Free Move

Normally, a program installed in a certain location cannot be moved without breaking shortcuts or even making it impossible to launch until reinstallation.

Free Move is a nifty little utility that gets around this issue and enables you to move folders anywhere else, even on other drives, while still allowing other processes or shortcuts to access the files.

Of course, you may be wondering how this application manages to move directories without breaking anything. The answer is less complex than you might imagine, but keeping things simple is usually the best approach.

Essentially, the application moves the files to the specified folder and then creates a directory junction from the old location to the new one. Any process trying to access in the old location is simply redirected to the new one.

If you have moved a folder that contains an installed application, you can just run the uninstaller as you normally would. It is simply redirected to the new location, and you can then delete any folders that are left behind manually.

As you can imagine, it is very important that you do not delete the created directory junction. To help avoid accidental removal, you can hide the original folder while moving the files.

Distributed in the form of a very small executable file, Free Move can be run from any location, even portable storage drives. It leaves no traces behind, and you can delete it after moving a folder without breaking the created directory junction.

In short, Free Move is a clever utility that has no real drawbacks. It can be extremely helpful if you need to move an installed application to a new location, and it is intuitive enough that even complete novices cannot mess anything up.