Buying and saving AP2

[Dinagirl]

Hi, I’m new here but want to purchase Affinity Photo 2 but as I have little space on my laptop I was wondering if there is a way, if it’s possible, to save the whole program onto my external hard drive, that way it won’t take up ant space on my laptop. If it can be done can someone tell me how. Thanks in advance.

[emmrecs01]

@Dinagirl

Welcome to the Affinity forums.

I'm going to assume you are on Windows!  😇  If you have a Mac, hopefully a Mac user will see your post and respond to your question!

First, to be able to install APh2 anywhere other than your C:\ drive you must ensure you download the .exe version of the installer, not the .msix version. 

Second, yes you can, at least theoretically, install the app to an external hard drive but, in order for the app to be available whenever you want to use it, you would need to ensure that the drive is always connected to your laptop and is never allowed to "go to sleep" or be disconnected (by Windows) if it is a USB drive

On my computer I have very few programs installed on C:\ (by personal choice).  Most, including ALL my Affinity apps, both versions 1 and 2 are are on my D:\ drive but it is an internal hard drive, not external.

However, there are a number of Affinity files that are, by default, installed to your C:\ drive, even if the main program is on another drive.  Personally I would NOT attempt to move them anywhere else, though I am sure it is possible to do so!

HTH

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, emmrecs01 said:

However, there are a number of Affinity files that are, by default, installed to your C:\ drive, even if the main program is on another drive.  Personally I would NOT attempt to move them anywhere else, though I am sure it is possible to do so!

I think you may be referring to the data saved in the Windows ProgramData folder on drive C.

For me, more of the data that would remain on drive C will be the items like Asset, Brushes, Styles, etc. that are associated with the various Studio panels. And with the unsandboxed EXE installers, that data will be in %AppData%, which cannot be completely moved. However, it is possible to move the Affinity folders from that location and put them elsewhere, which I have successfully done both for V1 and V2 by copying them and then deleting the original folder and replacing it with a link to the new location, using the mklink command. (However, I have not done that yet with the V2 EXE version; only the MSIX version. I may try it soon with the EXE version.)

[Dinagirl]

Thanks every one for your replies. I am running Windows 11 on my Lenovo Thinkpad which has 16gb and as I intend to do some Solar imaging, when the skies let me, that may use some space. I’m not in any way an expert with pcs, I can turn them on and off, so I need plenty of help from other folk.