Temporary Extract Directory

Question

In my Windows 7 installation it created a 100MB partition. I am not sure what it is used for, but when I run certain installers it unpacks to that directory. e.g d:\somerandomvalue.

I have searched for where that could be set, but am coming up empty. It is not an environmental variable.

I want to change because I want my D drive to be used for data. I would like to change that drive to something else, but when I do those temp files continue to drop in my D drive.

Any help or info on this is appreciated.

Answer 1

The 100MB partition you see is used for the bootloader and Bitlocker drive encryption. When you do a fresh install and let Windows do the partitioning it is created by default. There is a little blurb during the installation process that states this. You can get around it by formatting your disk ahead of time with diskpart, gparted or something similar and NOT letting the Windows installation do any formatting.

Also of note is that this 100MB partition is not assigned a drive letter by Windows. So this is not where your D drive is.

Notes - Windows7/2008 reserved partition

Now as for creating a separate data partition; to accomplish this without reinstalling there are many free tools. Personally I have had the best luck with Gparted or Parted Magic there are many good tutorials to choose from in regard to resizing your partitions using these programs. It is up to you to choose one that is best suited for your abilities. The re-install option will allow you to get rid of the 100MB partition and also create the desired partition sizes if you utilize one of the above disks and format beforehand or if you use diskpart.