Change The Default Location For Installing Apps

As the size of hardrives increase, more people are using partitions to seperate and store groups of files.

XP uses the C:\Program Files directory as the default base directory into which new programs are installed if your OS is installed in C: drive and so on. However, you can change the default installation drive and/ or directory by using a Registry hack.

So let's assume that your system directory is C: drive.

Run the Registry Editor (regedit) and go to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

Look for the value named ProgramFilesDir. by default,this value will be C:\Program Files. Edit the value to any valid drive or folder and XP will use that new location as the default installation directory for new programs.