How in the Tech

Switch the location of the Windows Setup source

By Adam Myers ⋅ February 10, 2010 ⋅ Tags: Windows

If you’ve had to maintain more than a handful of Windows installations over the years chances are you’ve come across a situation where Windows requests the original Installation CD. This can come about as a result of a new software patch or service pack, a system file verification check, or a repair install of another application. If you’ve been running the same Windows installation for awhile now, chances are the path Windows expects to find it’s setup source in is no longer valid. This can happen, for example, if you’ve installed a second hard drive and your CD drive letter has changed. Worse, Windows typically doesn’t allow you to browse to the new location!

This can be a frustrating problem to deal with, and as you may already be aware, any frustrating or annoying problem in Windows can be addressed by digging into the registry. Such is the case here, the source installation path is stored in the registry; or at the very least can be re-pathed here.

1. Launch the Windows Registry Editor from the run box, Win+R, by typing regedit.
2. Traverse to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup



3. At this level you should see a key titled SourcePath – double click to change this to the new path. If the key doesn’t exist, you can create it directly. Right-click and choose New->String, naming it SourcePath with a value to the i386 path of your installation media. For example, if my CD drive is F:\ my source path would be F:\i386.