can program files be installed on external disk and accessed from there

[2Design]

My laptop only has a 60 gig hardrive and the program files take up a lot of room - Can they be set up to run off another hard drive external and uninstall from C drive

[hobbit709]

1. How much room?

My old laptop has a 60 gig drive with about 45 free. Clean out your Temp and Temp Internet files, clear out all the junk and you'll not only free up disk space but it will work better.

You can run it that way but there'll be complications and hassles. It's best to run ALL apps on C drive and keep ALL data elsewhere.

[2Design]

2. I have about 18 gig free - it just seemed like someone posted about

putting all programs elsewhere

Program files are taking up 8gigs

[struggle4progress]

4. Pshaw! You've got plenty of space!

Are you having some sort of performance problem? If so, have you done regular maintenance, like defragging -- and are you sure the drive itself isn't deteriorating?

[2Design]

6. When it gets close to 10gigs, it gets really slow -

of course, I have dreamweaver, flash, photoshop, word, and other programs open at once. I clear off some data files and have done the defrag and disk clean - I just thought I had read some where about putting the program files somewhere else, but I can see from reading the other answers that it is not the best idea. So I will do something different.

[struggle4progress]

7. How old a machine is it, and how much memory can you add?

Adding memory is often very simple, and it can really help. If you're doing a lot of graphics stuff, you may have huge data requirements, and the machine may be forced to store lots of temporary stuff on disk, towards the end where access is slower -- and if you are multi-tasking graphics, I'd guess there may ultimately be a lot of fragmentation in temp files when disk space gets tighter

How expensive memory upgrade is, depends on the type of memory the machine uses. I had one machine that only had 128MB RAM and would support 768: it was cheap and easy to multiple the amount of memory by 5; only one of the three slots was filled, and I simply bought two cheap 256MB sticks for it

Have you thought about going through your data files in a systematic way and archiving to CD or external HD anything you don't want to trash but probably won't need immediate future?

[2Design]

8. This machine has CDRW not DVD - so the time to archive is tremendous

I have the memory at maximum which is 4 x 512mb ram - (2gig) right?

It looks like I need to get a drive just for data and carry it with me.

I am thinking up new laptop (money is an issue) but with a new laptop, I would have DVD writer, camera, and bigger hard drive.
Then the problem is the email - I use mozilla thunderbird and moving the files - well it isn't straight forward and I wonder how many I will lose.

This laptop is 3 1/2 years old to me. Has missing F key, wireless when traveling crashes the machine, has DVD/CD but only CD RW,

so it is time I guess to move up and onward

[hobbit709]

9. Do you REALLY need all those apps open at once

or is it just for the convenience? Adobe apps are real resource hogs. I rarely have more than two things open at one time, mainly because it takes too much effort to keep track of it all. See what all is running in the background too. Half of what is in the Startup Manager doesn't need to be in startup.

[struggle4progress]

3. Can I install programs on an external drive?

http://ask-leo.com/can_i_install_programs_on_an_external_drive.html

So you'd probably have to re-install the programs, choosing the HD as the install destination -- and you might end up shrieking with rage if you needed to unplug the HD and couldn't properly dismount it because of stuff running in the background


Storage: Could I put programs on external hard drives?
... Yes but I don't recommend it ...
... Why not get a bigger laptop hard drive? ...
... A better solution would be to reserve your laptop hard drive for your applications and save your data to an external hard drive ...
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7588_102-0.html?threadID=156808


A bigger hard drive is probably not too expensive and is probably easy to install, if you do a bit of research first and don't get in a klutzy hurry. You probably want to back up all your data on external media first. Getting back to ground zero may be a bit of work: you can reinstall everything (OS, programs, &c), then copy back all your data files; or you might be able to use some existing software to migrate the old drive and appropriate settings to the new drive

[RoyGBiv]

5. A related suggestion ...

I would echo the advice on CNet: Yes, but I wouldn't recommend it.

It can end up being very complicated and will cause issues you might not expect.

Your C: drive really should be for software anyway, so if you're running out of space, look into another hard drive for data storage.

On the other hand, you can do this, but doing so really kinda shows you how little space programs take up. It's data files that are space hogs.

http://portableapps.com/

There's a selection applications, all OpenSource, that have been modified so that they run entirely from an external source, e.g. a USB flash drive. I have a 4GB USB drive I carry around with me with many of those apps on it (Firefox, Filezilla, OpenOffice, Gimp, and NVU being the most often used), and I use it all the time.