Possible to make application point to a directory within the drive it is on?

[mindstormer]

I use a a ton of portable applications on a ton of different computers (I'm a college student so I'm either on my desktop, laptop, or a public computer). On my desktop, let's say I have 3 partitions: a C drive, D drive, and E drive. On my laptop, I have 4 partitions. Public computers have 2 partitions. Let's say I want to run an application that lets me download videos to a folder ofthe drive where the portable applications are stored. Is it possible to make it so that the application always points to that drive regardless of what letter the drive was assigned? Currently, since I used the public computers last, the folder was in E:\Downloads (C and D were taken, so plugging in my hard drive assigned it E). At home, I don't want the application to download on E:\Downloads, where an E drive already exists--I want it to download to the same folder of the same drive where the portable applications were stored. Now imagine having this problem on a friend's computer, my laptop, and other computers...

A solution I've used with in the past was to assign the external drive to a letter that I know for sure I won't be using, such as Z, Y, or X drive so that applications will always point to the external hard drive where the portable applications are on and where I want the downloads to be. However, settings and changes made on public computers are never saved so this solution will not work.

I did some brief googling and read something called "symbolic links"--not sure if it is relevant to my situation.

Thanks.

[Ath]

Assuming that the downloader-software doesn't 'improve' the directory entry when storing the download, using \downloads (without the drive-letter) should work, as you start the software from that same drive.

[rjbull]

Surf over to Horst Schaeffer's mini programs page and take a look at Vdrive and ShortExe, which should help if you make frequent use of USB drives without fixed letters.

[MilesAhead]

I don't have a fix but perhaps a more convenient work-around. I have 2 free utilities on
Miles Ahead Software

They are both hotkey program that sit in the tray.  The first is Home Folder.  It detects the home folder for the active window.  As example if Firefox is the active window and I hit the Home Folder hotkey, if Firefox.exe is in C:\MyPortables\FirefoxPortable that Explorer window should open.

The other hotkey is PastePath.  When you hit the hotkey it pastes the path of the last Explorer Folder window that was active.

Using them in combination may be like, you are going to save a download file so first hit HomeFolder hotkey.  The Explorer window opens.  Now do the save download in the program.  Put the caret in the input line for the dialog and hit the PastePath hotkey.  The last Explorer folder window active will be pasted.

A kludge but if you paste directly in front of the save file name you get the complete path so just hit OK.

Please see the Readme.txt files in the downloads as Explorer must have certain folder view settings for these hotkeys to work.