Feature Request: Utiliziation of Secondary Drives as Installation Locations by Use of Windows
I hope that this is the right place for a feature request. If not, would someone please let me know where I should do so. Hard drives are not going away for a number of reasons. There are currently chip shortages as there were in 2017. MLC SSDs, although they have a longer life span, are more expensive than SLCs or TLCs which burn out rapidly. Computer manufacturers will continue to sell laptops with small SSDs and larger hard drives to compete with other computer manufacturers. This is more cost effective for them. So, drive arrays allowing utilization of both drives should be a function of Windows. Since it has not been, consumers are faced with a dilemma within the Windows environment. The small SSD drives can only allow a small number of software installations before running out of room. The larger secondary hard drives are not being utilized as backups except for storage of photos, video, music, and documents and only if users copy, cut and paste these items to the HDD after initializing, formatting and partitioning the HDDs. Most consumers would not even know to do this. In fact, an HP Advisor (a person identifying himself as an HP employee) in the HP Community told users to delete photos and videos from their SSD drives to free up space. This is a bad answer as it is inconvenient and users who install large applications or who install a large number of applications are still left with no means of accomplishing their goal of installation of the software that they require to their HDDs. This is a software issue since allowing this function can be accomplished through use of Windows and Windows applications. Windows does not have a means of allowing users to setup their hard drives for use with software unless they are extremely computer literate as I am. I have now posted in the Windows Community, the HP Community and the Adobe Community the way in which to utilize the secondary storage unit, the hard drive, to install programs. This should be a settings feature in Windows. Currently, although Windows Settings>System>Storage does contain the supposed ability to "change where new content is saved" including apps, documents, music, photos and videos, new movies and TV shows, it does not function to do so. It simply does not change the storage locations to the HDD. To do so requires setting up the HDD to allow items to be pasted into it as well as several other Windows modifications. I know because I have had success in modifying my Windows system to do so following my unsuccessful attempt at using "change where new content is saved". In case you would like to know how to do so, please read below. If not, just know that Windows requires modifications to achieve this function. I would like to request this feature in Windows updates and future versions of Windows. To allow HDDs to be used as a storage location and the Windows environment to function properly for the above items, all of the following must be done. 1) The HDD must be initialized, formatted and partitioned. 2) Windows must be cloned to the HDD in order to allow applications installed on the secondary drive to properly access system files. 3) Settings must be changed to "change where new content is saved" to the HDD. 4) Registry entries must be changed as shown below: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion FROM C:\Program Files TO D:\Program Files FROM D:\ProgramFilesDir (x86) TO D:\ProgramFilesDir (x86) FROM C:\Program Files\Common Files TO D:\Program Files\Common Files FROM C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files TO D:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files FROM C:\Program Files\Common Files TO D:\Program Files\Common Files Additionally, even after doing this, some applications will not install to the secondary storage device. Users are forced to install to the primary/C drive. Currently, only Adobe Reader has forced me to do this. There should be a means of allowing users to change the installation directory even when programs try to force users to use the small C drive. I will be working to find the manual means of doing this. However, meanwhile, I would like to ask Windows programmers to do so as I experiment with this. One added note, I do like having an SSD since it allows faster bootups and computer usage. The ability to use both is imperative for myself and other users. Diana Former US Navy Database Administrator and computer user since 1985