Moving Programs from 'C' drive to 'D' drive

[rvb53]

Hi eveyone,
I am new to this forum and I really appreciate the forum activities.

I have problem with my laptop with vista home premium 32bit. My C drive is full and I have lot of space(80 GB) left on D drive. Is there any way to move programs from C drive to D drive? I want to move microsoft office and other programs which occupy more space on C drive.

Is anyone familiar with this kind of issues pls help out and that greatly appreciated.

 

[Night Hawk]

Re: Moving Progarms from 'C' drive to 'D' drive

Hello and welcome to the Vista Forums! Simply trying to copy files and folders from C to a second drive will be a total waste of time. First you would have to uninstall the programs presently installed and then see them custom installed to the second drive to start with.

Not all files and folders for programs are located in the Program Files directory. You'll also find them in the "users>user name you use>AppData sub directory there as well. You may want to start backing up all the extra files you have to the second drive in order to free up drive space on C. That would be a great time saver leaving all programs presently intact.

 

[CyberZeus]

Re: Moving Progarms from 'C' drive to 'D' drive

You can move your Documents and your Pictures folder to drive D:, for instance. And maybe also your Music folder, it depends on how you use your PC.

 

[rvb53]

Hi everyone,

thanx for reply and I have tired the above methods, but still I can't increase the space on C drive.

 

[Night Hawk]

You'll see more then a free drive cleanup program I can point you to called CCleaner. That locates and removes a ton of useless temp folders that tend to linger around but may see some 200mb of space taken. That's 1/5 or 20% of 1gb roughly for a littel help.

One thing that would help once any loose files are backed up to the other partition would be uninstalling the present programs making no folders are left behind if the installer allows for a custom install to the second D partition. That would have to be some of the largest programs.

A second option besides eliminating some programs entirely would be removing the D partition altogether in order to expand the C. You would see one large primary rather then two smaller separate partitions.

The 3rd option would be shrinking D in order to expand the C primary would be an option as well while actually taking quite a bit longer seeing the shrunk D moved towards the back of the drive. Most would simply prefer to nuke the D and expand C outward.

 

[rvb53]

Hi Night Hawk,
thanx for ur suggestions. Can u explain in brief the 2nd and 3rd option of shinking the D drive and to expand C drive?

 

[daw1cb]

Control panel > Administrative tools > Computer Management
From there select disk management on the right hand side you will then see your drives pop up in the center. Then select shrink volume on D:. Remember 1GB is 1000 MB. Enter an amount to shrink it by say 40000 MB Once that is complete then select C: drive and select Extend volume. Extend it by the amount you shrunk D.

The second option of removing D can also be done in disk management and then extend the C: partition.

 

[Night Hawk]

The problem there however is while you can resize any secondary partition while in the disk management tool it generally takes a 3rd party drive to see results when working with the OS primary itself. Plus you will want to back up any important files when going to perform any changes to be made on an existing installation just in case of a mishap.

The shrinking part of the D isn't the only thing seen before expanding C. Before that can happen you still have to move the D partition into the now vacant space at the back end of the drive in order to free up space in front of it for C. You can end up spending a few hours in the process depending how large the drive is and how much is present already on the D parition when going to move it.

 

[rvb53]

Hi Night Hawk,

I have 75 GB space in D drive left out of 105 GB and 1 GB space left in C drive out of 30 GB.
Before shrinking D or expanding C, is there any way to move large size programs like the anti-virus or microsoft office to move it from C drive to D drive?

Any suggestions on this is greatly appreciated.
As my C drive is mostly occupied by microsoft office 2007 & 2003 and anti-virus Macfee.

 

[Night Hawk]

SImply moving files and folders over wouldn't help you out any. You still have to see a custom reinstall for them to work since all the registry entries are pointing to locations only found on C.

With the limited amount of space you have by the looks of that you are seeing there you are likely better off seeing one large primary once you are able to back things up off the drive entirely. Otherwise you have to consider deletion in order to free things up on both partitions!

 

[archie123]

he's right , you cant just move your files , all the shortcuts will be wrong and yuor registry entries will all be wrong , simply uninstall the programs you want to move and reinstall them , but choosing "custom install" on installation and choosing your other drive as the target drive for install

upon installation of programs you are always offered a choice of where to install them

Leave your antivirus and your firewall on your main drive

 

[CyberZeus]

You had to face the problem before filling up drive C.
You can consider a fresh reinstall using one partition for the hard disk.

 

[Night Hawk]

The main problem often seen with laptops is simply being smaller drives then you now see available for desktops. Often many will now look into an external usb hard drive or adding in a second drive for storage.

The largest 2.5" drives seen lately are 500gb models which are about 4-5 times larger then the one you have there. The one thought to comes to mind if you keep running into the same problem would be something along those lines since you are able to have what you want on and not be cramped on space.

 

[iscreddy9]

Hi,

I am able to shrink space on d drive but i am not able to expand c drive, when i right click on c drive in disk management extend volume is disabled, will somebody help me here.

Thanks,
shiva

 

[Night Hawk]

Hi iscreddy9 and welcome to the VistaForums!

Surprize! The Disk Management tool won't be able to resize the partition you are loading Windows from due to unmovable system files and other complications. The best option for expanding the primary there would be the use of an independently run 3rd party drive tool without any OS loaded except a live ubuntu 9.04 cd or GParted live.

The latest release of the Debian distro there has an improved not so limited version of GParted included that will reisize the Vista primary as well as booting from a live GParted cd. These are strictly free of charge options over downloading a shareware for one of the retail programs.

If you are interested in using that method first look over the general information on GParted seen at GPARTED DOCUMENTATION - GENERALITIES

The latest iso disk image for the separate download of GParted is available at SourceForge.net: GParted: Files

You'll find a good number of people can help you out if you run into any problems.

 

[windmill414]

How do I move all program and files so as not to reinstall to extra drive then move back to new OS

 

[Night Hawk]

How do I move all program and files so as not to reinstall to extra drive then move back to new OS

Welcome to the VistaForums! windmill414

That answer was just provided by archie123 if you read the thread. The drawback of custom installing programs to another location like partition or drive rather then an upgrade to the existing Windows installation with everything on the primary is the obvious need to start completely from the beginning with new installations of each program on the fresh installation of Windows with a few exceptions.

The only programs you can run without a full reinstall are those self contained in one folder where you simply create a new desktop shortcut by right clicking on the main executable file. I do that for utilities tucked away in a custom sub folder either on the same drive or found on one of the storage drives used here.

With each OS drive here having only one large single primary an upgrade form of repair install preserves all but the ATI catalyst while on a few occasions even that went without need to see a reinstall. But everything was already on the primary to see that work out.