Program shortcuts point to wrong folder locations

Hello, new to the forum.

First of all, I want to apologize in advance if this has been asked and possibly solved earlier, I tried performing a search but couldn't find anything. If there already is a solution to my problem on the forum, I would be grateful if someone can provide a link.

So basically, my problem is that start menu and desktop shortcuts for all programs I install point to the wrong locations.
This problem started happening after I recently reinstalled Windows, and as always, modified the registry to change the default "Program files" to the D:\ partition (My C:\ partition is reserved for Windows only)

I have made that change on earlier Windows installations, without any issues, but this time, shortcuts for all programs I install point to: D:\Program Files(x86)\, when in reality, most of these programs are 64 bit, and are located in the D:\Program Files\ directory.
The problem seems to only apply to 64 bit applications. If I install a 32 bit program, it will install in the x86 folder, and the shortcut will work properly.


I would greatly appreciate if anyone can come up with a solution to this problem as it is really annoying, because it basically renders all my start menu and desktop shortcuts useless.

Thank you in advance for any replies.

I'm certain Windows doesn't care about cross-overs between c:\program files and c:\program files (x86). I'm not sure haviing a d:\program files is a good idea, that's really coming up against Windows prime.

Don't disect the system. Leave it all in one and the same place. Then you won't have those kinds of problems. See my logo on the bottom.

For example, in the screenshot in my original post, Google Chrome is a 64 bit application, and the path is: D:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe
But the shortcut (which was created automatically upon installation) points to: D:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe , which is an invalid path.

These are the registry entries i modified:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion - Changed ProgramFilesDir and ProgramFilesDir (x86) to point to their corresponding locations on drive D:\. I actually just changed the drive letter.

And then I did the exact same change while using run to open %systemroot%\syswow64\regedit and changed the values there as well.