How to Install MS Office On a Different Drive

Installing a software or program is something everyone is acquainted with. With just a few mouse clicks we can install any software anywhere in our system. However, there are times when the part of installing software “anywhere on the system” hits a roadblock. This happens with people trying to install Microsoft Office 365 on their system using the downloadable version from Microsoft’s website. Users are unable to customize the installation and make it so that the Office suite installs on some other drive than the default C: drive. So, in order to help people out, we provide some methods to install such software on drives other than C:\

The problem faced

Whether you are using an SSD to boost the performance of your system or have simply opted for Office 365 business or student from their website, you will find that you cannot customise the installation, and all the tools are installed on default C: drive. This is because, from Office 365, Microsoft has implemented the Click-to-Run technique of installing software. What this does is that once you click on the file the installation happens by itself, and you cannot tweak it in any way.

This has caused many users to express their resentment. People pay sums of $99 for this product and then find themselves unable even to change the install directory. Many people don’t have the required near approximate 4 GB of space in their default drive, so they absolutely need to change the install directory. Worry not, because we will tell you how.

Method 1: Changing install directory

You can change the install directory to some other path by making some modifications in the Registry. Here’s what you need to do:

In the Start menu or Run, type regedit

Make your way to the following under Registry Editor:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

Look for a value named ‘ProgramFilesDir’. Change the default value, which will be ‘C:\Program Files’ to the new location you want

Close the regedit and restart your system so that the change takes effect

Method 2: Create a junction to point to some other location

The operating system thinks it is going to C: drive to run Office but it is going to your new location. Note that this method only works if you want to move Office Suite to a new location, meaning that you already have it installed on your C: drive. Here’s how this works:

Empty the recycle bin

Run Task Manager and end all MS Office related tasks

Find the directories ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15’ and ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office

Delete both of these directories

Open command prompt and enter this:

MKLINK /J “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15” “(your_preferred_disk_drive):\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15”?

MKLINK /J “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office” “(your_preferred_disk_drive):\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office”

Restore the deleted files from recycle bin. They now appear in your new drive instead of C:

Reboot your system

Microsoft really annoyed a lot of people with their Click-to-Run implementation. If you use any Office version other than MS Office Professional Plus 2013, you cannot customise the installation. Using the methods described above, you can change the install location.