Installing Programs to SD/SDHC Card on Windows XP

Some (particularly larger) programs require fixed “local disk” installs, and refuse to install on removable media such as SD/SDHC cards. This is true for programs and suites such as Adobe Creative Suite 3. This can be frustrating, since SSD space is extremely limited. There are two common methods to trick stubborn installers into thinking they are installing to fixed local disks, when in reality, they are installing to a SD/SDHC card. The MicroDriver method, and the Mount method.

Recommended if you only have one SD/SDHC card reader (stock) and regularly swap out cards.

A simple solution is to mount the SD/SDHC card as a directory in C:\, which is a local disk. This tricks programs into thinking they are being installed to a directory on C:\, and also allows you to swap cards on the fly without any issues. And because you are not making any driver modifications, you get to keep your high read/write performance. It's also much simpler and can be easily unmounted.

1. Create a Program Files directory on your SD/SDHC card (example: D:\Program Files\)
2. Create a SDHC directory in your C:\Program Files\ directory. (example: C:\Program Files\SDHC\)
3. Right click on My Computer and click Manage.
4. Select the Disk Management plugin under Storage on the left.
5. Right click on your SD/SDHC drive and click Change Drive Letter and Paths….
6. Click Add…
7. Make sure “Mount in the following empty NTFS folder” is selected, and browse for the directory you created in step 2.
8. Click OK to the three windows open and close Computer Management.

Note: Unfortunately this fix will often report the size available to the program being installed as the free space left on the SSD. Thus refusing to let the installation take place.

Recommended if you have a second card reader modification/hack or only own one memory card.

This fix will trick Windows and program installers into thinking your SD/SDHC card is a fixed local disk. While this has the obvious benefit of allowing stubborn installers to install to your SD/SDHC card just like the Mount method, it also carries the unfortunate side effects of decreased read/write performance, as well as hampering the card reader's plug and play and hot-swappability (after you install this driver, once you swap out your card, Windows will not quickly recognize the new card).

1. Download the MicroDrive drivers (http://www.xpefiles.com//files/xpfildrvr1224_320.zip) and extract them to a folder on the desktop.
2. Insert your SD/SDHC card into your EeePC.
3. Click Start > Run > type “regedit” (without quotes) and click OK.
4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_USB2.0&Prod_CardReader_SD0&Rev_0100/.
5. Inside that you should find another directory that is just a bunch of numbers. Mine reads: 146030377350&0. Select it to display its contents in the right pane.
6. In the right pane you should see a key called “HardwareID”. Double-click on it.
7. You should see 7 lines of text. Copy ONLY the first line to the clipboard. Mine reads: USBSTOR\DiskUSB2.0__CardReader_SD0__0100
8. Click Cancel, and close Registry Editor.
9. Open cfadisk.inf in the directory you unzipped the MicroDrive driver to.
10. Delete all lines between [cfadisk_device] and [cfadisk_addreg].
11. Below [cfadisk_device], insert a new line, and type the following: %Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,
12. After the comma, hit CTRL V to paste what you copied from the registry into the file.
13. Save the file.
14. Right click My Computer and click Manage.
15. On the left pane, click the Device Manager plugin.
16. Under disk drives, you should see SiliconMotion and USB2.0 Card Reader. Right click on the card reader and click update driver.
17. Direct the driver updater window to the Hitachi driver you just edited. It won’t detect the driver automatically, you have to specify that you're supplying the disk for the hardware and force it to use the driver.
18. After the driver is updated, restart Windows.

If the program you are installing does not make use of the Common Files directory, or only uses a small amount of disk space in the Common Files directory, you should skip this step. Larger programs and suites generally make use of the Common Files directory. But most smaller programs do not.

Regardless of the method you chose above, some large program/suite installers, like Adobe CS3 for instance, install a lot of files to your Common Files directory (approx 1GB in the case of CS3). The default location for Common Files is C:\Program Files\Common Files\. To save space on your SSD, you may want to temporarily change the location of the Common Files directory, so that whatever program you are installing writes these Common Files files to the SDHC/SD card instead of the SSD. We will then switch it back after the installation is complete, so we don't mess up any other programs.

1. Click Start, Run, and type in “regedit” (without quotes), and press enter. This will launch the registry editor.
2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion. You want to click on CurrentVersion to get a listing of contents in the right pane.
3. Near the top should be CommonFilesDir. Double click on it and change it to “C:\Program Files\SDHC\Program Files\Common Files” without quotes.
4. Close regedit.
5. Create a Common Files directory in C:\Program Files\SDHC\Program Files\.
6. It might even be wise to copy over your existing Common Files directory to this new location in order to minimize the risk of programs failing to start. A lot of programs rely on this directory to function, and may fail after we restart. But we will be switching the Common Files registry setting back after installing (fixing everything), so this step is optional.
7. Restart Windows. If you receive errors from start up programs or services, it may be because you did not follow step 6. You can ignore these errors; we will fix this temporary problem later.
8. Now you can install your program. In this example, you want to install to the directory: C:\Program Files\SDHC\Program Files\ApplicationNameHere. For instance, if you are installing CS3 on your EeePC, the installation directory would be C:\Program Files\SDHC\Program Files\Adobe\. It may appear to be installing to C:\, and your installer may calculate disk requirements based on remaining space in C:\, but in reality, your files will be installed to your SD/SDHC card.
9. Once your program is installed, make sure it is registered and activated BEFORE reverting the Common Files directory location to default.

1. Start regedit again by clicking Start, Run, and typing “regedit” without quotes, and press enter.
2. Registry Editor should automatically be at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion from your previous session. If not, navigate there, and make sure you have CurrentVersion selected so you get a contents listing on the right pane.
3. Double click on CommonFilesDir and switch the location back to C:\Program Files\Common Files.
4. Click OK and close the Registry Editor.
5. Restart Windows.

Might be best to move this section to its own article.

This section contains instructions on how to save even more space on your SSD by moving the TEMP, Virtual Memory, ServicePackFiles, and SoftwareDistribution downloads folders from your SSD to your SD/SDHC card.

Go to your SD/SDHC card or second SSD drive (we will call this D:) and create a folder called TEMP, so you will have a D:\TEMP folder. (The SDHC slot, you can get a decent size card cheap, but make sure you get a high class number card. If the class number is low, its mean the data transfer rate is slow and the pc will run slower. If you can get a class 6 great, but if you have to go cheaper, I wouldn't go less than a 4.)

Then do the following to move your temp swap.

1. Click Start→Settings→Control Panel.
2. Go to System.
3. Click on the Advanced Tab.
4. Click on Environment Variables.
5. Under System Variables (The bottom scroll bar) scroll down to TEMP and set the value to D:\TEMP.
6. Under System Variables (The bottom scroll bar) scroll down to TMP and set the value to D:\TEMP.
7. Click OK.

Follow the instructions here: http://asuseeehacks.blogspot.com/2007/11/windows-xp-tweak-swap-file.html My eee 900 came with no virtual space allocated, so I created a 200 MB swap file on my D: drive. It helped with some issues that I was having.

1. Create the following directory structure on your D: drive - D:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles
2. Move your ServicePackFiles folder from the C: Drive into this folder.
3. Backup your registry and then change the registry to reflect the move.

You can follow the instructions here to do this: http://ask-leo.com/can_i_remove_the_servicepackfiles_folder_from_my_windows_folder.html

My understanding is that this folder is used to store files for the Windows Automatic Updater. You don't need this readily available and if you move them, you can always move them back if you encounter any issues.

1. Create the following directory structure on your D: drive - D:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution
2. Move your Downloads folder from the C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution folder into the folder you just created on your D Drive.

As I said earlier, if you ever need to uninstall automatic updates or use this folder, you can always move it back.

Now the most important step of all. **BACKUP YOUR D: drive to a USB drive. Burn a CD with the files you made. Just make sure you back up everything you just did. You can always undo it.

I should also point out that on any SDHC card that you will use with your Asus EEE, just copy the folders that were created in the previous four steps to any SDHC card you will use and you should never run into a problem.

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