Video: How to move a program or game to another drive without reinstalling

[+sphbecker MVC]

In this video I show how to use NTFS links to move a program or game to another drive without reinstalling.  This is useful for duel-drive setups when the smaller SSD boot drive starts to fill up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO4qMi_SyJI

[binaryzero]

Cool, but way to hacky to be even considered something worth doing. 

It'd be a lot easier (and cleaner), to uninstall and re-install the applications the correct way. 

[+sphbecker MVC]

The video took 20 minutes because I wanted to be sure to explain every aspect of it.  Once you are comfortable with the commands, moving things back and forth should only take a minute or two.  Reinstalling is always an option and it is easier, but like I said in the video, it takes a lot longer, especially if your only reinstall option is to download the entire game again.

 

In retrospect, I probably could have skipped talking about security.  Now that I look at all the games I have, it looks like they almost all grant all users full access, which would have been the default if I didn't worry about security at all.

[binaryzero]

Why not just do things best practice? It'll help if you require support down the track. 

[+sphbecker MVC]

That is the beauty of this method, it does not go against any best practice. After you have done my method, in a very real sense the game is still installed exactly where its installer first put it.  The game and its installer only deal with the file system, they never touch the underlying data, after this change, the file system structure is exactly the same.  If you call the vendor and ask if they support installing the game on a different drive, they will tell you no.  At that point, it really does not matter which method you use to get the game to that drive.  In fact, my method is far less visible to the game itself, so from a support point of view, the game is in its correct location.

Fun fact: All drives are junction points.  When you install a game to the D drive, you are just using a system generated junction to get there.  Manually creating one will work the exact same way.  The NTFS file system is already a layer of abstraction between the software and the physical sectors on your drive.  We just asked that already existing layer to do something a little different.  Like many tweaks, if you are comfortable with this method and set it up correctly, you will have zero problems.  If you are not comfortable with it, then by all means, do not use it.  I would never encourage someone to do something to their computer they do not understand.  That is why I spent so long explaining the process.  I could have made the video a lost faster by just saying "these are the commands" but I want people to feel comfortable.

[Ravensky]

Most games you can just copy it to another drive and run it, 99% of the time that works fine unless you are using Steam or Origin.  Even with Steam you can always create Steam Libraries easily so you can just move your games to the new Steam Library.

[Amarku]

Thanks!