Is there a way to move installations?

[Shadow Conception]

I'd like to move several of my installations of programs such as Photoshop and MS Office onto a different hard drive. Catch is, I really don't want to uninstall and reinstall, especially MS Office, since the disk I received is an OEM.

Does such a way exist? I know that simply copy/pasting and deleting a couple files works with Steam. What about just regular programs?

Also, concerning the OEM MS Office: if I uninstalled MS Office, and then reinstalled using the same OEM disk, would I end up going through the activation process again? Would it read my computer as a new computer and refuse to activate? Or would it just go through simply, activating fine? My key is legitimate (and legitimately obtained), but what concerns me is the "OEM" part.

 

[kaborka]

Sometimes I've been able to move the installation folder for apps by doing a global replace in the registry. All the classIDs/dlls registered by the product have to be updated. There are various tools that can do a registry search and replace (e.g., this). Replace the old folder path with the new one. There could be config files referencing the path, too, which a text search could find.

I can't answer about Office activation. I use a VLK version.

 

[Shadow Conception]

Thanks for the link.

However, I can't figure out how to use the replace option. I typed in the value I'm looking for, and what I wanted to replace it with, and started the search. Now what?

 

[kaborka]

I just googled "registry search replace" and linked to that one. I don't remember which one I used. JV Power Tools has a good rep, and a full-function 1mo trial.

edit: I'd make a full backup before trying a global registry replace! :shocked:

 

[Shadow Conception]

Haha, of course.

I'm trying this out, hopefully it'll work.

Edit: Seems to have worked with all my Adobe stuff. Thanks a lot, man!