Windows File Protection Message

Jim,
As you know, "moving" a file does not actually involve changing it's position on the hard drive. It means renaming the path to the file until (presumably?) you defrag? Anyway, I run MS Office, MS Works, Adobe Acrobat 5, Open Office, and a couple of other "workhorse" programs from D, and all have modified C in some way or another. I would not call any of those programs poorly written, and they all operate perfectly. I think that if you experiment some, you will find that if you use XP to move a file or folder, it won't forget where it is supposed to be. The most you might have to do is delete and create new shortcuts.

Johanna

 

Johanna ...

Obviously, I misspoke when I said "...nor do I have any programs that try to write to anything other than the registry on C: ", as programs certainly will write to various folders in C:\Documents and Settings, as well as C:\Windows. I also run MS Office and Adobe Acrobat 6.0, as well as numerous other "workhorse" programs (as you put it), however, and none requires a programs folder on C:.

I did not suggest that programs such as the ones you mentioned were poorly written. What I said was "If a poorly written program installer insists on creating a C:\Program Files folder and installing to it... ", which is not the same thing. And, there still are a few programs around (mostly 16 bit programs written in the early days of Win9.x) whose installers do just that. But, the programs are easily moved to D:\Programs, after which the C:\Program Files folder can be deleted.

You may be right about how XP handles the movement of folders, but having watched COA2 in action on XP for over 2½ years, I have to wonder.