Moving Public Folder to another drive

I have been asked to install an HDD in a church pc which only has a 224GB SanDisk SSD which is running out of space.
The problem I can foresee is that the church uses an application called SongPro which insists to install in the C:\Users\Programs File (x86) and the data files in the
C:\Users\Public\SongPro5 folder and does not give the option to be installed software
on another drive.
I have searched the web if and how the Public folder can be moved to another drive and found that it can be done using the following steps;

1. COPY (don’t MOVE) the C:\USERS\PUBLIC folder to a different disk or partition
2. Click the START button and type REGEDIT (not case sensitive) and press enter
3. Expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > MICROSOFT > WINDOWS NT > CURRENT VERSION > PROFILE LIST
4. Double click on PUBLIC
5. Correct the path
6. Reboot the PC
7. Go to C:\USERS\PUBLIC and delete everything

Can someone here please confirm if the SongPro software is installed in C:\Users\Programs File (x86) (the SSD) and the path Public\SongPro5 folder moved to another folder will work?

I would use a directory junction instead. Assuming the new HDD gets D:\ drive letter. Move C:\Public\SongPro5 (and everything in the folder) to D:\SongPro5. The folder should no longer appear in C:\Public. Then the command would be:

mklink /J C:\Public\SongPro5 D:\SongPro5

Thanks @NavyLCDR for your suggestion.

In the next few days I will test it in my test PC when I install a second HDD install SongPro5 trial in the C: drive and use the directory junction to test if in SongPro5 I can set the file paths to the

D:\SongPro5 or whichever drive letter Windows assigns to the second HDD. I'm just concerned more with how SongPro behaves than Windows as the church already have lots of files and databases saved in the

C:\Public\SongPro5 folder.

I will post back with the results in due course.

NavyLCDR said:

I would use a directory junction instead. Assuming the new HDD gets D:\ drive letter. Move C:\Public\SongPro5 (and everything in the folder) to D:\SongPro5. The folder should no longer appear in C:\Public. Then the command would be:
mklink /J C:\Public\SongPro5 D:\SongPro5

@NavyLCDR
I have installed an HDD in my test pc to carryout your suggestion above but I have run into a problem with the HDD I installed which I deleted the existing volume and then created a new volume after restarting the pc it does not seem to be recognised by the BIOS although it appears in Device manager as Unknown device and in Disk Management as unknown.

I tried to initialise the drive in Disk Management but get an error from Virtual Manager "Her system cannot fined the file specified"




Any ideas how to solve this?

EDIT: Changed the SATA data cable and the HDD is recognised by the BIOS and the HDD seems to be initialised as it is now working.

Will try @NavyLCDR suggestion and will post back.

NavyLCDR said:

I would use a directory junction instead. Assuming the new HDD gets D:\ drive letter. Move C:\Public\SongPro5 (and everything in the folder) to D:\SongPro5. The folder should no longer appear in C:\Public. Then the command would be:

mklink /J C:\Public\SongPro5 D:\SongPro5

Hi @NavyLCDR
I opened a Command Prompt with Admin and entered the command mklink /J C:\Users\Public\SongPro5 X:\SongPro5 and got as shown on the screenshot 1 below;

Screenshot 1
Checked drive X:\ to see if the folder was there but nothing showing screenshot 2

Screenshot 2
Checked C:\Users\Public\ and the SongPro5 was still there! screenshot 3

Screenshot 3
Then checked SongPro5 and it still showed file path to C:\Users\Public\SongPro5 as in previous screenshot as in earlier post.
Tried again the directory junction command but show as screenshot 4

screenshot 4
The file path in SongPro5 shows drive X:\ empty!

So, it seems that the directory command has not done what I would like it to have done which is move Public folder to X:\. Where do we go from here?

scopio said:

So, it seems that the directory command has not done what I would like it to have done which is move Public folder to X:\. Where do we go from here?

You have to move the folder first. I start with the folder under C:\Users\Public with a test file in it:



Then I move the entire folder and it's contents to my D: drive. The folder is no longer in C:\Users\Public at all:



Once the entire folder and contents is moved to D: drive and no longer appears at all under C:\Users\Public, then I can create the junction with the mklink command:

Code:

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.18362.53]
(c) 2019 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>mklink /j C:\Users\Public\SongPro5 D:\SongPro5
Junction created for C:\Users\Public\SongPro5 <<===>> D:\SongPro5

C:\WINDOWS\system32>

Now a folder junction appears under C:\Users\Public which appears and acts just like the folder itself, but the real folder is on D:\ drive:



Most programs won't be able to detect the difference between a folder junction and a real folder itself. If I should happen to delete the folder junction under C:\Users\Public - the real folder will remain intact on the D:\ drive.

Hi @NavyLCDR
First apologies for not following your instructions to the letter as I did not move the SongPro5 folder to the X:\ drive first.
This is what I is the sequence I have now carried out;
1. Copied the SongPro5 folder from C:\Users\Public\ SongPro5 to X:\


2. Opened a Command Prompt with Admin and typed the command
mklink C:\Users\Public\SongPro5 /J X:\SongPro5

3. Which showed File explorer as;

4. I opened SongPro5 software > Options > File Paths where C:\Users\Public\ shows as screenshot below;

5. Changed the file path to X:\SongPro5 and now SongPro5 shows the file path as screenshot
below;

6. I then decided to delete C:\Users\Public\SongPro5 to ensure that any future files are saved in X:\SongPro5 and not in C:\Users\Public\
7. I composed a new service file(Plan), which is what the software calls it, and saved it and looks as it all seems to work the way I wished it did.

I can’t thank you, @NavyLCDR enough as this was worrying and giving me sleepless nights and I wouldn't have been able to achieve this without your patience and help.
A million thanks.