Forcing software to be installed in a particular location OR running in sandbox

Hi!

I want to play around with large language models and image generation, and two of the beginner friendly software solutions that i came across are LM Studio( LM Studio - Discover and run local LLMs) and Pinokio ( LM Studio - Discover and run local LLMs)

The problem is that these will only install in the predefined location on C drive, with no apparent way to change the partition. Since the models used with this will be very large, i don't want to fill my C partition. Additionally, i don't want to have files spread all over the drive/drives because Pinokio has a lot of dependencies which need to be installed. Also when it's time to uninstall, i dont want to have leftover files and or registry entries. I've looked for solutions but there's pretty much no way to force the installation into another drive/folder

Is there a way to install them in some sort of virtual machine/sandbox?
I know that certain versions of Win 11 come with Windows Sandbox installed, but my Education version does NOT come with Windows Sandbox.

tldr; 1. How to force an app to install in a specific folder/drive
2. Which virtualization/sandbox solution would be best suited to use to install these - so all files and dependencies are included in a single file

Thanks!

vranghel said:

Additionally, i don't want to have files spread all over the drive/drives because Pinokio has a lot of dependencies which need to be installed.

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I can't speak to the program itself but generally the installs I've done have a point early in the process to confirm where to install, can be a Custom install as desired. The dependencies mentioned will be in the process such as creating the folders and copying files to them, putting the icons/shortcuts where needed, copying supporting files into the Windows and it sub folders and creating Registry entries that tell Windows how to run the program/s. I've not worked with an Education edition of Windows yet, don't have a college in small town, so don't know if or what restrictions exist.

Berton said:

I can't speak to the program itself but generally the installs I've done have a point early in the process to confirm where to install, can be a Custom install as desired. The dependencies mentioned will be in the process such as creating the folders and copying files to them, putting the icons/shortcuts where needed, copying supporting files into the Windows and it sub folders and creating Registry entries that tell Windows how to run the program/s. I've not worked with an Education edition of Windows yet, don't have a college in small town, so don't know if or what restrictions exist.

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I know what you mean, by these two do not have the option to choose install location.

A potential solution I came across however quite complicated and not familiar with is Containers, such as docker.

Is there a better solution or avenue I could investigate?

I'm also not familiar with Containers, most times doing the Custom install have been with insufficient disk space on the default drive.

Berton said:

I'm also not familiar with Containers, most times doing the Custom install have been with insufficient disk space on the default drive.

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As I mentioned in the first post, it is IMPOSSIBLE to do custom installs since the software does not allow to change the installation destination.

As mentioned here, there are others seeking to do this: Installation on Windows - Changing default install directory · Issue #3 · pinokiocomputer/pinokio

Create a junction at the place it wants to install to, and make the junction point to wherever you want the files to really reside.

hdmi said:

File Root Path | Sandboxie-Plus

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Thanks hdmi. Tried Sandboxie but the installation doesn't work on it for both. I assume because they are built with Electron: running the install file just takes the user to the app after a few seconds. All data is installed C:\Users\User\.cache and in AppData.

I managed to install Windows Sandbox and it kinda works, but need to figure out how to give it more resources: full access to the GPU and more memory and HDD to the virtual image

After you installed Sandboxie-Plus, did you right-click on the installer of the software package and choose Run Sandboxed? If you did, then nothing should be installed either in %UserProfile%\.cache or in %AppData% (and every modfification to the filesystem should be redirected to the sandbox, the location of which you can specify by using the FileRootPath setting).

hdmi said:

After you installed Sandboxie-Plus, did you right-click on the installer of the software package and choose Run Sandboxed? If you did, then nothing should be installed either in %UserProfile%\.cache or in %AppData% (and every modfification to the filesystem should be redirected to the sandbox, the location of which you can specify by using the FileRootPath setting).

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Yes, and getting this error:

In that case you might be better off installing the software application in question on a separate installation of Windows (either via Native Boot with a VHDX or via a multi-boot configuration). I am afraid Windows Sandbox doesn't have the type of advanced capabilities that you are looking for. Whereas, as you probably know, running in a full-fledged VM like Hyper-V also doesn't provide direct access to the hardware so, it would kind of defeat the purpose IMO.

Sandboxie-Plus is unique in that it doesn't have these specific types of drawbacks, and, although it did receive a series of heavy updates (some of which have been to make it more compatible with Electron-based software applications) a while back, some compatibility issues still haven't been worked out yet, which is a bit unfortunate IMO. You could maybe consider opening a discussion topic on GitHub about the issue. The good news is, Sandboxie-Plus is still actively being developed.