Hope Im in the appropriate section for this post. My friend always installs his programs to another directory which is located on another hardrive. I did the same for a while thinking that when I would reformat, my programs would still be there and working. They were still there but would not work untill I reinstalled them. I guess this is because when installed there is always entries added to the registry for that programs operation. Also when I did select a different install directory durning setup it seems that the default save path always seems to point to the C drive like my documents or some such location on C. I located this registry edit on the internet to change the default save path in Vista. Ive done minor registry edits before and survived. The author suggests that after a reformat your programs will still be there and working although he does not actually say they will work. Am I missing something here?


Below is a copy of the information for the registry edit as located on the internet.



When you install a new application Vista by default place it into a spacial folder called Program Files or just Program which is usually located in your C drive root, if Vista is installed in such a drive of course (C:\Program Files). If you are one of those people who like to format your PC as often as I do, you may need to use another folder located into another partition, so that when you format your hard disk, you won’t have any need to re-install your software. Here is a nice hack to change the default folder used by Vista to install programs to whatever folder you wish.

1. Click Start.
2. Click Run…
3. Type Regedit.
4. Look for this key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion
5. Now look for this subfolder: ProgramFilesDir. Double click on it and change C:\Program Files to D:\Program Files.
6. Of course, instead of D:\Program Files you can specify whatever folder or partition you wish.

Thanx
Tobertek

What that "hack" does is to speed up the process of reinstalling all software after the OS partition has been wiped and the OS reinstalled. (You don't have to re-rout the installation paths.)

The only way to keep pre-installed software running after a new OS install is to take a back-up of the registry prior to wiping the OS, and then use it to fix the registry after re-installation of the OS and all drivers/firmware and other stuff that leaves files within the OS.
I haven't tested this though, so try it at your own risk.

Cheers
Olle

Microsoft doesn't recommend this hack and tells you why.


The ProgramFilesDir registry value is located in the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion

You may want to use the ProgramFilesDir registry entry to change the location of the Program Files folder. Additionally, you may want to modify every reference in the registry to point to the new Program Files folder. You may also want to move the contents of the original Program Files folder to the new location. However, we do not test changes to the default location of the Program Files folder. Therefore, we do not recommend or support modifying the ProgramFilesDir registry value to change the default location of the Program Files folder.




When you set the ProgramFilesDir registry value to use a location other than the default location, Microsoft hotfixes, updates, and security updates do not update files that are in the default location. Therefore, you may experience system instability and unexpected problems with Microsoft programs and software updates. For example, you may experience any of the following problems:

Microsoft hotfixes, updates, and security updates may not be installed correctly.
New versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer or Microsoft Windows Media Player may not be installed correctly.
Additionally, the Microsoft Windows File Protection feature that helps protect files in the Internet Explorer folder does not support changing the default location of the Program Files folder.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933700

OK. Say I don't use the above mentioned registry edit to change the default install directory. But then lets say I select a different path at install, on a separate hard drive. That way all the program files will be installed there while the registry entries will of course be located on C/. How would I go about locating the entries in the registry that point to a specific program after its installed and make a registry entry .reg I could click on and it be added to the registry? That way I would not have to replace the entire registry from a backup but only entries for that program. I located some info about this but could not locate any reference to the program in question in the registry. The program is installed now so it should have been listed under that KEY at software Any ideas?

Thanx
Tobertek