Moving game installations between drives?

[BigTed99]

I have 4 different SSD's in my box and after doing some file management/moving some things around I have decided to designate 1 drive for installations. Is there a program out there that can transfer the data/programs between the drives saving me the time of reinstalling? If I do have to reinstall, is there a way to back up data for the programs so that at least that is not lost? Running Windows 11, Cheers

 

[USAFRet]

I have 4 different SSD's in my box and after doing some file management/moving some things around I have decided to designate 1 drive for installations. Is there a program out there that can transfer the data/programs between the drives saving me the time of reinstalling? If I do have to reinstall, is there a way to back up data for the programs so that at least that is not lost? Running Windows 11, Cheers

For Steam games, that function is built in.

To move an already installed game
Games library
Right click the game
Properties
Local Files
Move Install Folder



Steam games location
In the steam client:
Steam
Settings
Downloads
Steam Library Folders
Add library folder

 

[BigTed99]

For Steam games, that function is built in.

To move an already installed game
Games library
Right click the game
Properties
Local Files
Move Install Folder



Steam games location
In the steam client:
Steam
Settings
Downloads
Steam Library Folders
Add library folder

Yes I know of this feature for games installed through steam but a majority of my games were not installed through steam or uPlay so neither of those functions would work for me unless they have added the option to manually add games installed on your system

 

[hotaru.hino]

You don't need a special tool to move games around unless there's some DRM that was installed with them that needs to know where they're located. You can just move the games onto the new drive, update your shortcuts if you made any, and be on your merry way.

If for some reason something was looking for the game in the original install path, create a symlink to it at its original location by:

1. Open a command prompt or PowerShell instance as an administrator
2. Go to the original folder where the game was located.
   1. So for instance, if you have a game in say C:\Program Files\EA\Command & Conquer, you just need to stop at C:\Program Files\, though this is assuming you copied out the "EA" folder to somewhere else.
3. Then type in the following command: mklink /J [Path to game] [Folder name], where
   1. [Path to game] is the full path where the game is now
   2. [Folder name] was the name of the folder where the game used to be
   3. Example: mlink /J D:\Games\EA EA. Alternatively: mlink /J D:\Games\EA "C:\Program Files\EA"

Note if the path has a space in it, the whole thing needs to be surrounded in quotes.

Making a symlink basically tricks applications into thinking the old paths are still valid, but the OS redirects it to the new ones.

 

[iTRiP]

Programs such as Steam, Rockstargames launcher, Ubisoft connect and EA app sure do have there ways to make moving games installations easy. ( in actual fact this has actually become a fun pastime if you have proper hardware to speed up the process )

This might not be so easy if you had non legit softwares installed, like for instance these repacked games comes to mind, these things don't have an easy way to moving there installation.