Attempting to move C:\WINDOWS\Installer - wierd results

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I'm playing with an eeePC 4G into which I've placed an 8GB SDHC card.
The SSD C: drive is 4GB, the SDHC D: drive is 8GB. I'm working to move
files off the C: drive to the D: drive to increase empty space on C:.

My strategy employs moving folders and creating symbolic links in their
place. I'm using sysinternals 'junction'
(http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx) to
create the symbolic links.

I moved the contents of the folders C:\MSOCache and
C:\Windows\Installer (more than 1 GB total) to D:\MSOCache and
D:\Windows\Installer. Deleting the empty folders, I replaced C:\MSOCache
and C:\Windows\Installer with symbolic links, i.e., "junction
C:\MSOCache D:\MSOCache" and "junction C:\WINDOWS\Installer
D:\WINDOWS\Installer".

Office mods appear to function as intended. That is, Office uses the
D:\MSOCache without complaint. So far.

D:\WINDOWS\Installer is a different story. The msiexec installer in XP
SP3 does not appear to like the symbolic link. During an msiexec install
the symbolic link to D:\WINDOWS\Installer was removed, replaced with the
folder C:\WINDOWS\Installer, then populated with an installation
database .msi file.

On top of that, the D:\WINDOWS\Installer folder containing about 600 MB
of installer files was deleted in its entirety(!) and replaced by a
folder of the same name containing the same installation database .msi
file as on the C: drive!

What screwy logic did that?

Maybe this has to do with a Group Policy against folder redirection.
Maybe it's hardwired in the Microsoft Installer accompanying XP SP3. I
don't yet know.

I'll report what I find. Any comments?

Harry


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