I cut and pasted some programs from C drive to another partition to free up some space in the C drive. Now the programs don't run. Should I move the programs back to C drive again?
3 Answers
The ability to cut & paste a program to a different location is going to depend on a variety of factors.
Sometimes a program is installed to a a location, it is possible everything needed to run that program is installed in that folder and can run without issue. This means the folder it is installed in can be moved to a new location and everything will work without issue. This is typically not in modern Windows systems. There are programs that do follow this convention, which are called portable applications.
It is very common for more complex programs or their installers to write file and folder locations into the Windows Registry, configuration files, databases, etc. Moving a folder to another location without updating these entries will result in the program working incorrectly, or not at all. It is technically possible to do this in some cases, but will require knowledge of where these entries are and the ability to modify them. However, that is going to depend on each individual program. Now, if you did move the program and it stopped working, you should be able to just move it back to its original location and it should work normally again.
In a word, no.
- When you install a program, the installer often puts parts of the program in places other than
%ProgramFiles%, telling the system where all those files are, and if you move the part in%ProgramFiles%to another location, the system "gets confused" and can't find the things it needs to run the program- If you have done this, move the files back to exactly where they were and your program should work again
- Exceptions to the rule:
Some (sometimes smaller) programs that can be moved are those designed to just need the executable in any location you place it, or a portable version of the program designed to run off a USB thumb drive
If you are running out of space on C:, you can uninstall programs, reinstalling them on another partition if the installer allows it; even under those circumstances, some data will always be placed on C: (it's just the way Windows works).
It depends, but it should usually work; however, you will need to ensure you copy the entire folder and add new shortcuts that lead to the new location.
- The reason you think it doesn't work is that your Desktop, and possibly taskbar, shortcuts all lead to the executable file in
C::- Go to your desktop shortcut → Right-click Properties
- Target: Copy your program's executable's new path, pasting it here. Ensure that the filename of the executable is included in the text that you paste here.
- Start in: If this is not blank, paste the new path of the folder that contains the executable here
- Apply → OK (it should now work)
If you pinned the programs to the taskbar, unpin them, run them from the Desktop shortcut, then re-pin them.
%AppData%,%LocalAppData%,%ProgramData%, or the Registry (the latter of which is the most problematic). While you can manually adjust the paths/variables (RegEditXwould be recommended for the Registry), it's more efficient to uninstall the application and reinstall it to another partition, either via the installer's GUI or viamsiexec.