I recently purchased a new computer with a solid-state hard drive as the operating system/applications drive.   It isn’t a great idea to store your data on these drives, so with each application install, I make sure that it stores its data to my secondary (SATA) hard drive.  When I got to configuring my NeatWorks NeatReceipts scanner software, it turns out there is no way to change the default data directory through the application’s preferences.  (Rumours have it that version 5 of the NeatWorks will allow this).

I’ve found a workaround to this problem.  You can create a directory junction (type of symbolic link) in Windows that will make the Neat software look in its default location (C:\ProgramData\The Neat Company\NeatWorks) but access files in a new location.  Please note that this fix will only work on Windows Vista, Windows 2008, or Windows 7 and newer. Older version of the operating system did not include this functionality.

To set this up:

1. Move your NeatWorks data folder to it’s new location (for this example, I’m moving ito to D:\NeatWorks)
2. Go to your command prompt (Start Button, Run…, “cmd”)
3. Change Directories to The Neat Company folder:

   cd "C:\ProgramData\The Neat Company"


4. Create the symbolic link to your new data location:

   mklink /J "NeatWorks" "D:\NeatWorks"

Start NeatWorks and you should see all your data.