move windows\system

[Juan.s]

Hi.

Can I move the c:\windows\system directory to other directory?

[lmenard]

Could you give us some details about your intention.

Is what you want :
Having a standard installation with a C:\WINDOWS\ directory and something like
X:\DO_NOT_TOUCH_IT\System\ ?

Loïk

[RWSchlatter]

not recommended - apart from making a full clone to another disk, that will take over with the same drive letter (C: in your case) later on.

why not: too many dependancies - many file names and paths to entities within this directory get saved at different places, especially the registry.

______________
Regards - Richard

[reghakr]

I agree with Richard.

I would never move the c:\windows, c:\windows\system, or the c:\Program Files\Common Files directories.

reghakr

[Juan.s]

Hi!

My english isn't very good, but I try to tell my intention.

In this moment I'm working with PXE (Pre-boot eXecution Environment), then I need that Operating System images be small. Then when I install some software in Windows 95, too many files go to windows\system directory and grow up too much. For that reason, I would like that some files don't go to windows\system, else to another directory.

I don't know if you understand me.

Thanks!

[reghakr]

I could work with that scenario for a month changing links to files in the registry and I probably would never get it to work.

With the size and price of today's hard drives, this would be the way to go.

reghakr

[RWSchlatter]

ok - yes J understand - J once too believed J could keep my C: partition well under 1GB on my Win95 machine.

But it is one of those design errors that Microsoft made in early Windows days (v3). They recommended the system directory as place to dump all DLLs to, rather than defining a separate directory and restricting it to only those truly shared modules. Software houses around the world have followed this advice.

In the mean time MS has tried to pull out the non-global pieces and put them into "\Program Files\Common Files" per software house and application. That makes management a bit easier, but fills up your disk / partition anyhow.

Possible solution:
Use ControlPanel>TweakUI (download if you don't have it yet), go to the My Computer tab, then in the lower half you should see the dropdown. Choose the entry "Common Program Files" and relocate its definition to a new location.

Warning:
this will do only for installs that are done after the new definition.
do not try to move the existing directory nor any existing files. They will already have registry entries pointing to them. TweakUI cannot modify those entries !

Restriction:
There may be installers (eg older ones) on the market that do not follow the registry definitions for the Common Files location.

And of course there may be authors that still create installers to use the system directory as target - you cannot modifiy this behaviour (but you can send them a mail suggesting better packaging).

______________
Regards - Richard

[Juan.s]

ok, RWSchlatter, thanks your information.

it would be good idea that the programs has theirs files in a single directory.

ok, But this is no important,

thanks again.