C and D drives on laptop

[Timothy Miller]

Hi,

I come from planet Macintosh. For reasons I won't go into, I now have
this Windows XP laptop. It's kinda different. I think it's mostly the
new look and feel of XP.

The laptop has one physical internal hard disk, 30 or 40 GB, partitioned
into C and D volumes.

The C volume is getting pretty full. The D volume is empty, except for a
few empty folders apparently installed by Windows, and one folder with
some pretty photos in it, also apparently installed by Windows.

I mostly use this machine for Dragon Naturally Speaking and MS Office.
However, I've installed a few games and some shareware. It looks like
all the applications got installed on the C partition. C:\documents and
settings\MyUserName\My Documents is getting up to about 1 GB, because
the Dragon voice model files are large.

Should I start saving documents to drive D? Should I start saving my
Dragon Voic models to Drive D, or just move them there? How do I do
that? Should I start installing applications on Drive D? How do I do that?

It seems reasonable to just move MyUserName\MyDocuments to drive D. I
think the applications won't be able to find the documents, though.

In the Macintosh world, I'd drag and drop, and be done in a few minutes.
This XP interface seems really weird.

I'm fairly savvy re the Macintosh. No doubt, many of the same principles
apply. I did try to do my homework. I read David Pogues "XP--The Missing
Manual." I still can't figure it out.

A few clues would be most welcome. I can probably take it from there.

Cheers,


Tim

 

[null]

Hi,

I come from planet Macintosh. For reasons I won't go into, I now have
this Windows XP laptop. It's kinda different. I think it's mostly the
new look and feel of XP.

The laptop has one physical internal hard disk, 30 or 40 GB, partitioned
into C and D volumes.

The C volume is getting pretty full. The D volume is empty, except for a
few empty folders apparently installed by Windows, and one folder with
some pretty photos in it, also apparently installed by Windows.

I mostly use this machine for Dragon Naturally Speaking and MS Office.
However, I've installed a few games and some shareware. It looks like
all the applications got installed on the C partition. C:\documents and
settings\MyUserName\My Documents is getting up to about 1 GB, because
the Dragon voice model files are large.

Should I start saving documents to drive D? Should I start saving my
Dragon Voic models to Drive D, or just move them there? How do I do
that? Should I start installing applications on Drive D? How do I do that?

It seems reasonable to just move MyUserName\MyDocuments to drive D. I
think the applications won't be able to find the documents, though.

In the Macintosh world, I'd drag and drop, and be done in a few minutes.
This XP interface seems really weird.

I'm fairly savvy re the Macintosh. No doubt, many of the same principles
apply. I did try to do my homework. I read David Pogues "XP--The Missing
Manual." I still can't figure it out.

A few clues would be most welcome. I can probably take it from there.

Cheers,


Tim

You can just drag and drop your My Documents folder to the D: drive, but
you'll have to go into the individual applications to tell them where
the default document location is. For example, in Word 2002, select
Tools > Options > File Locations tab, double-click the Documents item,
and change the default location there of your documents.

--
The reader should exercise normal caution and backup the Registry and
data files regularly, and especially before making any changes to their
PC, as well as performing regular virus and spyware scans. I am not
liable for problems or mishaps that occur from the reader using advice
posted here.

 

[Timothy Miller]

You can just drag and drop your My Documents folder to the D: drive, but
you'll have to go into the individual applications to tell them where
the default document location is. For example, in Word 2002, select
Tools > Options > File Locations tab, double-click the Documents item,
and change the default location there of your documents.

Thanks, Null.

Do I drag and drop My Documents or MyUserName\MyDocuments to the D
partition?

What about moving or reinstalling applications to the D partition?

Tim

 

[null]

Thanks, Null.

Do I drag and drop My Documents or MyUserName\MyDocuments to the D
partition?

What about moving or reinstalling applications to the D partition?

Tim

If there's nothing in My Documents, just move MyUserName\My Documents.

If you really need the space, you can uninstall the applications and
reinstall them to the D: partition. Don't uninstall an application
unless you've backed up its data files, just to be on the safe side.
Usually, when you reinstall an application, you have to select the
'Customize' (or some such thing like that) option to tell it to install
to a partition other than C:.

--
The reader should exercise normal caution and backup the Registry and
data files regularly, and especially before making any changes to their
PC, as well as performing regular virus and spyware scans. I am not
liable for problems or mishaps that occur from the reader using advice
posted here.

 

[Robert Moir]

Timothy Miller wrote:

It seems reasonable to just move MyUserName\MyDocuments to drive D. I
think the applications won't be able to find the documents, though.

In the Macintosh world, I'd drag and drop, and be done in a few
minutes. This XP interface seems really weird.

I'm fairly savvy re the Macintosh. No doubt, many of the same
principles apply. I did try to do my homework. I read David Pogues
"XP--The Missing Manual." I still can't figure it out.

A few clues would be most welcome. I can probably take it from there.

Right click the "My Documents" folder, in the start menu or desktop,
wherever you've placed it, and you can edit its location from the properties
option that appears. This will move it over in a way that all programs that
are aware that its a "special" folder will know where to find it
automatically (and these days, most programs are aware that its special).

Not sure if you have to do anything special for Dragon Dictate, if it saves
its files in a sub-folder of 'my documents' then it should be one of the
apps that automatically follows the folder when you do the first step.

Apps cannot be dragged and dropped to a new location in the way you are used
to, i'm afraid. This is one area where the Mac has XP beat hands down. If
you want to move an app, you'll need to formally uninstall it and then
reinstall it to its new home, and may lose customisations in this way.

Hope this helps - I use both a Mac and a PC too, and know how confusing the
little differences can be!

Regards
Rob Moir
Microsoft MVP.

 

[Timothy Miller]

Right click the "My Documents" folder, in the start menu or desktop,
wherever you've placed it, and you can edit its location from the properties
option that appears. This will move it over in a way that all programs that
are aware that its a "special" folder will know where to find it
automatically (and these days, most programs are aware that its special).

Not sure if you have to do anything special for Dragon Dictate, if it saves
its files in a sub-folder of 'my documents' then it should be one of the
apps that automatically follows the folder when you do the first step.

Apps cannot be dragged and dropped to a new location in the way you are used
to, i'm afraid. This is one area where the Mac has XP beat hands down. If
you want to move an app, you'll need to formally uninstall it and then
reinstall it to its new home, and may lose customisations in this way.

Hope this helps - I use both a Mac and a PC too, and know how confusing the
little differences can be!

Regards
Rob Moir
Microsoft MVP.

Thanks, guys. I've got it covered now, thanks to your help.

I never saw that "location" item under "properties." Handy.


Best regards,


Tim Miller