How to change appdata/temp folder from C drive to D drive

[iamtheone]

This is basically to reduce writing to the C drive. Say I want to install a 4gb game, the installer may unpack data/cab files to the C drive, then delete it after the installation is complete.

This means I have just basically written 4gb of data onto my SSD. I DO NOT want that to happen. I cringe everytime I see data written on to my beautiful SSD drive.

What can I do to change appdata/temp folder to the d drive so that the default behaviour of such installation will be to unpack/extract needed info to the D drive instead of into folders on my C drive which is SSD?

Thank you.

 

[Mashed1316]

Hello there.

Go to computer, properties, advanced system settings. and follow the attachments.

I believe that you can only change the TEMP/TMP folders. not the AppData one :huh:

But, let me ask, if the files are deleted automatically after installation, what's the big hussle? i mean, the space once occupied by the files is now available :huh:

 

[iamtheone]

Hello there.

Go to computer, properties, advanced system settings. and follow the attachments.

I believe that you can only change the TEMP/TMP folders. not the AppData one :huh:

But, let me ask, if the files are deleted automatically after installation, what's the big hussle? i mean, the space once occupied by the files is now available :huh:

Is it not the "system variables" too? in the box below where it says TEMP/TMP

Because the box you highlighted me is for "User variables"

Because a SSD has a limited write/erase cycle before it becomes read-only and the more write/erase cycles there are, the worse it's performance. Writing to the SSD is like making it smoke.

 

[Mashed1316]

Yep, you can edit actually the System Variables, TEMP is on the bottom of the list IIRC

 

[iamtheone]

Yep, you can edit actually the System Variables, TEMP is on the bottom of the list IIRC

So I need to edit both the User variables AND the sytem variables? Currently, they are not showing the same location.

Default user variable is set to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp
System variables is set to C:\Windows\TEMP

So then do I need to creat 2 different temp folders on my D drive? One to set the user variable to and one to set the System variable to? ie D:\Appdata\Local\Temp and D:\Windows\TEMP?

 

[Mashed1316]

Actually you could set them both to be "D:\TEMP" and that's it. you have ALL your temporary files in 1 folder, and that will be actually easier.

 

[iamtheone]

Actually you could set them both to be "D:\TEMP" and that's it. you have ALL your temporary files in 1 folder, and that will be actually easier.

Gracias (you're obviously from Spain)

Will try now and reboot.

 

[Mashed1316]

De nada! (nop hehe.. Valencia, Venezuela)

Reboot and report back after that

 

[iamtheone]

De nada! (nop hehe.. Valencia, Venezuela)

Reboot and report back after that

Seem to be working, I am installing game now and I can see data being written to D drive while unpacking. Just saved about 4gbs or writes on my SSD! It'll live healthier for longer now.

 

[Mashed1316]

Yay awesome, this thread can be marked as solved now

Enjoy you SSD

 

[art2011]

Hi,

Is it safe then to delete any of the files left in both %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp and C:\Windows\TEMP ?

Thanks, I have both set to E:\TEMP and it's working great. Went to CMD and typed echo %temp% to check where the system is seeing my temp folder and sure enough after the reboot it found it no problem.

Can I set the hidden attribute to the folder TEMP with no problems? I don't want to see it now that I've got it set up..

 

[Max H]

Relocating data folders within Users folder

A solution that has worked for me was to make a backup of the folder I needed to move (not the entire %appdata% or %User% folders). The program I used created a folder, "C:/Users/%NAME%/appdata/Roaming/%PROGRAM%", which needed to be located elsewhere to conserve space on my root drive. I tried a few hacks of my own and researched several web articles but was not comfortable with any of them.

I decided to try one last solution of my own, using the Windows hard disk utility to shrink an existing partition in order to create a new 25 GB space. Rather than assign a drive letter to this space I assigned it to a new blank folder using the same name and location as the folder my program created. This was easier to do by simply uninstalling my third party program and, after creating the new folder using assigned disk space, re-installing it. Not every program would require un-installing but this one uses an SQL database which needed to be recreated in the new space rather than be copy / pasted. I also did a similar folder creation for my Outlook Data files. Outlook did not need to be un-installed as I only needed to exit Outlook, rename the folder where the PST files were located to OutlookSAVE, create the new Outlook folder using a second 25 GB space on my hard drive, and copy / pasting the data from the saved folder to the newly created one, then moving the saved folder elsewhere for backup purposes. I realize that Outlook can create PST files anywhere on any drive in the system it is installed on. I went the drive space route for simplicity and to keep the default settings. Microsoft programs seem to like their defaults as most of us have found over the years.

Outlook fired up without a glitch as did my third party program. This was an extremely easy solution that has solved my drive space problem and something I can use for similar issues with other programs as they may come up. Thought someone might like to try this out.