Question how to make software use D drive instead of C drive

[jimdagys]

I have this excellent free software that converts stereo AAC to stereo mp3. The software is called:
Free M4a to mp3 Converter
Website link:
http://www.maniactools.com/soft/m4a-to-mp3-converter/?ref=m4a-home&version=6.1&b=6100
However, there is a problem when converting large AAC files (like 100MB, 7 hours audio). During the converting process, the software makes a temporary huge wave file (more than 3.5 GB) on my C drive. My C drive only has 3.7GB of free space and so when converting, I get the "Out of Space" warning and the converting is truncated. The location of this huge file is:
C/Documents and Settings/Vic/ Local Settings/Temp/wav165.tmp
I tried this: I re-installed the software on the D drive, but the software still makes the huge file on the C drive. There doesn't seem to be any settings in the software to put this huge file on another partition.
My question is: How can I change something so that this huge file is made on the D drive, not the C drive?
I looked in the software Program Files and thought I might be able to find a ini file where I could modify the software to make the huge file on the D drive, but I couldn't see any ini file in the Program Files.

[El Heggunte]

Hold the key "Windows", press "Pause/Break".

Goto the tab "Advanced", click on "Environment Variables".
Change the default settings for TEMP & TMP to "D:\TEMP".

(don't forget to create the folder D:\TEMP before trying to use it)

[jimdagys]

Well, software is complicated. I followed your advice about putting the Temp and TMP on the D drive. So I started the AAC to mp3 converter, and noticed the Temp file on the D drive steadily rose to about 5GB and did not go above this amount. (I have 15GB free on the D drive.) The progress bar on the software was only about 50% at this point. When the converter finally finished, the converted file was truncated at about 2 hours out of the original 8 hours. When I did this the original way
(Temp file on C drive) I got 6 out of 8 hours converted. It seems like the software did not like putting the Temp on the D drive.

[DB83]

How is the D drive formatted ?

If it is FAT32 then you can only have a single file up to a maximum of 4 GB.

If it it NTFS then there is no logical reason for any program not to create a much larger file on another drive

[jimdagys]

It's NTFS. I do video 10GB no problem.

[jimdagys]

I put the Temp file back on the C drive (hopefully to its original location) and
I found a work-around to solve the problem. I used a free file splitter
http://www.filesplitter.org/
to first split the original AAC file into 2 smaller parts. Then I used the AAC to mp3 converter on each part. This works fine.
When using the AAC to mp3 converter, I notice the huge Temp file only grows in size for the first half of the conversion (progress bar half way). During the second half of the conversion, the huge Temp file remains constant. I think that when I put the Temp file on the D drive, somehow the converting software could not reference properly to the Temp file, and therefore only a small amount was converted. I don't know if there is a true way to solve this problem, except by getting a bigger C partition.

[ocgw]

Why not go to My Documents properties and movie ALL of My Documents to the D:\ drive?

ocgw

peace

[jimdagys]

Thanks for your input, but you are confused between "My Documents" and "Documents and Settings. To conserve C drive space, I long, long ago moved "My Documents" to the E drive. This huge wave file is not being created on "My Documents". It is being created on
C/Documents and Settings/Vic/Local Settings/Temp
Following the above directions, I moved that file location to the NTFS D Drive. However, that did not work. While converting, the software made a 5GB wave file on the D drive. There was never any "Lack of Disk Space" warning. At this point, I thought everything was fine. However, when the software finished converting , I only got 2 hours of the original 8 hour file. (I always put the converted file on the D drive, where there is plenty of space.)
When the huge Temp file default was returned to the C drive, I got 6 hours (better) out of the 8 hours. And of course I also got the "Lack of Disk Space" warning. Interestingly, the "Lack of Disk Space" warning came on when the conversion (progress bar) was about 30% finished. The warning continued to display, but the converting software did not stop running. I monitored C drive free space and it indeed went steadily from 3.7GB to 0. Even when there was 0 free disk space, the software still continued to run for about another hour until finished, without any error messages or aborting.
I think there is something in the converting software that does not allow moving the Temp file away from the default location (C/Documents and Settings/Vic/Local Settings/Temp). I wrote the software help desk
(support@maniactools.com) about this problem. Maybe they will respond with some useful information.
I think this is pretty critical situation. At least, when the huge file is created in the default C drive, I get a "Lack of Disk Space" warning, so I can expect that the conversion will have some problem. However, when the Temp is moved to the D drive, there is no warning whatsoever. But the converted file is truncated at 2 hours.
If I were using somebody else's PC and they had previously moved the Temp to the D drive, I would have been at a total loss as to why the converting software didn't work correctly. Just another reason- if you buy a used PC, you should reinstall Windows from scratch to make sure that all the settings are default.

[jollyjohn]

Buy a larger HDD and clone your current one to it.

[El Heggunte]

Also, learn to enjoy serious applications.