I want to move the program files folder to another Hard Drive

Hi!

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If i understood your issue correctly, you can't move the Program Files, nor should you move apps or Programs off the C drive because they write registry keys to Windows that integrate them into the OS until they are uninstalled.

Programs cannot (and should not) be just transferred from one partition to another, or from one drive to another. If you do so, there are 'common' components which will create a problem.

Howver, Games etc can just be lifted from C:\program files to D:\program files. Just correct the shortcuts. They will usually save all game variables in user specific locations that you can leave where they are. eg: C:\documents and settings<your username> or C:\users<your username>.

Program Files and Program Files (x86) and their contents are part of Windows, so they must be on the same partition as the rest of Windows.

Yes it will screw up your system. You can't do that.

But let me ask why you want to do that. If it's because you want to be able to reinstall Windows without losing your installed programs, that won't work. Almost all installed program have many references  and components within the \Windows folder. If you reinstall Windows, even if the installed programs were on another drive, you would still have the exe files, but would lose all those references  and components and the programs wouldn't work.

Hi Jaydan

Honestly, you cannot move that folder or any if its contained folders to another Drive, you will brick your system . . .

What you can do is, when installing 3rd party software on your PC, is check to see if the installer allows for you to change the install location, then at that point you can change the location to your other drive

Some 3rd party software will not allow you to install to another location

For apps and games downloaded form the Microsoft Store, you can change the install location to your other driver from Settings - System - Storage - Change where new content is saved

Basically all this must be done before you install software on your PC to save space on your system drive, you cannot do this retrospectively after the software is already installed

If you play Steam Games, you can move the Steam folder at any time and then just point the Steam dashboard to the new location . . .

But, if you have a partition, you can move from one to another.

There are two easy ways to do this.

1. Just drag and drop the folders or files from one Volume to the other in Windows Explorer.

or if you just want to make the volume larger:

2. Right Click on My Computer, click on Manage, click on Disk Management in the lower left area.

If you are using Win-7, you can just right click on the empty volume to shrink it or delete it, then right click on the "full volume" and expand it.

Remember if you delete a Partition (volume) you will delete everything in that Partition. Just make sure the empty one is the one you are shrinking or deleting.