Hello swagler, welcome to the CFS2 forum. The cfs2.exe is not registry dependent so you can just copy and paste the entire combat flight simulator 2 folder to any place in your file system you chose including different drives, it will still work.
You will of course need to adjust any short cuts accordingly. The installer will write a couple of registry keys which helps other programs and micro$oft spyware find CFS2 but you can use regedit to find the keys and adjust/remove them as you wish.
CFS2.exe requires permission to write to its config files so it needs to be run in compatibility mode as win xp sp3.
I don't know weather FFBVert will work at getting the force feed back working, I have not had any force feedback work with CFS2 since I moved on from windows XP, I think that might be a DirectX issue. Do let us know if you have any success with the FFBVert module.