if i cut and paste a whole program folder from 'c:\program files' to another location?

Question

say i paste it on another drive(D or E usually)..what are the chances the program will not work properly in the new location. this happened to me a few times, the program stopped working when i cut n paste from c:\program files to another location

Answer 1

The chances are quite good that the program won't work. In the Windows registry, entries are made when a program is installed pointing the operating system to the location where the program is installed. When you move a program, those registry entries become invalid and don't point to the new location. It's easier to uninstall the program and reinstall it to the new location you desire.

Answer 2

well the odds of the program not working properly if you just cut and paste are pretty good. along with cutting and pasting that application/folder you'll have to change the target address for all the shortcuts to that application.

if you're going to do this, create another folder called "program files" on your D or E drive. then copy and paste the folder you want into the program files folder you created on the D drive. once you've done this, go to your desktop and select your shortcut icon, right click on it and scroll down to properties. click on properties and it opens the properties window for that shortcut. in that window are 3 tabs, general, shortcut and compatibility. select the shortcut tab.

in the shortcut tab window, where it says "target" change the drive letter from C:\ to D:\ (or whatever drive you put that folder in. you won't have to change the rest of the string in the target because you made that folder on your D called program files, so the rest of the extension is ok. after you change the target go to the "Start In" box and change the C:\ to a D:\ also. click apply and then close.

it will work fine after you change those targets.

here's an example:

target: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Outlook.exe

change to: D:\Program Files\Microsoft......

do the same with the Start In box

edit: in the time that it took me to write this post, others posted saying you can't do this. this is false, follow my instructions and your application will work just fine. you do not need to uninstall and reinstall software.

Answer 3

The chances of the program still working after moving it to another location are not very good. If you want to have it in that other location your best option would be to uninstall the program and reinstall it in the preferred location.

Answer 4

the chances are ALL your programs will stop working. When you install a program, NOT only its files installed inside this directory (C:\Programs Files), but its other files are also installed onto another folders (C:\Windows\System, C:\Windows\System32, etc....) and they are all linked together, also they're marked into a huge database, which we called "Registry". By moving your Program Files folder around, you're disconnecting them apart, they don't know where to look for each other. You can specify where you want to install your program when you first installed, but NOT after. But I highly recommended to install all your programs within their defaut folder.

Answer 5

When the program was installed certain registry settings were set to work from the C drive as default, that's why it won't work from another drive, you need to install the program to a drive other than the C drive if you want to run it from that drive.

Answer 6

Very Low! Everyone is right. Program installation involves editing the registry, etc. Some small programs might work because they are actually applets or other self-contained program and do not actually install (e.g., convert.exe which converts all sorts of measurements, etc.)

Answer 7

very high chance it wont work coz the registry entries will still be pointing to the old location .... so it needs to be uninstalled and reinstalled to the new location unless u know every registry entry for the program and want to edit them ... and thats a pain ..

Answer 8

None of your programs will work because you moved them and Windows can't find them now.

Why would you want to anyway? My guess is you are running out of space on C:

You could un-install all your apps and then re-install them to a different drive.

Instead, move all you personal data to another drive, particularly, music and videos or copy to CD/DVD and delete them from drive C:

.

Answer 9

Make sure all properties are all corrct.