Moving an installed program from one partition
or hard drive to another in Windows is actually a straightforward
process if you have the right tools for the job. You may have different
reasons for this, from running out of disk space on the partition the
software is installed on, to moving the folder into a folder that is
synchronized with the cloud, to pure cosmetic reasons for moving a program folder.
The application I’m going to demonstrate the process with is SymMover,
an easy to use program for the Windows operating system – Vista and up
only – that you can use for that purpose. You can even use it to move a
set of folders to another hard drive if you prefer that over moving
folders individually.
Take note that it will move the files to the new folder before it creates symbolic links from the old to the new.
1. Download and install SymMover
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http://download.cnet.com/SymMover/3000-2248_4-75677418.html
First thing that you need to do is download and install the SymMover
application on your system. The developer website links to a download on
download.com, so make sure you click on the direct download link option
on the page to avoid the download wrapper. Installation should not pose
any troubles. You can start the program afterwards from the start menu,
which will trigger an UAC prompt.
2. Moving installed programs
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Before you start moving folders around, you need to make sure that you
have everything planned out correctly. I suggest you check the size of
the program folder by right-clicking on the folder and selecting
properties in Windows Explorer, and the available size on the partition
you want to move the folder to. Once you have verified that click on
the plus icon to start the process. It may take a few seconds before the
window.
move programs
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Sne of the
great features of SymMover is that it taps right into the listing of
installed programs on the system, making it super easy to move any of
those applications to a new drive. If the software that you want to move
is listed here, select it, and then change the destination folder to
the folder you want to move the program to. If it is not in that list,
click on the Folders on your computer tab instead, and select a folder
here. Usually though, you should find all programs listed here that are
installed on the computer.
SymMover will display the selected
program or folder in its main interface. Since you can only select one
application or folder at a time, you may need to repeat the process
until you have added all folders and programs to the queue.
symmover
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The program displays the storage space needed in the interface as well,
which you can use for verification purposes to make sure you have got
enough free disk space available on the target drive. A click on the
green right pointing arrow in the program window moves the selected
folders and programs to the new destination. You will see a prompt that
you need to confirm before the folders and files are moved. You can at
any time move select folders or programs back to their original
location, for instance when you encounter errors using them after the
move. The programs should however work just like before after you have
moved them.
Closing Words
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SymMover is pretty
handy for the purpose of moving programs to another drive or partition
which can mainly be attributed to it displaying all installed programs
in a list for easy selection. If you do not need that, you can also make
use of previously reviewed programs like Application Mover, Steam mover
or Dopboxifier, with the latter two primarily designed for very specific
purposes.
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