I want to move MS Office and Adobe Acrobat from my C: drive to my D: drive.
Should I delete and re-install the two programs (noting that I want to install in D:)?
Or can I just move the folders in C: Program Files into a folder I create called D: Program Files? Will my shortcuts and programs detect this? If I go into My Documents and click a Word File, will the computer know to look in D:, not C: anymore for MS Word?
It’d be simpler to uninstall and reinstall.
Otherwise, you’ll have to make changes to your registry as well.
Your system may correct your shortcuts to files.
If you have to ask, the answer is No. You run a very high risk of not only making the programs unusable, but also un-uninstallable (?). If you have XP, you could set a restore point before attempting and recover that way, but why risk it? Much simpler to uninstall and re-install.
I’ve moved a couple programs and not only did they still work, WinXP handily updated all my shortcuts automatically. However, these were VERY small progs which probably aren’t even in the registry. I’ve heard stories of people moving programs from one drive to another, like games and whatnot, but only in XP and only second-hand.
One experiment you can try is to move all the files from C:\Program Files\Adobe\whatever to the new D: folder, and see if it still works – if it doesn’t, move 'em back. However, it’s probably safest to uninstall/reinstall, especially MS Office which is fairly well-embedded in the operating system.
The good news: there are “program mover” programs that will move a program from one location to another, correcting various links.
The bad news: these programs don’t work.
Uninstall, reinstall unless you’re a whiz at editing initialization files, the registry and sometimes even the program itself.
I’ve been working Windows PC support for years, as most likely have the other posters.
Easier to uninstall and then reinstall to the new drive letter.
If you had some compelling reason to do it the other way, it might be theoretically possible.
Nope, no compelling reason to switch without reinstalling. Just wondering if it can be done… and for all intents and purposes, the answer: No. Thanks all!
Just an aside. I’ve actually used this as a test for folks who claimed to have “advanced” Windows tech support skills, back when I was in a position to be hiring them.
The challenge: Take an installed version of Microsoft Office, change the name of the directory it’s in, and make it work again without changing the directory name back.
Bonus points if you don’t render Windows unbootable (older versions of Office used to have a little floating toolbar that came up when you booted the machine).
I stopped doing it because it took too long, so few people were able to do it, and one of them pointed out (quite reasonably) that the correct solution was to rename the directory back, uninstall, and reinstall in the correct location.
Just in case there are settings that you wish to preserve. What you should do is uninstall the application. Create a new directory where you want the application to go. Go to the old directory and copy all the files the uninstaller left into the new directory and then install into the new directory.