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Windows Help is NO HELP

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crabby3:
I was given this answer to a different question, but it may be of great help to you:


The root of the C: drive (and other select folders) are protected by Windows from being written to by misbehaving/malevolent programs. This is generally considered to be A Good Thing as it can protect you from a lot of grief if one's PC is ever compromised.

Turning off UAC and circumventing Windows other security protocols is not a good idea at all. If you should ever want to save something to one of these protected zones, just right-click on a program's shortcut & select Run As Administrator if it's just a one-time thing. If you need something more permanent, then you should go into the program shortcut's properties and select Run This Program As Administrator on its property tab.

The smartest method is to work with UAC rather than try to work against/around it. If you are trying to download something from your browser to the C: drive, make a folder, and save the item inside it. You won't be bothered by UAC at all then. The location C:\ is a protected space, but say....C:\Downloads or C:\Graphics is not.

Personally, I have my primary hard drive set up as two partitions.  There's a small 75 GB partition & that's where I installed Windows. It's my C drive. I leave that for Windows to do what it will & for those brain-dead programs that don't know how to do anything but install to C: (Yes! They STILL exist!!). The rest of my primary drive is my D: drive. It's 1.8 TB or so & that's where I save all my downloads, install all my programs, and keep their data.

With this system even with having UAC on the highest, most secure setting I only see UAC prompts two or three times a week and that's when I'm doing something I know needs admin access like registry edits or installing certain programs that work at the system level. A sweet side-benefit to laying my hard drive this way is if the need or desire to reinstall Windows ever comes up I can just format that 75 GB partition immediately & reinstall Windows. I don't have to worry about copying/saving anything because everything is on the other partition.

(Oh, C:\Program Files and C:\Program Files (x86) are protected spaces as well. Using my system above everything is installed to D:\Program Files and D:\Program Files (x86) which allows older programs and games that don't know anything about UAC to work properly.)
-Innuendo (March 15, 2012, 10:55 AM)
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-Curt (April 05, 2012, 04:29 AM)
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Thank You Very Much, Curt, I will definitely be re-reading your included quote from Innuendo again and again.  It even answers other questions I was planning to add to this thread.  Mostly dealing with UAC.

Thanks again...  :)

crabby3:
Can I move stuff that's stored on C: drive to D: drive ?  Will this cause any problems or issues?  :tellme:

I'm almost out of memory (disk space) on C: but D: is mostly unused.  I want to move everything to D: except the Users folder.
-crabby3 (April 05, 2012, 12:34 AM)
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When you say "I want to move everything to D: except the Users folder" were you thinking of moving all the software? That's not so possible. Or is there other stuff on C: ?
-tomos (April 05, 2012, 04:35 AM)
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Hi, tomos, thanks for your reply!

The answer to your first question is yes.  I wanted to move everything.  C: contains all the programs that originally came with my computer plus the ones I've added... (i.e. Avast!, freeware, games, photo editor...)  The Users folder (on C:) contains all the programs I use most... pics, vids, tunes...

Maybe I could just move the 'MY' stuff to D: and leave everything else on C:?  Like My Pictures, Videos, Music... can that be done without causing any problems?  Will I still be able to right-click and Save Picture As or right-click and Save Target As ?  Would my computer be able to find My Pictures or My Videos on D: ?   :tellme:    (Please excuse the four questions in one paragraph.)  ;D


Maybe I could also move the programs I have never used to a Flash Drive?  I don't want to just delete them... I may want or need one in the future.  (I don't even know this is possible....  ;D  ...I could gain a lot of disk space if it is.)

Curt:
-yes, Windows will see "My (your) Pictures" as one system folder, even if you split it ;-)
you just need to tell it to. But that comes automatically.

tomos:
-yes, Windows will see "My (your) Pictures" as one system folder, even if you split it ;-)
you just need to tell it to.-Curt (April 05, 2012, 12:35 PM)
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anyone know how exactly that's done in Vista? (moving My Docs etc)

Curt:
-I simply started moving the 'My Pictures' folder to the D -drive, and Windows popped up and asked if I wanted to split or move my folder - or something similar. This is of course only appl' (what is the word?) to User's system folders.

(...) But that comes automatically.-Curt (April 05, 2012, 12:35 PM)
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