How To Change The Default Location For Installing Apps

As the size of hard drives increase, more people are using partitions to separate and store groups of files.

Microsoft Windows XP uses the C:\Program Files directory as the default base directory into which new programs are installed. However, you can change the default installation drive and/or directory by using a registry hack.

1. Click Start -> Run...
2. Type regedit and click OK.
3. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SOFTWARE -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion.
4. Look for a value named ProgramFilesDir. By default, this value will be C:\Program Files.
5. Edit the value to any valid drive or folder.

Windows XP will use that new location as the default installation directory for new programs.