External Hard Drive Question.

Is there a way to make it to where programs could be installed to an external hard drive instead of the local?

 

It depends on the software.

Most paid software (Windows, MS-Office, Photoshop, etc.) pairs the license code to the machine it is installed on as an anti-piracy measure. As such, it will not run from an external drive.

On freeware or shareware, it depends on the program.

Hope this helps.

 

You could still install the software on an external, you just wouldn't be able to open the app on more then one machine, also apps traveling over usb will be slower then accessing apps on a local hard drive. However if your pc is short hard drive space you could use this for the time being to install apps if you had to. Also some apps make it hard to install to non standard locations, but most of them will allow you to choose different hard drives in the installer.