Install VS2013 to a different drive

[DarkT]

Hi everyone.
I have a very simple question to which apparently there is no easy solution (I googled a bit but haven't found any yet). How can I force Visul Studio 2013 to install on a different drive so that it doesn't eat up my C: space? In our company we are using virtual PCs for development which are provided by a 3rd party. Those machines are provided as standard packages and it's not possible to modify them. The C: drive comes with 40GB and there's nothing we can do to extend it. We want to upgrade from VS2005 to 2013 but after installation there's only 1GB free and we are bombed with "not enough space" tickets. I found a page that suggests creating a link. Idk if that's a very clean solution and if anyone knows about a better one I would be very thankful. If I don't find any, I guess I'll try the link.

[NathanOliver]

This details why this can't be done. There is a hack here that you can do to get around this but it is not microsoft approved.

[DarkT]

Yes, that's the page I found. Well, if there's no other solution, I will have to try that, even if MS doesn't approve. It's highly unlikely that we will have more than 40GB on the system drive and that's just not enough. I think that's a pretty lame restriction but let's not get into that :) Anyway, thank you, I will give the SymLinks a try. I'll leave the topic unsolved in case anyone has an idea but I highly doubt that.

[NathanOliver]

Its just Microsoft being Microsoft. I am going to spin up a linux distro on my machine at home sometime soon and see if I can get rid of Bill Gates influence at home.

[mike_2000_17]

I think that in the long run, with a C: drive of only 40GB, you might want to consider making a symlink for the whole "Program Files" folder to redirect it to another drive. 40GB is about as much as you need for all the Windows files, excluding any installed programs. Here is the basic procedure for relinking the relevant folders.