Hope I can communicate this question well enough . . .

I have two drives. One is 60GB (lets call it C) and the other is 300GB (lets call it D). I'd like to put windows on C: and ONLY Windows (no applications, no data). (I know that's a waste of drivespace, but the drive was free so I'm not too concerned) D: would be for data and apps. What I'm wondering is is there a way to set up windows so it writes all the Documents and Settings information for my users (my father and I) to D:?

My intention is to be able to format and reinstall Windows on C at my leisure and easily set it to see everything I have on D:, but I don't want to have to reinstall all the applications everytime. I know applications write information to the registry and that that information will be lost when I format C and reinstall Windows. Is there a way to get Windows to recognize what applications I have installed on D and run them? I also don't want to set up my users and their mailboxes and wallpaper, etc. everytime I reinstall windows.

I'm just tired of reinstalling all the apps and reconfiguring Windows everytime I reinstall Windows.

I'd definitely appreciate any help that could be offered on this.

I'm not wording my question very well so feel free to ask for specifics.

The problem with the setup that you're wanting to run is that the Windows OS sets program information into a registry. The registry is on the same drive as the OS and can not, to my knowledge, be placed elsewhere. If you were to install all of your programs to your "D:" drive, then you would encounter problems of Windows not seeing or recognizing your programs as the registry keys for them would no longer be there after a format/reinstall.

I can appreciate what you are trying to accomplish, but due to the coding of the OS itself.. the idea simply won't fly.

Thank you ariesjj. I was afraid that would be the answer. I guess I'll just backup the whole drive (w/apps and user config data) to DVDs. I can still force our My Documents and Outlook .pst files to write to drive d:.

Since those two items are the main usre data that is constantly changing, I'll only have to load the apps and point My Documents back to its D: drive folder.

Thanks again.


I had one other question. I've noticed that a lot of people have rigs with two 36GB raptors and a large drive (250-300GB) on the side (sounds like a Jurassic Park fast food order). What is the main benefit of this set up and are these set ups typically running a SATA RAID 0 (or 1+0) with Windows on them? Is it "OK" to run Windows off of a RAID, I had read that it was not "advisable".

LMK, please.

Quote: Originally Posted by ariesjj The problem with the setup that you're wanting to run is that the Windows OS sets program information into a registry. The registry is on the same drive as the OS and can not, to my knowledge, be placed elsewhere. If you were to install all of your programs to your "D:" drive, then you would encounter problems of Windows not seeing or recognizing your programs as the registry keys for them would no longer be there after a format/reinstall. I can appreciate what you are trying to accomplish, but due to the coding of the OS itself.. the idea simply won't fly.

You can do it but as noted above, after a reinstall your registry is gone and so is all the program references in it. I do as you mentioned but its simply to keep my boot drives size to a minimum. This way I can use an imaging program to image it daily and the image files are small.

The easiest is your My Documents, right click on the icon, go to properties and you will see a MOVE button. Click on that, point it to your new drive and your documents will be moved and ALL references to My Documents will also point there.

Your programs can be installed on wahtever drive you want with no ill effects.....in fact you can change a registery key to force all software to default their installation path to the new drive. This way you wont have to change the path from C: to D: every time you do an install.

Let me look for it....

Here it is:

Description - This recipe will change the default location that windows installs programs.


Directions -
I have always been a two hard drive kinda guy. I like to keep my main drive running mean and lean with mainly just the OS running. On my second drive I like to install the majority of my programs. However, windows always wants to install programs to "c:\program files" and changing it everytime can be a pain.

After you back up your registry, this is how you can change this default location.

1. Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion
2. Find ProgramFilesDir whose default should be C:\Program Files
3. Change this to whatever directory you wish. I changed it to D:\Program Files for example.

Remember you have to reboot for your changes to show.

what my fellow pimps said was true... but what would be the fun if you couldnt hack it to make it work


1st off you have to worry about the registry keys... and.. when programs install they put files in other places like system32 and such

now if you dont mind doing work, i can teach ya how to do this. I would recommend doing this on a fresh install of windows. Also apply all patches and service packs before doing this.

you will need a program called regsnap, new versions you have to pay for, i run an old version (back when it was free ware) you can get an old version here: http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/fil...840&fileidx=1#

any how what this program does is takes a picture of your registry.

so what you would do is take a snapshot and then install one program and then take another snapshot.

then compare the two snap shots, and it will tell you what has been changed. then take that list, go into the registy and export thoes keys.... the next time you blow away windows, all you have to do is merge the key back in and it works!!!


i am sure there is a program like this for taking snapshots of the file system, so you can see where the other stuff gets installed....

Quote: Originally Posted by aaronrkelly Your programs can be installed on wahtever drive you want with no ill effects.....in fact you can change a registery key to force all software to default their installation path to the new drive. This way you wont have to change the path from C: to D: every time you do an install. Let me look for it.... Here it is: Description - This recipe will change the default location that windows installs programs. Directions - I have always been a two hard drive kinda guy. I like to keep my main drive running mean and lean with mainly just the OS running. On my second drive I like to install the majority of my programs. However, windows always wants to install programs to "c:\program files" and changing it everytime can be a pain. After you back up your registry, this is how you can change this default location. 1. Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion 2. Find ProgramFilesDir whose default should be C:\Program Files 3. Change this to whatever directory you wish. I changed it to D:\Program Files for example. Remember you have to reboot for your changes to show.

Thank you for the response. I certainly appreciate the input.

I have a question though . . . what benefit is there to installing all your programs to D: if when you reinstall windows to C: the registry doesn't see those programs and you have to reinstall them anyway?

Is there a way to copy the whole registry to D: as well? This way I could do a clean build (format c: and d:, install windows to c:, install all apps to D:, redirect My Documents with Move, set Outlook to see the .pst on D and then copy the registry file to D:. Then whenever I reinstall Windows I could overwrite the registry file automatically built by Windows during an install with the configured one I have on my D: drive.

If this is possible LMK how exactly I could do this please.

I get the feeling the original answer from ariesjj is going to end up being the long and short of it all (ie: No, you can't do this)

EDIT: I see THRiLL KiLL has something I should try just above this post. He got there before I could post this. I'm at work now so I'll have to try this when I get home. Any other input is still certainly welcome.

Thanks THRiLL KiLL!!

Quote: Originally Posted by hartigan Thank you for the response. I certainly appreciate the input. I have a question though . . . what benefit is there to installing all your programs to D: if when you reinstall windows to C: the registry doesn't see those programs and you have to reinstall them anyway? Is there a way to copy the whole registry to D: as well? This way I could do a clean build (format c: and d:, install windows to c:, install all apps to D:, redirect My Documents with Move, set Outlook to see the .pst on D and then copy the registry file to D:. Then whenever I reinstall Windows I could overwrite the registry file automatically built by Windows during an install with the configured one I have on my D: drive. If this is possible LMK how exactly I could do this please. I get the feeling the original answer from ariesjj is going to end up being the long and short of it all (ie: No, you can't do this) EDIT: I see THRiLL KiLL has something I should try just above this post. He got there before I could post this. I'm at work now so I'll have to try this when I get home. Any other input is still certainly welcome. Thanks THRiLL KiLL!!

The point is I can "image" the C: every day and the files will be smaller. This way if I have a problem I can use an image file to put the computer back exactly the way it was before the problem. The image will have the correct registry because its an exact snapshot of the PC before the failure - ie the restored registry WILL point to the D: drive for the programs.

thanks aaron, I understand now.

If I imaged my C: drive after loading everything and configuring my OS I could use that image with a backup program like acronis to recover if anything corrupted my OS and I wouldn't have to reinstall all my apps because they were safe on the D: drive.

I think . . . LMK.

Ok. I know I'm a week late but maybe I can help.

What Thrill Kill said was the only way you could go about doing what you want. You must find EVERY key that a program installs in the registry, no matter where. This is a lot of work, so much that i don't even care to do it.

But if you really are wanting to waist a few hours, it is possible to export registry keys to seperate files and manually have windows add those keys to the registry. They have a .reg extension.

You can write the file(s) (you can combine all the keys to added into one ginormous file) and right click to install, which is more like assimilating into the registry.


Use that snap program or regedit to find all the keys, copy and paste them into a .txt document then rename it whatever.reg. This is of course after you change the system folder paths like what aaronkelly said.

I use this method for backing up certain reg keys that my friends and family insist on screwing up, sorta like windows system restore, but this method doesn't ending causing more problems like sys restore.

If you try it let me know how it goes. I have never done it on a large scale like you want to. GL

Quote: Originally Posted by chemicalrxn I have never done it on a large scale like you want to.

Yeah, the "large scale" part is what scared me off, I decided to just set my outlook mail .pst and My Documents folder to the D: drive and deal with either reinstalling everything if I need to or once I've installed everything clean to a freshly formatted drive, create an image of the drive for restoring. It's not that much of a bear to use Acronis TrueImage and write the whole drive with a bootable recovery disk. Doesn't take that long either.

Thanks for the reply, though!