Modify the default installation path for Windows 8 applications

Author: Song Jie

Perhaps you are not used to a lot of changes to Windows 8, but from a user experience point of view, Windows 8 has at least one is relatively good, that is the App Store . This is a widely used form in Apple systems and smartphones. The app store integrates the search, purchase, download, and installation of applications. Users can easily access applications, plus synchronization, and install them themselves. The history of the application can be found.

Win8 App Store

Where Windows 8 App Installs

It's convenient to get apps from the Windows Store, but you can't choose the installation path for these apps, even many people Can't find where the installed app is. Xiaobian I didn't know where these applications were installed at first. After I checked them online, I realized that the applications in the Windows Store were installed in the hidden directory of the system partition X:/Program Files<WindowsApps”.

Note 1: To display the hidden folder, click on the “View”-“Options> on the File Explorer, switch to the “View” tab and select &ldquo in the advanced settings. ;Show hidden files, folders, and drives”.

Windows8 applications are here

The Windows 8 application after installation is also different from our common ones. The folder name is quite long, and the company name, software name, version number and other information are displayed in the folder. On the name, there are even some random strings (sometimes not clear what it means).

Note 2: Access to the application folder may require access rights, as described below.



Windows8 application folder name is very long

Modify Win8 application installation path

After knowing the Windows8 application installation location, you may think another question, how to change the application What is the installation path? As for why I think of changing the installation path, mainly because of disk partition space issues. Xiaobian did not install a lot of applications, has used more than 2G space, and now there are a lot of applications in the app store, especially like some games, hundreds of MB or even GB have appeared, the system disk space is easy to be consumed Do it. Therefore, installing the application to a larger disk partition is the solution.




Win8 applications have been more than 2GB

However, Windows 8 applications have no user intervention during the installation process. How can I modify the installation path? After some hard work, I finally let Xiaobian find a solution (thanks to askvg.com for sharing this method), please look down.

Since you can't change the path during the installation process, you should find the method from the source, such as directly changing the system default installation path. This path is saved in the registry, press [Win+R] to open the run, enter regedit to start the registry editor, and locate the following key values:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionAppx

on the right The window finds “PackageRoot”, pay attention to its data value is the default installation path for Windows8 applications.



Win8 application installation path settings

The next thing to do is to change its data value and change it to the location you want. But when you finish editing and click OK, you will receive the following prompt:

You don't have permission to modify

So we still need to get the permission of Appx key value first, then we can get the permission. Change the path.

Modify the application default path

Note 3: Changing the default installation path of Windows 8 applications will cause the installed application to fail to upgrade, because the old and new versions have inconsistent paths, so if you decide to change the application installation Path, please uninstall all Windows 8 built-in and third-party applications first, then re-install after changing the path.

Page 3 Attachment: Win8 permission acquisition method