starting issues

Newbie to Synfig, but have an almost full* C-drive, so I elected to put the downloaded program (synfig.exe I think) on drive L. This is practically empty, and installed correctly (so it said)…yet on starting synfig I get the impression it has managed to involve c-drive as there are some comments (on a black background, like DOS) which says something like:- “C:User/user/synfig can’t . . . something . . .”
Unfortunately it’s on another PC which I can’t access today.

In the Forums I don’t find comments like “How do I start” and the usual Newbie issues . . . . is there a specific Forum for Install/start-up issues - and I’ve missed it?

I get the impression it isn’t working propeerly, but have no “New Users Start Here” to compare. I would think such a short intro would be most useful… along with a simple cartoon, perhaps using a well-known fairy-tale, so Users don’t have to think about the Story, only the “process” in getting working.

Digging further I found (Rather confusing) there seems to way of building the program (from “bits”?) rather like LINUX Users enjoy - I hope that isn’t necessary to make Synfig Windows operate, otherwaise I’m out.

*C-drive has a couple of Gb-spare, but I don’t want to get any lower.

Hello Harry, welcome to Synfig!
Since C: is your system disk Synfig was installed there. The exe you downloaded was the installation file, this is only used for installing Synfig on your system, not running it.

Synfig is quite small, about 20Mb I think so if you have a few gigs left on C: this shouldn’t be any problem.
C: should be only for system files, installed programs etc., media files should be kept at a different drive or partition.
I don’t know much windows so I can’t help you further, sorry.

It is not a good idea to move the executable to other drive. The executable expects to have libraries to reach that might be broken if the executable is moved.
Try to change the installation destination if it is offered when running the installing wizard. Also, in any case, in Windows the Graphical User Interface (synfigstudio) must be run from the Start Menu access, otherwise some environment variables are not found.
-G

Yes - Synfig is a 30MB download - install takes about 100MB when installed on disk.
It should work from a non-C: drive, but I must admit, I haven’t tested that in a long time, and there could well be assumptions in there that make it misbehave if loaded elsewhere.