Office 365 on D Drive?

Yes, Symlink is now probably the easiest way to achieve moving Office to another drive.  Unfortunately forcing Office install exclusively on C: drives is another demonstration of MS's corporate disconnect from from reality. The reality of small SSD's. It's only been the last year or so that SSD prices have come down to the point that "realistic" sized drives can be bought by the average person. But that still leaves several years of existing devices with 20-30GB SSDs.

I haven't tried it, but it should work because as far as Windows is concerned, the location defined by the Symbolic link is part of the C: drive.

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Office 365 Client Configuration Service (for Deployment Tool)

https://config.office.com/

If you want to to do “non standard” installs, ie consumer Office, non-US English you will have to edit the configuration file generated by this tool

Does not provide very good language support!

Does NOT include option to install on other than C:/ drive, does not provide very good language support.

Retail click to run versions install to the C:\ Win drive only

Win requires a minimum 10% free space on C:\ to function correctly

You don't mention what size C:\ is, and whether its a separate HD or a Partition of a larger HD

Here are some articles about symbolic links, if you are interested

Move a installed Application to a different Drive letter via Symbolic Links

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_install-mso_win10-msoversion_other/move-a-installed-application-to-a-different-drive/170d2b11-c879-4b9c-8142-dfcbbc8d2e03

Move Click to Run Registry Hacks

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/ie/en-US/3689fc35-0523-4868-8e4d-e6feb93540be/installing-office-365-on-a-different-hard-drive-to-that-of-the-windows-installation?forum=officesetupdeploy

I have extracted suggestions from this tip that have chances of working, which have followup comments suggesting they worked.

The tips boil down to 2 general tips, registry hack adding registry keys to redirect the Office installer and Symbolic links to “trick” Windows

I have not tested these suggestions

Note: you have to change the version information appropriately, ie Office 2016, 2019 and 365 use 16.0 and “Office16”

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One suggestion marked answer was:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\ClickToRun\Override

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Another gives a slightly different key:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\ClickToRun, which does indeed contain a REG_SZ "InstallPath" with a value pointing to C:. 

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Another suggested using this reg script to add a different registry key

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\InstallRoot]

"Path"="D:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\"

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Hi, I was bit lucky with my tab having 8.1 in it because not many files were in use. Here are my steps:

1. Create folder in destination drive - D:\Program Files\Microsoft Office
2. Cut and Paste content of c:\program files\microsoft office to new folder created above. Windows will start moving files. I was prompted twice that some file is in use. It also showed me which process is using it. 
3. Open task manager, locate the required process, kill it (end task)
4. Some files wanted admin rights for moving which was prompted for. I gave the permission.
5. Delete c:\program files\microsoft office folder. Might ask admin rights again.
6. Create link using mklink - MKLINK /J "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office" "D:\Program Fiiles\Microsoft Office"
7. Done. Start office and check if things work.

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This solution worked just fine! Had only to add the line MKLINK /J "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office" "D:\Program Files\Microsoft Office"

Remember, MLINK will work only if you already moved the folders to destination drive, after the Office instalation.

Anyway I hope MS corrects this nonsense of not having a path configuration when instaling!

cheers!

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this discussion helped, I had to tweak the commands and process a bit, but here is what worked for Win 10, Office 365 Office Pro 64 bit

delete the c drive office folders below.  Create the folders on your destination drive, mine was F:.

run these commands.

MKLINK /J "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office" "F:\Program Files\Microsoft Office"

MKLINK /J "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office" "F:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office"

MKLINK /J "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15" "F:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15"

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This is my experience with WINDOWS-10 & OFFICE-2016:

I have a 32GB hard drive so I was not keen on installing Office on C: Especially since it takes 2.9Gb and not just 2Gb as it told me. But I wasted a lot of time, looked high and low and could not get it done. I even looked into some Windows Admin tools which use XML and all different kinds of drama. 

I DON'T like registry edits because it's unsafe, not easily repeated--you'll forget what you did--and Windows doesn't really like it either. This method is a hardware level change so Office can be reinstalled multiple times and NEVER use drive C: Here, I think, is a very simple and drama free solution.

MOVING OFFICE FILES:

·     Navigated to Program Files

·     Renamed "Microsoft Office" to" "_Microsoft Office"

·     Created a new (empty) "Microsoft Office" folder 

·     Navigated to Control Panel-->Admin-Tools-->Computer-Management-->Disk Management (

·     Created a new volume (and mounted it in the new empty folder)

·     Copied the files from "_Microsoft Office "back to" "Microsoft Office"

·     Tested all the programs AND all of them except Skype seem to work fine. Worst comes to worst, you reinstall Microsoft Office.

CLEAN INSTALL (PROBABLY SAFER):

·     I did end up uninstalling and reinstalling Microsoft Office just to be safe.

·     Because the new volume is mounted in the folder, it had no choice but to return/go into the shadow-folder I created in the new volume. So the C: drive remains "unused" for Office.

Side note-1a. I don't know if all these laptops with 32Gb drives integrated into the motherboard are the same, but mine had an unused internal port which allowed me to install a 128Gb SSD. So I was also able to move the paging file totally off drive C: and unto drive D: which saved me some more space. I was also able to allocate a constant 7GB space to virtual memory.

Side note-1b: I found a port adapter which is needed for the internal SSD by doing a search on Amazon for "2nd HDD SSD Hard Drive Caddy Tray". You just need to dismantle the whole thing and take out the port adapter to allow you to use the internal CD drive port.

Side-note-2: With the new drive installed, you can navigate to (bottom right corner) Notifications-->All Settings-->System-->Storage. There is an option there to store your files on a different drive. It works for some programs but not Office. You can even redirect the programs (which comply) to an external drive. This will save you even more space.

Hope this helps. Cheers!!

This method works great. One tiny issue when launching an Office app, system was throwing an error that application was unable to start, but the app did start even with the error. So I ran an Office repair and everything is perfect. Thank you for the awesome resolution. 

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Move Installed Apps & Programs in Win10

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/move-installed-apps-programs-windows-10/

This article contains a few options including a couple of utilities

2014 02 13- Redirect Folders to Other Drives in Windows

**http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2024314/redirect-folders-drives-windows.html**

This article describes the built in way to redirect folders to other locations, ie other drives.

2013 03 21- Move the Snagit Library to a Second HDD Using Symlinks

https://www.groovypost.com/howto/migrate-snagit-capture-library/

<snip>

… by default the Snagit capture library is stored in your local AppData folder and there is no setting to change this. When you’re running a small SSD as your primary drive, you can see how this might be a problem. To work around Techsmith’s feature indiscretion, you can move the library to a second drive, and then use symbolic links to trick Snagit into thinking it’s still there in the original location

</snip>

Junction Versus MKLink

Please note that Junction is not supported over network shares. For that you can use the ‘mklink’ command, but only if it is available / supported in your version of Windows. Click here for an example using a **network share with mklink via the command prompt**; it works very similar to Junction but the command line switches (parameters) are not the same. Click here to read **differences between mklink and junction**. You can download Junction here.

365 Alternate Install Location - Symbolic Links

I have received independent confirmation that using symbolic links will successfully redirect Office 365 installations to an alternate location.

2017 10 06- How to take advantage of symbolic links in Windows 10

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-take-advantage-of-symbolic-links-in-window-10/

How to: Move Installed Programs to Another Drive in Windows 7, 8, 10

https://www.infopackets.com/news/9789/how-move-installed-programs-another-drive-windows-7-8-10 (see below) Use a Program called “Junction” made by SysInternals to create the Symbolic Links for you. Also read the comment for a different idea.

Create Symbolic Links, Hard Links and Directory Junctions in Vista with MKLINK - **http://www.mydigitallife.info/create-symbolic-links-hard-links-and-directory-junctions-in-vista-with-mklink/** (see below)

Complete Guide to Symbolic Links (symlinks) on Windows or Linux **http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/** (see below)

Be more efficient and better organized with the MKLink symbolic link tool - **http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/windows-and-office/be-more-efficient-and-better-organized-with-the-mklink-symbolic-link-tool/**(see below)

**http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html**

*********Description of how using Symbolic Link has been done **********

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2016-office_install/office-16-drive-location/0c62927c-721a-4629-b283-5809c8e16f2c

<snip>

Palcouk replied on Oct 26, 2015:

Office click to run products install to the win drive, you cannot do a custom install, its an all or nothing install

There is a method, if you are prepared to delve in. Modify the following steps according to your specific situation:

I too was wanting to move my Office 365 install to a different drive. My main goal was to put it on a RamDisk to make it very quick to load.

I had created a RamDisk of 5GB, using **http://www.radeonramdisk.com/software\_downloads.php** . The new drive was mounted as drive O:

·          Install Office 365 as normal, on the C drive.

·          Make a note of the two main Office directories:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office

·          Empty the Recycle bin before continuing.

·          Run Task Manager

·          Stop anything Microsoft Office related.

·          Delete both of the above directories

·          Open a CMD prompt, and run these commands:

MKLINK /J “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15” “O:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15”?

MKLINK /J “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office” “O:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office”

·          This created junction points for each directory on the C drive that Office installs to, and point them to the O drive. So the OS thinks its going to C drive for those folders, but in reality its going to the O drive.

·          Go to the recycle bin and restore all the deleted files. The files then appeared on the O drive.

·          Save the RamDisk to an image file (so it gets loaded when windows starts)

·          Reboot

After reboot, when I open an office app, its so fast you can’t time it!

You don’t have to do the ramdisk portion, its the junction’s that make it work.

I have 32GB of ram, and am only using about 5gb on average, so having a ramdisk makes sense for me.

RamDisks are about 8 to 10 times faster than SSD but are volatile memory, so it needs to be saved to disk if you don’t want to lose it.

</snip>

Create Symbolic Links, Hard Links and Directory Junction Points in Windows with MKLINK

https://techjourney.net/create-symbolic-links-hard-links-and-directory-junction-points-in-windows-with-mklink/

Home»Operating Systems»Windows»Create Symbolic Links, Hard Links and Directory Junction Points in Windows with MKLINK

For Unix-like or Linux system users, symbolic link is a common feature in use almost daily. Symbolic link (aka soft link) or symlink as it often shortened to, is a special type of file or file-system object that serves as a reference or points to another file, UNC or directory, known as target. In Windows systems such Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, e.g. Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2016, symlinks feature has been added to NTFS filesystem and can be created by using MKLINK command.

In previous Windows operating system such as Windows XP, the closer thing to symbolic links is NTFS junction point, or worse, Windows shell shortcut (.lnk) file.

Symlink in Windows, unlike .lnk shortcut in desktop or Windows Explorer, allow user to access files within the symbolic link created itself via File Explorer, the console and etc. And symbolic link also differ from NTFS junction point which can only link to folders and volumes, in which symlinks can point to a file, a UNC, a folder or a volume, as well as able to span file systems.

Symbolic link is useful when you have a lot of folders and files are scattered all over the directory tree, and you need to manage them from a single location. Another scenario is that you have a deep nested file that you want to access quickly instead of traverse through one branch by one branch. And furthermore, for programmer, symlink provides a static file path that can be point to a ever changing object without affecting the functionality of the program. In all these situation, symbolic links can be created at a convenient location which point to the ‘real’ objects.

As mentioned, to create a symbolic link, use MKLINK command line tool. MKLINK can be used to create a hard link or directory junction (junction point) too. Hard link is essentially giving another name or label to the objects, while NTFS directory junction point is used to redirect the whole folder to another folder as if it’s the original folder itself. Junction point is used extensively in Windows to provide support for old directory structures for user profiles (i.e Documents and Settings) to point to the new user folders located inside Users directory.

Syntax and Options of MKLINK

MKLINK [[/D] | [/H] | [/J]] Link Target

/D – Creates a directory symbolic link. Default to file symbolic link.

/H – Creates a hard link instead of a symbolic link.

/J – Creates a Directory Junction.

Link – Specifies the new symbolic link name.

Target – Specifies the path (relative or absolute) that the new link refers to.

Examples and Usages of MKLINK

Note: Only Administrators can use MKLINK to create symbolic links unless override by using secpol.msc, so you need to run Command Prompt with elevated privileges, or else you will get “You do not have sufficient privilege to perform this operation.” error.

To create symbolic link called foo to reference to c:\Windows\System32\notepad.exe:

C:\test>mklink foo c:\Windows\System32\notepad.exe

You will see the following result:

symbolic link created for foo <<===>> c:\Windows\System32\notepad.exe

If you type dir in commnd prompt, you will see the following listing:

Volume in drive C has no label.

Volume Serial Number is 2211-7428

Directory of C:\test

04/14/2006  11:24 AM    <DIR>          .

04/14/2006  11:24 AM    <DIR>          ..

04/14/2006  11:24 AM    <SYMLINK>      foo [c:\Windows\system32\notepad.exe]

               1 File(s)              0 bytes

2 Dir(s)  69,238,722,560 bytes free

To create symbolic link to a folder, simply use /D switch, or /J for junction point (directory junction is not available for remote network location):

C:\test>mklink /d bar c:\Windows

symbolic link created for bar <<===>> c:\Windows

Results of dir command:

Volume in drive C has no label.

Volume Serial Number is 2211-7428

Directory of C:\test

04/14/2006  11:24 AM    <DIR>          .

04/14/2006  11:24 AM    <DIR>          ..

04/14/2006  11:24 AM    <SYMLINKD>     bar [c:\Windows]

04/14/2006  11:24 AM    <SYMLINK>      foo [c:\Windows\system32\notepad.exe]

               1 File(s)              0 bytes

3 Dir(s)  69,238,722,560 bytes free

MKLINK cannot be used to delete symbolic link. To remove a symbolic link, simply delete them as if you’re removing a normal file. For example, to delete the foo symbolic link created above, enter the following command:

C:\test>del foo

To remove the bar symbolic link to a folder created above, use the following command:

C:\test>rd bar