Windows 7 Changed drive letter. Broken programs.

[ztplru]

So i changed the drive letter from "E:" to "D:" on my second drive.
Obviously some programs broke and when i select "open with", even if i go to location and select it; it doesn't work.
Obvious solution is to fix in "Registry"

With my previous SSD; "D:" was the default letter. I changed SSD and it attributed an "E:" but things worked.

I will change SSD again, and windows might attribute it a "D:" and things will work.


Until then should i:
- Change to "E:" again,
- Re-install what's not working

Or is there another system wide fix i could know?

I am asking cause its good to know in case it happens again.

 

[Neemobeer]

I would just set it to the drive letter it had when programs were installed.

 

[ztplru]

Programs were installed in D:

Letter changed to :E when SSD was changed. That's what I'm trying to understand; why?
And then i manually changed it to "D:". Then programs broke.


Maybe with the SSD i am to use things will be ok.

 

[Neemobeer]

What do you mean you "Changed", was this a replacement for the existing D:\ drive or an additional drive added?

 

[ztplru]

What do you mean you "Changed", was this a replacement for the existing D:\ drive or an additional drive added?

A replacement of the C: drive.

 

[Neemobeer]

Did you do a reinstall of Windows then or image or clone the old drive to the new one?

 

[ztplru]

Re-install.

 

[Neemobeer]

Ok so assuming you have an optical drive, and I'm assuming also that you had changed the optical drive originally to something other than D. Windows, when installed, would normally assign the optical drive the next letter after C, (D) and any other hard drives the next letter and so forth. Any program at that point that relied on the registry for it's settings would break and any file association would also be broken. If you re associated the files or reinstalled broken programs and then changed the drive letter on the second drive they would break again.

 

[ztplru]

Makes sense.
Re-install is the way to go then.

I won't like my second drive to have an :E letter. So there's nothing else to do.

This is another reason i will use portable apps when i can.

 

[Neemobeer]

You certainly can fix most of them manually, but it would be a long process. It may be easier to use CCleaner to clean out the bad entries, and then reinstall the programs that do not work.

 

[ztplru]

Good idea.
I will do exactly that.

Thanks!