" drive -- and the registry contains LOTS of links to things the programs need, and those links would point to the ORIGINAL folders on the"C" drive where the program was installed.

So, at the very least, you would have to go through the Registry, find ALL the keys that a program uses (and it could be HUNDREDS of keys), and change every one of them to point to the NEW location for the item the key references.

Also, there is no single "programs file"; instead, there are folders -- Program Files, and Program Files (x86) -- which in turn, contain LOTS of subfolders and files.  If you simply move these two upper-level folders and their contents to a different drive, then lots of SYSTEM stuff would no longer work.

What the other poster did was create a new "Programs" folder on their HDD -- and pointed the program installers to that folder (the ones that allowed that), and for those programs, it appeared to work.  They did say it did NOT work for any Microsoft apps (no surprise here!).

[1dave1]

Dean

Thanks for your help. 

I don't know much about how software programs are  programmed and setup. 

Your fed back has  been instructional for me.

thx again 

dave