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Apps/pf

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 "You can outlaw Love and Rage.

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C:\apps\pf\ is my "Program Files" folder on Windows XP. I changed it from the default C:\Program Files\ for a couple of reasons:

  • Certain applications (disturbingly many, actually) can't be installed to paths with spaces in their name. Notable, MATLAB at least used to be this way. Also Xilinx ISE. This means these programs just can't go into C:\Program Files\. I used to just put them into a seperate C:\applications\ folder, but I hate having things so disorganized.
  • I like to keep most of my installation files in a folder on the harddisk. Again, I used to keep this in C:\Installations\, but I like to keep my root drive as uncluttered as possible. Plus, these files have a loose association with the contents of "Program Files", so it makes sense to group them together. Hence I've got this higher level folder, C:\apps\ which holds my \pf\ for "program files", and also holds \installs\.
  • Similar to above, I've got a C:\apps\bin\ folder which holds various scripts and system tool type files. I like to keep them in one high level folder like this, and then put it on my system path. Same logic as above, less clutter, and loosely coupled, all under C:\apps\
  • This is actually a good test for when I'm installing a new program; Windows acknowledges C:\apps\pf\ as the rightful place to install new software, and this path can be retrieved pretty simply from within an install program. So if I try to install a new program, and it still defaults to C:\Program Files\, then I know the installation program is half-assed and I may want to think twice about installing the software at all.
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How to

Warning! Editing the registry can mess up your system, but good. I take no responsibility for anything that happens to your system. It's good practice to back up the registry before making any changes.

You need to edit the registry key value HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ProgramFilesDir. That's it. Just set it to the path you want, and probably restart the system (don't know if that's neccessarily needed, but Windows sucks, and usually likes a full reset). Except while you're in there, you'll probably want to change CommonFilesDir path, as well.

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