It does get puzzling if you start looking at that sort of thing. The first 5 are certainly applications- not part of the OS as delivered by MS. As such, they have most likely been placed there when the particular application was installed. As such, you'd need to contact the author in each case.
Others may well be able to add more.
You could of course try deleting some of the duplicates just to see what happens... but I couldn't possibly recommend that
In my opinion they should have always provided that option. It can't have been that difficult because I did it right from the beginning and had zero problems running any of the programs. I repeat - NEVER had any problems running any programs when instead of doing the installation in the default path, I simply changed the drive letter and kept the rest of the path. The installations would just create all the paths in the new drive. They must have also kept the information necessary for the system to know where that installation was (including all registry insertions). Microsoft just decided to take away that custom configuration ability from the user as an afterthought, and I'm sure it had more to do with establishing a strong monopoly control than anything else.
Exactly, that choice exists with most 3rd party software when first installing. I also do it on my main computer as it has a 1TB HDD with C:/Boot/System on 150GB and D:\Data on 780GB partition, doing a Custom install allows that change. As described with the question it's the later moving that becomes the issue which I find best solved by uninstalling a program the reinstalling on the changed destination I have done it on computers that have 2 physical drives, no problem, in fact I will be reconnecting a drive in one of my IP computers as time permits this week, it accidentally got set as part of a RAID setup, picked up the RAID/AHCI setting in the BIOS.
It's never been possible to move an installed program from one location to another - unless it's completely portable.
Recall that Windows started with very small drives- 10Gb was once 'top of the range' - and that was around Win 98SE days- so much smaller in Win 195 times. So that registry key would never really have been placed there with the intent of supporting users to direct programs to be installed on different drives or even partitions.
Using registry keys is, in any case, effectively hacking, as my view is the only truly supported features are those exposed on the GUI.
Each program's author creates the installer, complete with the relevant registry keys. I'm sure you know that some programs are quite complex.
I suggest that what you're struggling with is the tension between what you'd like the OS to support, what it does support, what's left over as legacy, and the apparent flexibility afforded through 'hacking' the registry, of which some hacks survive e.g. build upgrades and Windows updates, and some do not.
Once you choose to interpret the question the way you want, it is easy to criticize. The only location change I spoke about was changing the "default" location that Microsoft has set for downloads, documents, program installations, etc.
At no time did I or do I suggest changing the location of an already installed program. Anyone with the slightest knowledge knows that would be much more complicated than just changing folders, and of course, that can't under almost any circumstance be done.
Microsoft has only recently changed its policies to require program installations in its system drive (C:). I for one don't want them dictating to me in what drive I can install any program. Of course, they cram that on you if the program is theirs or they shovel it through their store. I don't want any of those. They can keep all of them.
They think they're improving customer experience. They're not.
Suggest you direct your comments at Microsoft. There is no question here, but you are clearly dissatisfied with the way the OS functions. Please see the Feedback Hub app which provides a means of giving feedback to MS. We are merely users here.
Wow dude. You're the one who misread and decided to post your wrong criticism. You could have just kept out of the conversation if you were gonna misread it and offer information that was never questioned or asked for. Some Guru! You're the one that should be apologizing. And, YES, I do have dissatisfaction with Microsoft. I could have taken their classes and become a trained sycophant, but instead I learned all their OSes since 1985. So, yes, I'm qualified to criticize them. If you were honest, you could, too. It isn't "Microsoft, love it or leave it."
Interestingly, matching the topic of this thread, there is now a Tool called Aomei App Mover that can move any installed program from the C: disk to another drive with just a few clicks, including really tricky stuff like Microsoft Office 365.
If I understand it correctly, that Tool simply moves the program folder for each program and creates a junction at the original location that points to the new location.
Last edited by David P; 18 Oct 2021 at 08:35.
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