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When installing apps that are built around Windows Installer, it would appear that it often uses my external usb hard disk (when it's connected) as the temp location while it expands and installs the application (creates a folder off the root with a guid name). Is there anyway to change this so it always defaults to a specific drive?
This appears to be the case on Windows Vista and 7, not sure about previous releases.
EDIT: Current environment variables look like this:
TEMP=C:\Users\<me>\AppData\Local\Temp
TMP=C:\Users\<me>\AppData\Local\Temp
EDIT: I have a funny suspicion that it's using the drive with the largest available free space.
I don't know if there is a way to change it or not, but I'll tell you why this happens. It uses the drive which has more free space to output the temporary directory with the files and as you say, its name will be unique. – Xandy – 2009-11-16T19:26:23.297
2I believe you're on to something with the "using the largest available free space" edit. My experience is totally anecdotal, but I added a terabyte HDD to my Windows 7 box shortly after I installed the OS. The very next day it ran Windows updates. I hadn't put any files on the new drive yet and after the reboot I found a bunch of temp files stashed there. – TechParadox – 2009-11-16T19:58:27.363