Moving programs to another partition

I seem to remember an application that would move an application from one partition to another, changing registry information so it would still work properly.

I want to create three partitions using Partition Magic and then move the apps.

 

I would not take this step, personally, as it is fraught with peril.

But Google search for "XP migration utilities "

Good marks in the past have been given to Aloha Bob Relocator, and to the Acronis migration utility. Aloha Bob was recently purchased by Microsoft to enhance features in XP to Vista migration, but no formal product has yet been announced.

On alternative is to leave the applications logicly on Drive C. Move them by creating an NTFS junction point to another drive, and copying them:

In other words, if you create a logical junction point to the existing C:\Program Files to a new folder on the new Drive D, and move the actual folders and files, XP will logicly resolve this without issue. As far as Explorer is concerned, the files are still physicly located on C and the point \Program Files\.

Even though they are not. Then on a go-forward basis, continue to write to either D or C.


For information on NTFS junction points -- also called reparse points -- and other things, do a Google search as their are some terrific freeware utilities by Sysinternals and others to make this chore easy to do.

I would search for you, but I am travelling and it takes me ten minutes to just bring up Google at this hotel site.

 

I finally got fed up and went to the Front Desk and convinced them to let me reset their modem and router and Access Points.

Much better.

I wanted you to read this about junction points, to get a feel for why I recommended this as an alternative:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_junction_point

Two freeware products I have personally used and have been pleased with:

Microsoft/Sysinternals: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/FileAndDisk/Junction.mspx

Junction Link Magic: http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm

 

That "fraught with peril' comment discouraged me. I should have waited until I did all the partitioning before installing all of my software. So, at this point, I think I will partition but only move my data to the new partition and perhaps new utility apps that don't create data files.Over time, the load on C: will get lighter.

I don't know how the DELL re-installation works as far as wiping all. My previous computer wiped everything (fortunately, I made a complete backup so no older data was lost. I really should have partitioned everything so the machine that came from DELL was all on C:, new apps on D: and all data on E:. That's the way I had a machine partitioned in the past when I installed XP from MS CDs. I made XP re installation so simple.

Oh well, I guess vendors versions of XP made it easier for them but not for us.

 

Choices:
Bootit NG: http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/
Partition Magic, by Norton/Symantec (any retail store)
Acronis Disk Director -- fully featured trial for 30 days: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/

All of these excellent products will let you "shrink" your existing Drive C, and use the free space to create new partitions.

Then it is up to you as to how to proceed. My last Dell use of their Recovery software restored the machine to its factory-new state. But that was a while ago, perhaps they have changed things.