I have a laptop during a weird era where the manufacturer has a 128G ssd as system drive and 1-2TB data drive HDD.

Problem with that is even if you install all programs on D drive, there are a lot of common/system files that windows likes to do it on C drive and you can't change it.

I usually do it on per directory bases which is - make symbolic link when a common folder of one software and make it symbolic link.

It is a) very tedious b) can't keep track

During the reinstall (my data drive is broken, bad luck, restoring data), I think "why don't I make the whole Users, Program Files, ProgramData etc symbolic"? Then I encountered a problem here: Windows won't let you move the directory , it always will say "access denied" no matter how you manipulate the access with icacls. The people who answered the post managed to use linux boot disk to delete the folder on C drive.

I had similar issue. Even when in recovery mode Command Prompt where I know that no program is using the folder, it always have "access denied".

However I found an "Exploit", while it doesn't allow you to move the folder, it allow you to rename the folder.

So the process becomes: xcopy the folder to d drive, rename the original folder then create the symbolic link.

It is a quite good word-around that it won't need the use to linux boot disk to delete the original folder thus allowing the creating of symbolic link

Hope it works.