Install Desktop application on micro sdxc card

aljowen

New Member
Messages
9
Hello. I have recently got a Linx 10 windows tablet (Intel atom based), but it only has 32gb of storage of which 24gb is available. I recently purchased a Micro sdxc class 10 card (benchmarked at 25mb/s read/write on the Linx10 with crystaldisk), i was hoping to install applications on it where storage speed would be less critical. When i try to install programs on it such as visual studio it states that i cannot install it on removable media and steam does not list it as a drive. Is there anyway to make the tablet treat the micro sdxc as if it is an internal storage device so that i can use it like a hard drive? Or are there any other ways to make applications install onto it?

Thanks for any help,
Aljowen
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Linx 10
you would use your SD card for the systems storage - ie picture, video, doc's etc

Thus freeing HD space for apps
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 3.1 > Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS 8700
    CPU
    I7
    Memory
    24 GB
While that is one way to do that my device has no video's or images stored on it. Just applications. So i have nothing to move onto the sd card. Which is why i am wondering if there is anything that can be done (not excluding registry edits) to allow me to install applications on the sd card. For instance visual studio is 7gb alone, that is 1/4 of the devices total storage.

Actually, my mistake. You get 14gb of free space. There is a system partition which reduces it from 32gb to 24gb and then there are 10gb of files in the windows directory on the c: drive. Therefore visual studio would use 1/2 of the internal storage which is not ideal.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Linx 10
OK.. Glad you said that..

Hopefully you have nothing you want to save an that drive, if you do copy it over to something..

Go to control panel - recovery - create a recovery drive..

It will then ask you if you what to remove the recovery partition.. you can and it will increase the size of the windows partition, But if you ever have to reset or refresh the PC you will need the recovery media..

So far to this point you will lose no data


Or I can help you to increase the windows partition size and still keep the on-disk recovery - but you will lose your data unless you copied it over somewhere
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 3.1 > Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS 8700
    CPU
    I7
    Memory
    24 GB
I am have seen that people on the forums for my particular device have created tutorials for moving the recovery partition onto a usb drive to gain an extra 6gb of space. Which i probably will do at some point, but that still isn't quite the same as 60gb of extra space to install applications. I also don't want to do that until i know that i have everything set up as i need it just so that there is less hassle if i need to use it.
When i am at home i have a perfectly good desktop that i can use for everything that i need but when i am outside of my house i would like to be able to use the device for programming or playing some older or less demanding games. One of the big issues are that visual studio is 7gb and games are often between 300mb and 10gb. While the device is fine as it is for installing the games that are less than 1gb there just isn't enough space to a few of anything much bigger than that. So the extra space would be of real advantage.

But having said that if there are any large windows files that can be removed that would serve as a bonus even if it isn't really a solution.

People have posted ways to allow windows store apps to be installed on the sd card, do you think that trying one of them could allow desktop apps to also be installed on a micro sd card? (eg, How to Install Windows Store Apps to an SD Card or Another Drive)

Thanks for the help :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Linx 10
You can not use a removable drive as your primary drive.. you can not merge the two drives either (act as one drive)

24 from 32 is 8GB of space

and without see you disk management - you may even gain a few 100MB of space more..

On an android you can do what your asking..
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 3.1 > Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS 8700
    CPU
    I7
    Memory
    24 GB
On my dell windows 32GB tablet I was able to go from 14 free space to 24
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 3.1 > Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS 8700
    CPU
    I7
    Memory
    24 GB
There is 8GB of space that is not on the c drive that is being used for the recovery partition as well as other things the device manufacturer will have done. The C: Drive is 24GB, there is a windows folder inside the C: drive called windows. This folder contains 10.1GB worth of operating system files. I am currently using space sniffer to look at the windows directory, i cant see anything there that immediately jumps out as being unnecessary other than maybe the speech engine, but it is only 120mb so its not worth fiddling with imo. Maybe there is more there but deleting bits of the os is something i have to admit that i dont really want to do.

Please correct me if my logic is completely wrong but usually with windows (for example on a desktop) you can have multiple hard drives and or ssd's, you would be able to install desktop applications across many of those drives. Which is why i don't see why it would not be possible to do so on a windows tablet that is running full 32bit Windows 8.1 (not RT). Since it would just be installing applications on 2 separate storage devices.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Linx 10
On your desktop try install apps to your removable USB

You asked the question and I was trying to help.. Sorry if it was not the answer you wanted.

as you seem well versed in windows and small hard drives..
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 3.1 > Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS 8700
    CPU
    I7
    Memory
    24 GB
On your desktop try install apps to your removable USB
You asked the question and I was trying to help.. Sorry if it was not the answer you wanted.
as you seem well versed in windows and small hard drives..

I apologize if i come across as being angry with you etc. I assure you that is not actually the case. I just cant see any logical reason why windows would not allow me to use an ntfs storage device to install applications if i am not planning to ever remove the device. It seems like a software restriction that was put in place to prevent people from messing stuff up by installing applications on a portable device and then removing it leaving the registry etc in a mess. While removing some un needed files that the manufacturer put on the device would help, for me it isnt really a solution since even if i had all 32gb to myself it would probably still be a bit too small.

Sorry if i have made you feel bad in the process.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Linx 10
you purchased a small HD assuming you could and saved a little money in the process..

Now you find out that you should of opted for a bigger one and paid a lot more for it.

But 6-7GB more then you have now is A LOT on a 32GB drive
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 3.1 > Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS 8700
    CPU
    I7
    Memory
    24 GB
you purchased a small HD assuming you could and saved a little money in the process..
Now you find out that you should of opted for a bigger one and paid a lot more for it.
But 6-7GB more then you have now is A LOT on a 32GB drive
It was actually given to me for free, so i would have lost way more by turning it down. If it was me buying it i would have opted for a device with at least 64gb of internal space, but i wasn't about to turn it down because of that. but yes you are correct in saying that 6-7gb is a lot of space on a small device such as this. I would be very happy for you to list some general information on what you did for me to look into or even hyperlinks to guides. Even if i do ever find a way to get the sd card to function how i would like that sort of information is still useful and is an added bonus.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Linx 10
Go to control panel - recovery - create a recovery drive..

It will then ask you if you want to remove the recovery partition.. you can and it will increase the size of the windows partition..

But if you ever have to reset or refresh the PC - you better still have - the the recovery media usb that you just created..

basically you create it and save it..

Or sometimes you can even gain space by creating the recovery media, then boot from it and reset pc.. as to remove production files and production partition sizes..

IF you create a recovery drive - I would like to see (post Pic) inside the sources folder

I can then guide you to may be gaining space and keeping the on-disk recovery

Just remember any on disk recovery takes away from windows space
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 3.1 > Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS 8700
    CPU
    I7
    Memory
    24 GB
I have got everything sorted now.

Visual studio has to be installed on an internal drive. It will not let you install it on an external one at all.
But i have managed to get other applications to work absolutely fine now. The issue i was having is that in steam you cannot navigate to the separate drive as it will not show up in the file browser for selecting install folders. Instead you have to click the bar that shows the current directory and the drive is shown there.

So everything is now working as intended and i have 60gb of space to install games.

Thanks for the help.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Linx 10

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Linx 10
I just cant see any logical reason why windows would not allow me to use an ntfs storage device to install applications if i am not planning to ever remove the device
It may be the programs that block installation on removable media, not always Windows. I tried it with a couple of big programs and couldn't on my Dell Venue 8 Tablet. Now there are some programs that have been developed for portable use on USB Thumb/Flash drives that should work on the microXD cards but would have to go to the Web sites of those you are interested in to check, one I will be setting up soon is LibreOffice Portable. And all the cards I've dealt with were formatted as FAT32, quite usable with Windows for versions since Win95B, even Mac OS X of the last several years and most versions of Linux. The point of having to format as NTFS on HDD/SSD drives is when storing a single file of 4GB or larger.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    WinXP, WinVista, Win7, Win8.1, Win10, Linux Mint 20
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    2 Customs and 12 OEM/Brands
    CPU
    AMD and Intel
I just cant see any logical reason why windows would not allow me to use an ntfs storage device to install applications if i am not planning to ever remove the device
It may be the programs that block installation on removable media, not always Windows. I tried it with a couple of big programs and couldn't on my Dell Venue 8 Tablet. Now there are some programs that have been developed for portable use on USB Thumb/Flash drives that should work on the microXD cards but would have to go to the Web sites of those you are interested in to check, one I will be setting up soon is LibreOffice Portable. And all the cards I've dealt with were formatted as FAT32, quite usable with Windows for versions since Win95B, even Mac OS X of the last several years and most versions of Linux. The point of having to format as NTFS on HDD/SSD drives is when storing a single file of 4GB or larger.
Yes, it turns out it was the applications themselves. I do actually have the Micro SDXC card formatted as NTFS since it made no difference to speed so why not i guess :p
I just decided to test with every application that makes things a little more complex it seems...
I currently have all my games on the external storage, loading times are a little bit slower, but not 6 times slower (the card is 6x slower than internal) so i am fairly pleased with it. Then have things like Ableton Live on the internal storage cause that needs to be running as fast as possible. Which also works well.
Thanks for the help.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Linx 10
You're welcome.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    WinXP, WinVista, Win7, Win8.1, Win10, Linux Mint 20
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    2 Customs and 12 OEM/Brands
    CPU
    AMD and Intel
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