How to stop Windows using D: for extracting files?

[watercooled]

For some reason a lot of Microsoft installers extract themselves to D: (a HDD partition) and in some cases, C++ Redistributable for example doesn't remove them afterwards leaving loads of txt, dll, exe and cab files in the root of the drive. Can I somehow stop these installers from scattering files wherever they please?

[Flash477]

Have you changed the location of TEMP?

[watercooled]

No that's still in the default location, it does throw some files into temp but for some reason scatters them over D: as well.

[pauldarkside]

You're not alone. I've noticed this when Steam completes a new game installation - the C++ disty rarely cleans up the extracted files.

Sorry, haven't come across a solution other than performing a manual clean up

[BobF64]

Easy fix, fill the D drive up

Some installers, particularly the Microsoft ones, use the drive with the most free space to extract files to, sadly they also fail to clean up afterwards.

[watercooled]

Thanks, at least it's not just me anyway!

[BobF64]

What annoys me more is that so many installs seem to just ignore where TEMP is and extract anywhere they feel like.

At least folders made on the root of drives are often visible and easy to clean up, assuming you know theyre not actually something important.

[directhex]

This is particularly hair-raising when the drive with the most empty space is an EXT3 partition mounted via a dodgy EXT2 driver. ISTR installing XPSP3 like that...

[BobF64]

Hehe, I was testing an install I wrote once to see how it handled the drive being full.

Filled the C: drive where TEMP was, so it wrote to D:

Filled D: as well, so it wrote to E:

Filled E: and it wrote to a mapped network share.

[watercooled]

These problematic installers don't wait for the drive to be full though, they just scatter files wherever they like. This really annoys me, like it owns your computer - no, the installer should only extract to the designated %temp% directory and then to Program Files for installation for example, not to a data drive which you may be not writing to for a reason, for example you may have deleted something which you want to recover and this could overwrite so destroy the data. Anyway, that's not the point - it's MY computer and MY drive, no software should put files where it's not explicitly allowed. I remember having to disconnect a second HDD when installing Windows on a computer a while ago because the installer kept putting the bootloader on the data drive for some weird reason, even though Windows was being installed on a separate physical drive! Anyone know how to temporarily write-protect partitions or something to stop this annoying me?
@directhex: I can't remember if it was SP3 but I remember an installer trying to use a USB HDD to extract to. I've seen the 'Extracting to D:\...' box a fair few times though...

[lodore]

I have noticed alot of programs dont clean up extracted files. for example apple programs such as quicktime and itunes. they extract files to something like c:\program data\apple\itunes then install those files to program files and then dont delete the temp files. luckily ccleaner knows the locations so it cleans it. I no longer use apple programs myself anyway. Running ccleaner on clients systems there have been enogh times when it can clean out over 4gb of temp files. mostly extracted files from installers.

on linux all programs do actually use /tmp and on the distros ive used its cleaned once every 10days.

[watercooled]

Linux installers play by the rules all/most of the time from what I know, mostly because of how the OS works whereas Windows installers just do whatever they like and put files where they like . ATI CCC and Nvidia drivers are other installers that don't clean up temp files, CCC leaves them in C:\ATI\Support\version number for example.