unable to install Prepar3D into other drive

[quint60 5]

So, I know that I should be able to install into a drive other than my C drive.  And I know to select another drive from the drop down menu on the first page of the installer, however...  Even when I select E drive, and the installer confirms the path to that drive, the whole program still ends up in my C drive.  I have uninstalled and reinstalled several times, and I THINK I have cleaned my registry correctly each time, but still cannot get it to go to the other drive.  If I missed an entry in my registry, would that drive the installation towards C?  Anyone help is greatly appreciated.

[vgbaron 3,504]

If you follow the install/uninstall properly there is no need to do anything with the registry. Even if there were something left in the registry it would not affect the install other than to ask if you want a repair, which would keep the same install folder.

 

Vic

[John_Cillis 2,406]

2 hours ago, quint60 said:

So, I know that I should be able to install into a drive other than my C drive.  And I know to select another drive from the drop down menu on the first page of the installer, however...  Even when I select E drive, and the installer confirms the path to that drive, the whole program still ends up in my C drive.  I have uninstalled and reinstalled several times, and I THINK I have cleaned my registry correctly each time, but still cannot get it to go to the other drive.  If I missed an entry in my registry, would that drive the installation towards C?  Anyone help is greatly appreciated.

I am not sure, but I believe P3D defaults to Program Files.  You can try to manually create such a folder on your secondary drive and see if you can get P3D to install there, other than that I suggest you leave the registry alone.  Do an uninstall of any installed files, and start over if you can.   There are programs out there that let you trick installers into installing onto secondary drives but I cannot recall them off the top of my head, you would have to search via Google.  I used to use them way back when to get certain floppy based programs onto my hard drives.  The worst floppy based program I had was the Sublogic version on FS for my C64.  Its copy protection would make a terrible sound from my floppy drive.  I knew repeated use was wearing out that floppy so I finally found a bit copier to backup the floppy it came on, which finally failed, I caught it just in the nick of time.  Law despite license agreements does allow us to make copies of our software for archival purposes only, not for redistribution.  It was put there way back when to protect those of us who copied record albums onto tapes, or TV shows onto video tapes, etc....

John

[vgbaron 3,504]

Have you read this?

 

 

Vic

[SteveW 1,792]

When installing onto another drive, first make a folder called FS (or something) on that drive then install P3D into that folder. Might be better to install onto C and direct large addons onto the other drive for room.

[Buffy Foster 133]

I  made mine like this and it works real nice:

D:\FSGU_NG    <--- my terrain mesh

D:\P3D Content    <---- top-level folder to keep all my P3D stuff

D:\P3D Content\P3D v4 Addons   <--- Addons that use the XML setup go here

D:\P3D Content\P3D v4 Addons\A2A

D:\P3D Content\P3D v4 Addons\Aerosoft

D:\P3D Content\P3D v4 Addons\RealAir

D:\P3D Content\P3D v4 Addons\Vertx DA62

D:\P3D Content\Prepar3D v4     <----- This is where P3D itself is.

Edited February 18, 2019 by Buffy Foster
dang typos

[Poppet 703]

Hello Quint60

Is it possible what you are experiencing are the back up repair Installers Installing to the C Drive ? (This is normal, about 13 gig in hard drive space) 

After the Install has completed to your E drive you can confirm the location by right clicking on the Prepar3D desktop Icon and Open file location,  Is this still your C drive ?

For other users reading this, During the Install process you will have the Option to Install Prepar3D to a different location, You can achieve this by clicking Options and Create and Name a New Folder and Install Prepar3D to the location of your choice

For Example:  C\Prepar3D v4...D\Prepar3D v4...E\Prepar3D v4...

[quint60 5]

19 hours ago, vgbaron said:

Have you read this?

 

 

Vic

Thanks, Vic, I have now!  I think the only step I missed was using a download manager.  I’ll put that on my list of things to try.  

[quint60 5]

18 hours ago, SteveW said:

When installing onto another drive, first make a folder called FS (or something) on that drive then install P3D into that folder. Might be better to install onto C and direct large addons onto the other drive for room.

Thanks, SteveW, I did try creating a P3Dv4 folder on my E drive and installing into that.  Not sure if it matters, but my E drive is just a partition that shares a SSD with my C drive...

[quint60 5]

11 hours ago, Poppet said:

Hello Quint60

Is it possible what you are experiencing are the back up repair Installers Installing to the C Drive ? (This is normal, about 13 gig in hard drive space) 

After the Install has completed to your E drive you can confirm the location by right clicking on the Prepar3D desktop Icon and Open file location,  Is this still your C drive ?

For other users reading this, During the Install process you will have the Option to Install Prepar3D to a different location, You can achieve this by clicking Options and Create and Name a New Folder and Install Prepar3D to the location of your choice

For Example:  C\Prepar3D v4...D\Prepar3D v4...E\Prepar3D v4...

Thanks, Poppet, I created a P3D folder on my E drive and nav’d to it through the installer... and even saw the confirmation of that location before I clicked “install”.  So after a bit more investigation, I have found that if I navigate Windows- settings- storage- and click on the C drive- apps and games, I see 3 P3D programs (pro,content, and scenery perhaps?  I’m not sure which ones as I’m not looking at the computer now...) and they total way more than 13 gigs...maybe 47? Anyway, If I then look at my E drive, there are no P3D programs listed there.  I will try your method of confirmation, though- maybe it will tell me it is on the E drive, although my storage summary indicates that it’s the C drive that is the only drive taking the gb hit.  

 

[quint60 5]

16 hours ago, Buffy Foster said:

I  made mine like this and it works real nice:

D:\FSGU_NG    <--- my terrain mesh

D:\P3D Content    <---- top-level folder to keep all my P3D stuff

D:\P3D Content\P3D v4 Addons   <--- Addons that use the XML setup go here

D:\P3D Content\P3D v4 Addons\A2A

D:\P3D Content\P3D v4 Addons\Aerosoft

D:\P3D Content\P3D v4 Addons\RealAir

D:\P3D Content\P3D v4 Addons\Vertx DA62

D:\P3D Content\Prepar3D v4     <----- This is where P3D itself is.

Thanks, Buffy - that’s a great organization scheme.  I’ll probably steal that- if i can get it to install to the drive I want, that will work nicely!

[SteveW 1,792]

53 minutes ago, quint60 said:

Thanks, SteveW, I did try creating a P3Dv4 folder on my E drive and installing into that.  Not sure if it matters, but my E drive is just a partition that shares a SSD with my C drive...

Makes no difference what the drive letter is, except that the folder created is a personal folder owned by your login and can't be accessed by admins unless they are run by that login. So a problem in your account can render the install useless. However that's a rare issue. In older times with older spinning hard disks the partitions created could cause head thrashing and wear out the drive prematurely, that's not an issue with SSDs. Personally I install P3D into the LM location and if i'm going to be installing addons unaware of the read only nature of that folder I give the Users group the Modify Allow permission on that folder. Then no issues arise from addons using the proper location.

[SteveW 1,792]

...be aware that if intending to back up the P3D installation remember that a working set of files remains on the C drive for example "C:\Users\[you]\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin" is one that contains essential files too. They can be replaced too if absolutely necessary so that an entire drive is all P3D but can cause issues with some software. The main problems seen on P3D are basically issues surrounding the relocation of the P3D install. Done carefully it's fine but can require some experience with Windows. The most reliable systems are installed to the LM folder and the Modify Allow permission checked for the Users group to enable older addon behaviour. I guarantee the system would be working by now.

[SteveW 1,792]

...On that HDD issue; more recent hard disks since the last decade, spinniy-rotaty types, use virtualised file allocation, partitions are no worse than folders. SSDs have a write lifetime and the virtualisation ensures that the places written to are always new places. Expensive SSDs just showing up now in servers can last ten times longer.

Edited February 18, 2019 by SteveW