Re: Question about Program Files organization

Tech-Archive recommends: Speed Up your PC by fixing your registry

Sam,
I have to strongly disagree with you that 'most' programs "work
fine after they are 'refoldered' " - I seriously doubt that the number of
program that will run with no problems or issues, whatsoever, can be
interpreted as "most".

Sometimes, it can be just one registry entry, belonging to a program, of a
path pointing back to the program, that becomes invalid after moving
[re-naming] it's folder. That can be enough to make the program inoperable.

And, of course, no matter what program you're talking about, *all* the
shortcuts to it are going to become immediately invalid.

While, I believe, it is true that, if you have some knowledge of computers,
you should, in *most* cases, be able to GET a program to work after changing
the path to it, there is no way you will be able to make every program run,
even if you ARE a PC genius!

By far the best approach would be to put some thought into WHERE you place
your programs, when they ask you for a location, DURING a program's
installation process.


==

Cheers, Tim Med***, Peckham, London. :-)




"Sam S" <pleasedontbother@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:r3OUl.140637$5N7.7896@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I see what you guys mean. But are there specific locations where things
CAN be?
And does it look like I can at least organize the programs into groups
in
Program Files?

No. And at least absolutely not for the programs already installed, or
you'll often break them (due to their current registry references).
Besides which, it just makes little sense to try to do this, anyways. IF
you want to control where things are stored, leave that to your
documents, or some other files you have saved and/or downloaded, and not
to the contents of the \program files folder, OR the \windows folder, and
their subfolders. Leave the system folders alone.

First of all I should preface this by saying this has nothing to do with
Microsoft programs. Since they aren't the best in anything, this is only
relevant to 3rd party programs.
Well I'm happy to report that for most programs they work fine after they
are "refoldered". The few that don't need to be reinstalled. That only
takes a minute. So far it appears that settings are retained. Whew.
That saves a mountain of work. Yes you'll find that once in a while a
program has to be in C:\Program Files. Mostly utlities like anti virus
programs or something else that runs in the background all the time like
Folder Size (Awesome program!!!)

So far there seems to be no issues (except with a couple of
programs.) Microsoft programs don't seem to like being renamed or
refoldered. But I hardly use any Microsoft programs as they are almost
never the best available in any particular area.

"Bill in Co." <not_really_here@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:#JnT70I4JHA.3860@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
PA Bear [MS MVP] wrote:
First Law of Computing: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

NB: Many applications' Program folders /must/ be located on the boot
drive.

Yup. Which is why it makes the most sense to install them there.
Thinking you've covered the bases by installing the programs onto
another
drive makes little sense, since its truly incomplete. The program
installation is actually split between two drives, then.

However, putting audio or video FILES (not programs) onto another drive
can make good sense, especially if you have a large collection or a
bunch
of huge files there (and for video, that's pretty common).


~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Client - since 2002


Sam S wrote:
How many times have you downloaded a program, installed in the
default
location (Program Files on C drive), then forgot about it because you
don't
use it much. I accumulate so many programs over time that I thought
it
would be great to have them organized properly. Like all
antivirus/malware
protection files could be in one place. All video players could be
in
one
place. Photo editors, PDF readers, not to mention a myriad of
utilities -
all organized for easy retrieval later. If one program doesn't work
for
the
task, you try the others in the list.

Unfortunately Microsoft's (and Apple's OS X) design teams fail to
grasp
this
concept.
So I tried "refoldering" some software. Most seemed to be fine
though
there
was an initial delay as it found the new location. Some didn't work
at
all
(Folder Size, Clamwin and a couple of others) which I removed with
Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel, then reinstalled in their new
organized locations. Folder Size seems to be more stubborn! But
almost
all
the others seemed to be fine.

Then I thought wouldn't it be nice to have all the programs on a
different
partition but then realized that even if it installs OK on a non-C
partition
there may still be System 32 files, stuff in Application Data (Hidden
in
Documents and Settings) and other locations. I thought Apple was bad
at
this but it seems both operating systems scatter stuff all over the
place.
So maybe it doesn't matter at all if its on a different partition
since
many
programs won't work if some of the stuff on C drive is inaccessible.





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