Moving drive locations for the Affinity Programs

[Fullnerd]

Hi all,

I've got an older, but top of line from three years ago, pc, but only have a 250gb SSD for my main drive. I've now got another SSD for a secondary drive and moving programs over to it. I'm pretty decent with Windows 10, but wanted to know what's the best way to go about moving the Affinity range over to the other drive without losing all my addons. I use Lightroom Classic, as I can't stand CC at all, and it's just a bloody hog when it comes to temp files, I'm just sick of exiting after I do a complicated edit and 3/4gb might give me some breathing room. I was wondering if I'm going to just need to uninstall and reinstall, and if so, does that leave my brushes, assets etc on the system so that once the programs are reinstalled straight over?

Also does anyone know, or have they tried, just copying the files and using something like Glary to fix the registry issues, or if a direct copy/move will work if I just change the shortcuts to direct to the new locations?

Note: I'm leaving this up in hopes that someone that's attempted it can get back to me, otherwise I'll try a few different ways and pin them as comments so if anyone else has issues they can see here.

Cheers in advance.

PS: Just before I get any comments as to why, when GoPro's have better raw support, and I don't have to constantly convert to DNGs, I can finally get rid of the brand that shall not be named entirely. 

[emmrecs01]

@Fullnerd

I have all my Affinity apps (and the great majority of my other programs) installed on a dedicated Programs drive (D:\) so, yes it is possible to install other than on C:\.

I suspect your "best" option to move the program is to uninstall first and then reinstall to the new drive.  However, I fully appreciate you do not wish to lose your existing brushes, assets etc.  Hence I would suggest doing the following (with the usual advice to proceed very carefully, perhaps create a System Restore point first!):

• You will find Affinity folders in the following locations outside C:\Program Files.  C:\Program Data\Affinity and C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\Affinity (Both Program Data and that AppData folder may be hidden - they are by default.  You will need to unhide them.)  Copy them and all their contents to somewhere on your new drive.  You thus have a "safety copy" of all those additional settings safely stored.
• Uninstall your existing Affinity apps.  I think this will remove the original of those folders you have just copied.
• Reinstall to your new drive.  Those Program Data and AppData folders will be recreated (if needed) on C:\.  I think you can choose to install them on a different drive but my understanding is that this is not recommended since future updates will "expect" those locations to be in use.
• Compare the new versions of those copied folders with the copies you made (you can also open the app and check whether those "things you want to keep" are already there.)  Whatever is missing you can then copy what you want to restore from your "copied old" folders back to their correct locations.  Then all your former settings should be restored.

 

If you have any plugins used in Affinity Photo I don't think they will be affected by these changes and, assuming you have their .8bf files installed in the default location, APh should find them immediately.  If not, I think you will need to reinstall them.

HTH

Jeff

[Wosven]

I also have a special partition for apps. 

Before doing what @emmrecs01 suggest, I would also export all my brushes, assets, etc. (I do this sometime, in case a new version cause havoc), and would do screenshots of my important export presets (mainly PDF ones), since we can't export them, and it's always a pain to loose them after a new update...

[walt.farrell]

You can choose any drive you want for the installation of the main part of the program. It defaults to C:\Program Files\Affinity\<application> but you could choose D, or E, or whatever.

However, there is a small set of files that will go into C:\Program Files\Affinity\Common, I think. It's probably small enough to ignore.

But there is a bigger set of files that goes into your AppData folder, which by default is also on C and which is difficult to move completely without breaking Windows. You can, however, move just the part of it related to Affinity, and I've done that on one of my PCs that's running Windows 10.

With the Affinity applications closed, you can press the Windows key and R, then type %AppData% into the run box and click OK. That will open File Explorer to the right spot. You then move the Affinity directory to a different drive, and then in the %AppData% directory you create a symbolic link to the new location.

Detailed instructions here:

 

[iconoclast]

I had a special partition for programs on my last pcs too, but today I install programs to the system-partition, because if you have to do a recovery of the system from backup, as far as I know, you will have to install all programs new, if they are installed on a different partition.

[emmrecs01]

@iconoclast

Actually you don't have to reinstall all your programs in the event that you need to do a system recovery (drive C:\) when most/all your programs are on a different drive!

On at least two occasions over the past couple of years I have needed to do a complete recovery of my C:\ drive.  On both occasions, no reinstall of any programs was needed to regain full access to everything, including all programs, on my computer.

Jeff

Edit (to add):  Perhaps I should make clear that I create a complete new backup image of my C:\ drive every week.  Thus, when I need to "restore my system" I am actually reloading an image that is, at most, a few days old.  

[John Rostron]

@Fullnerd, I have successfully used Application Mover

to move programs from C:\ to D:\

John

[walt.farrell]

5 minutes ago, John Rostron said:

to move programs from C:\ to D:\

Out of curiosity, have you tried it with the Affinity applications, and if so did it move the %AppData%\Affinity directories, too?

[John Rostron]

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Out of curiosity, have you tried it with the Affinity applications, and if so did it move the %AppData%\Affinity directories, too?

I have not used it for the Affinity apps; they were installed on D:\ from the word go.

Application Mover will move directories, typically the one containing the program files. It will not move the AppData  unless you tell it to (which I do not). It does change any registry data to ensure that this now points to the moved locations.

John

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, John Rostron said:

I have not used it for the Affinity apps; they were installed on D:\ from the word go.

Thanks. That should mean that your Affinity AppData is still on C:\, then.

On my laptop, with a lot of Affinity Store content installed in all 3 applications and in the beta applications, runs a bit over 30 GB.

[Fullnerd]

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Thanks. That should mean that your Affinity AppData is still on C:\, then.

On my laptop, with a lot of Affinity Store content installed in all 3 applications and in the beta applications, runs a bit over 30 GB.

Yes but the AppData can be moved but you have to go in to "View Advanced System Settings" to do this, it is possible, but the AppData settings moved can slow performance I've found. There are a few tutorials out there that can explain it better than I can. I've done this to the "Temp" and "TMP" directories for Windows. But this is a bandaid solution for now.

13 hours ago, Wosven said:

I also have a special partition for apps. 

Before doing what @emmrecs01 suggest, I would also export all my brushes, assets, etc. (I do this sometime, in case a new version cause havoc), and would do screenshots of my important export presets (mainly PDF ones), since we can't export them, and it's always a pain to loose them after a new update...

I had to reinstall all my brushes from other services (envato, cubebrush etc.). I ended up uninstalling and reinstalling as I wasn't sure what a straight copy/move would do to the registry.

Thanks to everyone for the reply. I usually only keep smaller apps on the Windows drive, the %AppData% issue is a major concern for anyone with less than 250GB as it's a pain in the butt how large the asset files are, this goes for any graphics program and is an issue with Windows itself.

I've also ordered a 1TB SSD which I'll chuck in and migrate my Windows install to in the next week or two, but I live in a town without a computer components shop, and the nearest is three hours away . So it'll be here sometime between now and Christmas I would expect.

4 hours ago, John Rostron said:

I have not used it for the Affinity apps; they were installed on D:\ from the word go.

Application Mover will move directories, typically the one containing the program files. It will not move the AppData  unless you tell it to (which I do not). It does change any registry data to ensure that this now points to the moved locations.

John

TL;DR solution I used was: Uninstall, reinstall to the other drive, reactivate all the brushes, assets etc, then re-add my brushes files. I always uninstall with third party app (Glary Utils, like CCleaner), so that tends to do a complete uninstall including registry items and linked items, this might not occur, in hindsight, on a standard uninstall. 

Cheers for all the feedback peeps. Much appreciated, Serif have an amazing community!

[walt.farrell]

33 minutes ago, Fullnerd said:

Yes but the AppData can be moved but you have to go in to "View Advanced System Settings" to do this, it is possible, but the AppData settings moved can slow performance I've found

As I mentioned above, there are issues with moving all of AppData. However, you can move the Affinity directory out of AppData using the instructions I provided.

[Fullnerd]

4 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

As I mentioned above, there are issues with moving all of AppData. However, you can move the Affinity directory out of AppData using the instructions I provided.

My apologies, some of these replies didn't load when I was in here last. Cheers for that, that's a great recommendation.