I'd test this out on a small scale first with one program that will need updates after install, such as a game maybe that requires patches to play online etc. *However I know for a fact that a game like World of Warcraft will work no matter where its moved to and update from any location since the updater is coded as such to update from its execution location and not an explicit path to only
C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\ as is the default install location, other programs I dont believe are this flexible in how updates are performed. One game that I definately know is explicitly pathed in both execution and updates is AION. I chose to install this game to an alternate path to my SSD since I like to run games through my SSD for fast load times of 15GB to 30GB etc, and AION if told during installation to install to an alternate path will install to 3 locations ( Registry Keys with explicit pointers to
C:\Program Files\NCSoft\AION\ ,
C:\Program Files\NCSoft\AION\ for a portion of the game contents, as well as my X: drive which is my SSD at
X:\AION which has about another 50% of the game installed to it. ) *This game clearly was never designed to be installed to anything other than the default location of
C:\Program Files\NCSoft\AION\ given that installing to an alternate path splits it in half like this.
* I have not tested this myself by adding links. My assumption is that a symbolic link will work for local user navigation, but updates etc that may be explicit pointing directly to
C:\program files\Expected_Software_Location\Expected_Software_Subdirectory will not work.
*
In the past I have edited my registry after moving software to alternate drives for the path to be D:\What_Ever_The_NEW_Path_IS vs its default
C:\Program Files\... and this has worked for software not requiring frequent updates such as Microsoft Office etc and Adobe Graphic Arts packages etc. So if you are good with registry editing, you could change the path to the new location and this works most of the time.
With my setup and my 500GB HDD and 90GB SSD, I ended up switching to the final configuration of:
C: = Windows 7 Installation, 99% of programs installed, Important Data ( on my 500GB SATA II HDD)
X: = Large Game Packages that benefit from fast Read/Write data access such as World of Warcraft etc, (on my 90GB OCZ Vertex 3 SATA III SSD running backwards compatability mode as SATA II because my 2009 motherboard can only run at SATA II, and it doesnt have an available PCIe slot to upgrade to a degraded 5Gb/s SATA III connection, when SATA III is normally 6Gb/s on motherboards that come with it integrated.)
Note: I also redirected my swap space from its default of C: to X: to increase the speed of the computer tapping into the SSD's speed. *This made noticable difference on 4GB DDR2 800Mhz RAM with 6GB swap space on the SSD vs the HDD.
Pretty much I came to the conclusion that once Windows is booted the OS doesnt benefit much more from the SSD, so I decided to install my OS to the HDD and keep about 33% of this SSD free for games etc, and just move the swap space to the SSD which is where the OS benefits most with the SSD once the OS is already loaded and running. Load time of Windows 7 isnt that bad anyways using HDD and using SSD only made it boot to Windows about 50% faster. If this was a laptop that was turned on and off a lot in which boot times would add up throughout the day, I would probably reconsider my current setup, but given that this is a gaming tower booted once a day and on for long periods of time, the games and swap space benefit more from the fast Read/Write speeds off the SSD, and I maximize my space available for games and hard drive hungry programs that constantly reference file content and run into the swap space when memory hungry.
it's almost safer to just install programs to the second drive manually.
I agree with Technogeeks statement, I also dont believe you will be able to relocate the entirety of Program Files to an alternate drive without some complications arrising from this.
